What are the Average Hotel Manager Duties?

If you’re looking to hire a hotel manager, you need to know what kind of work they’re likely to do. Hotel managers need a range of skills to be able to meet the duties that their jobs demand. Here are some of the most important duties a hotel manager is likely to have.   

Hiring and firing

As a manager of your establishment, it’s up to you to find employees to work for you. Hiring processes can be incredibly drawn-out and complex, depending on the type of organization you work for. In conducting hiring practices, you may need to create job ads, learn to use digital job boards and work with recruiters to get you the right candidates fast. 

If you’re in charge of hiring, then you’re also probably in charge of firing, too. It’s probably the worst part of any management job, but it has to be done. When someone isn’t living up to the expectations set for them for their role, it’s the responsibility of the manager to make sure someone more qualified and willing replaces them. 

Supervision

As a hotel manager, you’ll have lots of people working under you. You’ll have a whole range of porters, clerks, kitchen staff, cleaners, maintenance crews, and other workers to supervise and to make sure they’re doing their job well. It will be up to you to review their performance to ensure that all their duties are being fulfilled. Supervising your staff also means identifying areas of potential development and growth so they can work on obtaining new skills and abilities. 

Delegation

As a hotel manager, you’re in charge of a lot, but you can’t do everything. It’s your job to identify tasks that need to be done and find the right people for the job. 

A hotel is full of so many small jobs, from repairs and maintenance to managing payroll and training. This means intimately knowing the skills of your employees so that you know who will be right for what job. It also means understanding your business’s needs and how each worker’s skills can meet those needs. 

Manage budgets

As a manager of a hotel, you’re in charge of the business’s budget. You’ll be in charge of tracking expenses, income, payroll, and more, all to make sure that the business stays healthy and can continue into the future. 

Many hotel managers use software to track their business performance. You can use apps like Xero, Quickbooks, and Sage for all sorts of tasks, from front ax preparation and sales reporting, to statement preparation and cash flow tracking. 

Marketing

If you’re managing a hotel, you want to make sure that everyone knows about your business so that you can attract as many customers as you can. You need to be intimately involved in all marketing activities, from advertising to branding, to make sure your business is being properly represented to the public. 

As a hotel manager, you may need to familiarize yourself with the ins and outs of your marketing operation and identifying new channels where you can promote your business. This could mean becoming knowledgeable about things like Facebook and Google advertising, influencer marketing techniques, advertising on sites like Booking.com, and knowing how to market your small business if you’re running a small hotel. 

Your marketing operations may look different depending on the type of hotel you work at. If you manage a branch of a large chain, your marketing activities may be outsourced to a head office that will be in charge of promoting the hotel’s brand and services. If you’re in charge of a smaller, independent hotel, you may have your marketing operations in-house or outsourced to an agency. 

Customer service

Most of the basic customer service requests can usually be met by your staff on the ground. However, as the manager of the hotel, you may be called upon from time to time to resolve a customer query or complaint. You will have the authority to resolve certain issues that other employees won’t. 

For instance, let’s say that a customer stays in one of your rooms, but submits a complaint about the quality of the room’s cleanliness or the fact that the amenities weren’t working correctly, and they demand a refund. As the manager, you have discretion to what extent this customer’s request for a refund is valid and, if it is, granting it. 

Liaise with third parties

When managing a hotel, you will inevitably have to deal with third parties. These third parties will provide services to your hotel in some form or another, such as maintenance and renovations. Your hotel may also be hired out for events, so you may need to liaise with professionals like event planners. 

When liaising with third parties, you need to ensure that you are getting the best possible deal for your hotel and also make sure that your communications properly reflect the brand and voice of your hotel. In every instance of communication between you and a third company, you are representing your company. 

Compliance

Most companies have standards of practice that help them ensure quality. These standards are usually codified into employee handbooks and company missions statements. These things help all employees of the hotel ensure the quality of the service they provide and project the hotel’s brand voice.

As a hotel manager, you’re responsible for ensuring that all these standards are adhered to. This might mean conducting regular reviews and audits of employees and company processes to ensure that they are being followed. 

Scheduling

Hotel managers are usually in charge of the hotel’s shift rota. They need to ensure that staffing levels meet the demand of the time, day, week, and season to ensure the hotel is not over or understaffed. 

Managing the hotel’s rota means getting to know the commitments and responsibilities your employees have so that you can appropriately set their schedules. Many employees have commitments outside of work, whether professional, educational, familial, and personal. You must ensure that your rota doesn’t conflict with these commitments. You will also be in charge of predicting periods of high and low demand for the hotel and making the appropriate adjustments to your staffing levels. 

Reporting

A business’s performance needs to be constantly monitored and reviewed in order to succeed. If things are going well, it’s a lesson for what to keep doing. If things aren’t going well, it’s a sign that something needs to change. 

This is what makes reporting so valuable a tool. As a hotel manager, you will be responsible for monitoring and reporting on the business’s performance and relaying that information to the owners/corporate office. Doing so will allow them to make any changes to company policy and allocate resources where they are needed. 

Manage bookings from your POS

One of the most important things about managing a hotel is managing your bookings, without bookings, your hotel won’t be able to sustain its business. So, you need a great system that will let you take bookings easily and allow you to easily promote your openings all over the internet. 

When you buy an Epos Now Hospitality POS system, you can take advantage of loads of great apps, including Appointedd. With this app, you can create a dedicated booking website and generate more business with online scheduling integration.

• Book customers through your website, microsite and Facebook widgets
• Automate SMS messages to remind your customers of their bookings
• Sync Appointedd calendar with external calendars
• Keep everything you need to run your hotel in one place, like staff rotas, tasks, online bookings, and deals and offers
• Review key figures like occupancy, productivity, revenue, and cancellations
• Take advantage of Appointedd’s mobile app so you can take bookings from anywhere

Contact Epos Now for more information about our systems.