Hotel Front Office Management, 3rd Edition

326 CHAPTER 11: MANAGING HOSPITALITYInterfacing with Other Departments in Delivering HospitalityOne of the many benefits of employing total quality management is the participant’sability to understand fellow team members’ job responsibilities. Teams that are composedof various departments in the hotel provide opportunities for insights into fellow members’jobs. Sometimes the process of TQM can seem like a maze of charts, processes,interactions, and the like, which tend to confuse the uncommitted. But from that processrises a thorough understanding of how the guest moves through the hospitality systemand the jobs of the providers of these services. Participants in TQM come to realize thatthe delivery of hospitality is not the responsibility of any one person. This may come asa startling revelation to some employees because they feel alone in bearing the responsibilityfor guest satisfaction. TQM allows all participants the opportunity to see how eachemployee from the other departments shares in the hospitality activity.The “that’s not my job” syndrome is a very easy attitude to adopt in a managementsystem in which TQM is not used. Employees who feel they have distinct job duties withinand between departments and are not paid to venture beyond those guidelines may contributeto the delivery of unacceptable service. Department managers who use TQM havethe opportunity to prioritize service concepts and methods to deliver service with employees.This interaction gives managers and employees the occasion to air concerns abouthow restrictions resulting from narrowly written job descriptions affect their ability toprovide service to the guest.A typical TQM team will assign representatives from various departments in a hotelto work on improving a particular guest service. For example, guests may complain thatthere are not enough towels in a guest room. This complaint, especially after housekeepinghas closed down for the evening, causes a reduction in guest satisfaction and additionalwork for the lone front desk clerk on duty.At the outset, the answer may be to “just put a few more towels in each guest room.”The controller of the hotel may see this as additional costs of inventory purchase andlaundry. Housekeepers realize that excess supplies in guest rooms have a tendency tovaporize and result in an increase in costs. However, a team approach to this seeminglysimple problem will provide a list of possible solutions that an individual employee mightoverlook. A team of desk clerks, housekeepers, bellhops, servers, cooks, switchboardoperators, cashiers, and supervisors will review this particular service and how it is delivered.Objective analysis of the components of the service will give employees insightinto how departments interact to accomplish their tasks. Brainstorming sessions identifyFRONTLINE REALITIESguest in room 1104 has requested that housekeeping tidy up after a cocktail reception in hisroom. He is expecting additional business guests within two hours. He wants you to ensure6Athat the housekeeping department will respond within the next half hour. What should you do?TLFeBOOK