A successful hotel depends crucially on good teamwork and satisfied employees – in a small individual hotel just as well as in a hotel chain with several properties. In this context, communication within the team is always a decisive factor, because without information exchange and agreements, cooperation cannot work. But how do you as a hotelier communicate properly with your team members? How do you create a cooperative corporate culture and enable good communication within the team? How do arrangements run as efficiently as possible in stressful times? We give you four tips for better team communication in your accommodation.
Tip 1: Allow sufficient time for regular meetings
Whether it’s the quarterly discussion of the new menu with the kitchen staff or the weekly meeting of all department managers: Regular meetings are the best way to promote communication within a team. This may sound obvious, but it is still not standard in all accommodations. After all, the stressful shift work of a hotel sometimes leaves little time for detailed meetings.
If planned meetings are repeatedly postponed, cancelled at short notice or do not even take place because of a to-do list that is too long, you as a hotel manager should listen up and search for ways to relieve your staff. Because in the long run, not only the satisfaction of your team members but also the quality of their work suffers from the stress and the lack of exchange. An additional positive effect: In face-to-face meetings, you build up relationships of trust and set a sign of appreciation when you take time for your colleagues and include them in relevant topics. This in turn leads to more motivation and satisfaction among all participants and promotes employee loyalty.
For good team communication, it is best to allocate sufficient time for regular discussions and meetings.
Tip 2: Support team communication digitally
Apart from regular face-to-face meetings, most team communication is done in writing. For some topics, a short message is simply better than a meeting. Especially when it comes to checklists and shift handovers or when the information needs to reach a large group of people, rarely all of whom are present at the same time. However, it should not be the classic notice board somewhere between the staff changing rooms and the break room, covered in notes. Nor the post-its that are stuck to desks and screens and quickly get lost. After all, how could you possibly ensure that team members actually read these messages?
Much better: a digital platform for communication between all employees, both within teams and across departments. One example of such a communication platform is the Hotelboard by Hotelcore.
Hotel teams benefit from it in many ways:
- Fast communication: Direct messages and short communication channels enable efficient exchange – even in larger groups.
- More transparency: The reading status reveals who has seen which information. In addition, checklists and labels show the extent to which tasks have already been completed.
- Less dependence on location: Via app or browser, all users have access to the platform from anywhere – both on provided and private devices.
- No language barriers: Automatic translation into many different languages gets rid of comprehension problems.
- Better overview: Thanks to filters and search functions, all employees can find important information even months later.
- Easier knowledge transfer: Teams store internal knowledge centrally and make it accessible to all. If necessary, team members can access it at any time.
By the way:
In addition to team communication, the Hotelboard also helps with the management of daily tasks and improves guest communication in connection with the Digital Guest Directory. You can read more about this topic here.
Would you like to learn more about the Hotelboard? We would be happy to present it to you personally!
Tip 3: Connect all team members
If you use a digital communication tool like the Hotelboard, you should make sure that everyone can use it. Not only individual departments, such as the reception. This way, team members always choose the direct – and thus fastest – communication path to their colleagues when they have questions. This makes efficient work possible.
But how do you get everyone on board if, for example, hardly any employees in housekeeping, service or the kitchen have their own workstation with a desk and PC? The solution is simple: team communication via app! No time-consuming training is necessary for the employees. After all, 95 per cent of 14- to 49-year-olds now use smartphones in their daily life [1], so operating mobile devices is an integral part of their lives. Thanks to the automatic translation feature, communication between colleagues with different mother tongues also becomes easier. It doesn’t matter whether your team members use their own smartphones or you provide them with devices. Nothing stands in the way of interdepartmental communication!
Hotelboard as an alternative for WatsApp
The platform also replaces some of your employees’ WhatsApp groups in which, for example, duty rosters are discussed and car pools are organised. The advantage: the Hotelboard is 100 per cent data protection compliant and gives you significantly more transparency than the messenger by the American “Meta” Group. Even if team members exchange sensitive information digitally, data security is guaranteed.
Digital team communication: All team members can use the Hotelboard on their PC, laptop, tablet or smartphone.
Tip 4: Promote informal exchange
Communication in the work context has many different forms. In addition to the classic task-related conversations and agreements, informal chats among colleagues are of course also part of it, i.e. the so-called “office grapevine”. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many office workers worked from home for the first time and small talk suddenly hardly took place. In that time it became clear that informal conversations at work are not simply for entertainment, but are very important. Short conversations over coffee or the joint lunch break lead to a better working atmosphere and more trust between team members. They create the right atmosphere for successful cooperation.[2] In addition, small talk promotes the exchange of knowledge. [3]
Of course, working from home is not an option for most hotel tasks anyway. After all, guest check-ins and room cleaning can hardly be done remotely. Nevertheless, as a hotelier, use these insights for good cooperation in your team. Actively promote informal conversations at work – everything in moderation, of course. For example, allow joint coffee breaks, private conversations within the digital communication platform of the establishment (see tip #2) and organise team events. You will feel the better mood within the team and notice that completing challenging tasks is easier for all employees!
Coffee break with colleagues: A short informal exchange promotes motivation and also the exchange of knowledge within the team.
Would you like to enhance cooperation in your company and support your team digitally in everyday work? We would be happy to help you!
[1] Statista, Proportion of smartphone users in Germany by 2021, 24.01.2022 : https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/585883/umfrage/anteil-der-smartphone-nutzer-in-deutschland/#:~:text=The%20proportion%20of%20smartphone%2DNusers,or%20cellphone%20in%20household%20ownership.&text=Almost%20every%20German%2C%20who%20is%20under,old%20uses%20a%20smartphone
[2] What we miss in the home office – or: Why small talk is no small thing., NEW-WORK COLUMN, GQ magazine, 08.10.2020:
https://www.gq-magazin.de/lifestyle/artikel/was-uns-im-homeoffice-fehlt-oder-warum-smalltalk-keine-kleine-sache-ist
[3] This is how the office radio comes into the home office, Computerwoche, 03.04.2022: https://www.computerwoche.de/a/so-kommt-der-flurfunk-ins-homeoffice,3549847
Image Sources: ©Davit85-stock.adobe.com, ©sodawhiskey – stock.adobe.com, ©Flamingo Images-stock.adobe.com
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