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As part of an ongoing relationship with Eproductive, the University of Surrey has conducted a study of the factors that affect the productivity performance of hotels. Housekeeping departments were analysed over a one year period to see if there were productivity differences caused by a range of the factors, including location, size, occupancy, star rating etc. With results now being assessed further research is planned to investigate productivity in other hotel departments.
Professor Peter Jones, Faculty of Management & Law, University of Surrey said:
“As one the leading hospitality management schools in Europe we are delighted to be working with Eproductive, one of the leading Labour Management System suppliers to the hotel sector. The ongoing collaboration we have is important in building understanding of the complex but very important area of labour productivity.”
Chris Cowls, Eproductive Chief Executive added:
“Working with the University of Surrey gives us the chance to challenge our assumptions about hotel labour productivity. We then pass on the learning gained to our clients to help them improve their performance in this key cost area”.
Eproductive and consultancy Prestige Purchasing joined forces to host a fantastic wine tasting event for hospitality leaders at the end of September. The event was sponsored by leading supplier Matthew Clark Wholesale Ltd, with Commercial Director Ian Smith and Wine Director Robin Knapp giving a Masterclass on the theme of ‘New world versus Old world’.
The venue in the newly reopened crypt at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, added to the ‘wine cellar’ atmosphere as teams of five competed in a blind tasting for a carefully selected range of fine wines.
As well as being a fun networking event, all who attended learnt more about the sheer variety of wines now available. When asked what she learnt from the evening one of the tasters commented “That I should try out more wines, more often.”
The inaugural Hotel Report Awards (http://www.hotelreportawards.com) were held at the HAC Rooms in London on February 21st.
The Hotel Report allows readers to benchmark their operation, differentiate their business, make informed decisions and be inspired with new ideas. The Hotel Report is a highly regarded publication in the sector.
The awards recognised and rewarded the very best in the hotel market - as nominated and voted for by the industry itself – and attracted almost 300 attendees.
Eproductive's Business Development Director, Raymond Simonds says: "The Eproductive team of hospitality professionals and technologists was proud to sponsor the Hotel Report Awards. This excellent event gave senior industry executives a unique opportunity to come together and celebrate the achievements of the past year."
Chris Cowls, Chief Executive of Eproductive presents the award for Investor of the Year to Neil Adcock from Royal Bank of Scotland, with Katherine Doggrell Editor of Hotel Report.
Eproductive is delighted to announce its first major client in The Netherlands with the implementation of its integrated HR and Labour Management System EpS for Bilderberg Hotels.
Bilderberg, who are based in Renkum in the centre of Holland, have 20 hotels which feature excellent restaurants and a delightful range of locations. Over the last 2 years, Bilderberg has repositioned itself as the leading brand for meetings and weekend breaks in the Netherlands. Each of the hotels has recently received a complete make-over as part of a major renovation programme. More information is available on the Bilderberg website at www.bilderberg.nl/uk
Following a successful test period, Eproductive is implementing EpS across the Bilderberg estate. The implementation and training programme will be supported by a project team from Bilderberg and each hotel will receive visits from the combined team for the system implementation and a training session for each user that lasts about 2 hours.
In a new feature for EpS, users will select their choice of language, English or Dutch, to view the system and Management Information Reports.
The Eproductive training team in action:
Katherine Doggrell reports on the latest software products aimed at increasing control and productivity internally and externally from independent hoteliers up to global branded chains
Everybody wants to be in control. Even the most laidback hippie wants their dream catcher in exactly the right location and their joss sticks angled for maximum effect. With hotels becoming an increasingly professional enterprise in the past decade, and with corresponding growth in the need to provide hard numbers and strategies to global boards, finding tools to help forecast and manage has become a more pressing consideration. Two companies currently promising control, accountability and savings are Rate Tiger and Eproductive.
Rate Tiger's products allow hotels to cut the time they spend managing their relationships with third party websites by creating one interface and also allows benchmarking of past and current rates against competitors. Andrew Forsi, founder of Rate Tiger, told Hotel Report how demand for the group's products was created in the past five years. Continuing the idea of a simple, timesaving piece of software which frees up operational time and allows the user to make more accurate forecasts of their needs is Eproductive's internet based labour management system EpS.
The system is one of very few hotel-specific web-based products combining labour scheduling and productivity, which allows departments across a group access so that, for example, operations can see next week's labour productivity and cost.
To make comparisons across the business, labour productivity is stripped down to what Eproductive calls a 'productive hour', which can then be measured against any particular output, measured in for example: covers, rooms cleaned or check-outs. The number of 'rooms cleaned per productive hour' then becomes directly comparable across hotels, organisations, sectors, regions and countries. Productivity is then dependent on studying the variations in achieved daily labour productivity over a given time period, then assessing the achievement of brand standards and customer satisfaction for the period. This review will identify the most effective initial productivity benchmarks for that group, to become the focus of an ongoing review.
Janet Gray, Human Resources and IT Director at Ramada Jarvis, which has adopted the product, said: "The introduction of EpS has meant for the first time that the process of labour management is transparent at every level of the company. EpS has influenced the way we do business, for example, holiday and lieu management is now seen as collateral with the cost being identified as real money."
Robert Crosby, Commercial Director at QMH, which also uses EpS, shared Gray's opinion. Crosby said: "What I believe it does is put the owner back in control of the business. Overall visibility is high, from Heads of Department to Human Resources and Finance."
"I can see everything. There are very few people who can see everything for data protection and security reasons. We felt fairly exposed. We had another piece of bespoke software - but we wanted something web-based for ease of use. The whole world of HR had become so complex, with six or seven different spreadsheets that, although Excel is good at many things, it's not good at pulling all the information together."
Key to both Rate Tiger and Eproductive's offering is creating a product that is simple for the user to operate. More than any other sector the high staff turnover in the hospitality industry means that packages which require a lengthy training time are unlikely to be adopted. As a customer-facing industry, forcing employees to spend time over complex software is also likely to be seen as a waste of time, no matter what the benefits. Simplicity and control may sound like the tagline for a car advert, but it is what's driving the sector's software providers.
Following a very successful pilot in 3 hotels where we demonstrated the business case, the implementation and training programme for EpS was completed across the 19 hotel estate in just 8 months from the start of the pilot. User feedback was excellent and results very encouraging.
Robert Crosby, Commercial Director of QMH UK ltd stated that labour productivity benefits were showing because:
“Users at the sharp end have an immediate view of performance to benchmark.”
“EpS provides Management with the tools and focus to make an impact on labour productivity.”
When faced with industry wide changes driving up labour cost, with 48 hotels throughout Great Britain, employing between 50 and 150 employees each, Ramada Jarvis the leading mid market hotel group were facing huge payroll increases. However after a 12 month labour management restructuring, the group managed to reduce costs in over half of their hotels and were acknowledged with a Business Excellence Award at the 2006 Hospitality Industry Best Practice Forum Awards Ceremony.
Ramada Jarvis Hotels Chairman, John Jarvis, wrote to his team:
"EpS is a great Labour Management System that helps us get the right staff in the right place at the right time and at the right cost to look after our guests. Please make sure that you get the best out of EpS!
The award citation reads: "To Ramada Jarvis Hotels, for its success in containing labour costs by introducing Eproductive's Internet based labour management system throughout the group, leading to better labour forecasting, significant labour cost savings, higher productivity, and more consistent service levels."
Teaming up with Eproductive Ltd and their internet based Labour Management System, EpS, Ramada Jarvis set about examining established working practices and then adapting them to improve labour productivity. In order to achieve their objectives Jarvis and Eproductive had to train over 800 management employees on a one to one basis and incorporate the new system across all 48 hotels throughout Great Britain within 6 months.
The installation of EpS and consequential adjustments to labour management enabled management teams to accurately forecast business levels, improve levels of service, simplify work patterns for staff and significantly reduce payroll costs.
Says Janet Gray, Ramada Jarvis Human Resources and I.T Director: “We are now up and running and the system has revolutionised our working day, improving standards throughout, winning this year’s Business Excellence Award is a real tribute to how much work everyone has put in to ensure that this process ran seamlessly. The introduction of EpS has meant for the first time that the process of labour management is transparent at every level of the company. EpS has influenced the way we do business, for example, holiday and lieu management is now seen as collateral with the cost being identified as real money.”