Rethinking Management
Luxury hospitality in Europe, and in France in particular, is finding it increasingly difficult to motivate new generations to work in the many professions that make up its service offering. This affects every hotel, even the finest palaces. And yet it remains a formidable engine of social mobility for anyone who is motivated and hardworking. Working hours, low wages, and the style of management are all factors that put off a great many young people. The values that hospitality puts forward no longer attract new generations. The hierarchical system in place does not encourage people to take initiative either, and so it confines employees strictly to their role... It's the “you just have to do what I tell you” approach, but that no longer makes sense today.
Now more than ever, hospitality must show collective decision making built around collegial management, friendly rivalry between teams, constant adaptation, kindness, and an understanding of each person's way of life within its approach to management.
To my mind, it is important to rethink this hierarchy borrowed from military vocabulary (chef de brigade, chef de rang...) which confines everyone to their role at different levels. This type of hierarchy is also part of the legacy of Taylor and Ford, which separates those who govern from those who are governed. We find the same thing in the contractual relationship between an employee and their company: there is the one who directs and the one who carries out. 2020 opens a new decade in which anything is possible, so let us leave our habits behind and question ourselves in order to create new ways of managing and of empowering teams on the ground.
How Can We Envision a New Governance?
Traditionally, a hotel's organization is built on successive layers of managers all the way up to general management. There can be, for example, six or seven hierarchical levels between an apprentice and the general management of a large hotel. This type of organization confines staff within their own set responsibilities. Everyone has their role and their tasks to carry out, and a guest with a problem may well be told, “Listen, I'll speak to my manager and get back to you.” Depending on how serious the problem is, the guest will need to be patient. It is hard to accept such a response as a customer. We need to move from intelligence concentrated at the top to collective intelligence.
English speaking hotels generally give their staff more responsibility, allowing them to offer a guest a significant discount on their stay if they have been the victim of a mistake made by the hotel. For example, a receptionist can decide directly to refund a room service order if the service genuinely fell short.
The world has changed a great deal, and so has training in hospitality schools. This past decade has revealed our desire to share everything on social media. It is a source of entertainment as well as learning in every field. Employees are now better informed than before about what is happening in their professional sector by looking at the profiles of their colleagues and friends. If they are genuinely encouraged by management, they will want to take part in the life of the company, which becomes a place of socialization. They will happily share their knowledge. They will be motivated to progress within the hotel's organization if management shares information with them. In the past, it was customary for managers to keep information to themselves and avoid sharing it. It gave them the feeling of holding power: “I know, you don't.” That no longer works today with new generations, who have no desire to wait years to move forward. They, too, need to learn to be patient. It is a balance that has to be found.
The challenges facing a company, now more than ever, are to adapt continuously to changes in the market: adapting to national and international events, to new trends, to customer expectations, and so on.
Next article to discover: Participatory Management, a Model to Adapt to Your Own Organization.
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