Management Functions

Most FOM will readily admit that they rarely have all the resources they feel are necessary. People,
money time, materials, energy, and equipment are the resources available. FOM’s job involves planning
how to apply these limited resources to attain the department’s objectives. Also evaluating the success
in meeting the department’s objectives.

The process of Front office management can be divided into specific management functions.
Fundamental management functions are similar in scope.

Planning:

Planning is the most important management function in any business, yet the managers often give it less
attention than it requires. Without proper planning the manger tends to get involved with tasks that are
unrelated to or inconsistent with accomplishing the department’s goals. A FOM’s first step is planning
what the front office will accomplish is to define the department’s goals.

Managers should identify both near-term goals and long-term goals, and develop a plan to meet them.
An example of near-term goal is to raise occupancy to 85 percent for the month. A long-term goal might
be to improve guest satisfaction goals. Planning also includes determining the strategies the department
will use to attain the objectives.

Organizing:

Using the planned goals as a guide, a FOM organizes the department by dividing th work among front
office staff. The manager should distribute work so that everyone gets a fair assignment and all work can
be completed in a timely manner. Organizing includes determining the order in which tasks are to
performed and establishing completion deadlines for each group of tasks.

Co-ordinating:

Coordinating involves bringing together and using the available resources to attain planned goals. A FOM
must be able to coordinate the efforts of many individuals to ensure that they perform the work
efficiently, effectively, and on time. Coordinating involves working with other departments such as sales,
housekeeping and accounting. The goal of improving guest satisfaction scores may partially depend on
the housekeeping staff’s promptly notifying the front desk about clean and vacant rooms for awaiting
guests. A manager’s ability to coordinate is closely related to his or her other management skills, such as
planning and organizing.

Staffing:

Staffing involves recruiting applicants and selecting those best qualified for positions. Staffing also
involves scheduling employees. Most fom develop staffing guidelines these guidelines are usually based
on formulas for calculating number of employees required to meet the guest and operational neds under
specified conditions.
Leading:

Leading is a complicated management skill that is exercised in a wide variety of situations and is closely
related to other management skills such as organizing, coordinating and staffing. For a fom, leadership
involves overseeing, motivating, training, disciplining and setting an example for the front office staff. For
example, to direct the work of others, a front office manager must first analyze the work to be done,
organize the tasks in a logical order and consider the environment in which the tasks will be performed.
In addition, if the department is behind in getting the work done, the front office manager steps in and
assists until the workload is under control again. With so much of the hotel’s business activity flowing
through the front desk, other department heads count on the front office manager to provide
leadership. Senior managers at a hotel often depend on the front office manager’s strong leadership
skills to ensure that the assignments are completed successfully.

Controlling:

Every front office has a system of internal controls in place to protect the hotel’s assets. For example,
one form of internal controls is requiring a witness’s signature when a cashier makes a deposit at the
end of the shift. Internal control systems work only when managers believe in the system’s importance
and follow the established procedures for their use. The control process ensures that the actual results
of operations closely match planned results. The FOM also exercises a control function when keeping
front office operations on course in attaining planned goals.

Evaluating:

Evaluating determines the extent to which planned goals are in fact attained. Evaluating also involves
reviewing and when necessary, revising or helping to revise front office goals.

The three important front office planning functions:

1. Establishing room rates

2. Forecasting room availability
3. Budgeting for operations
Forecasting room availability

Short term planning of FOM is forecasting the number of rooms available for future reservations. Room
availability forecasts are used to help manage the reservations process and guide front office staff in
effective rooms management. Forecasting may be especially important on nights when a full house
(100% occupancy) is possible.

Since there is fixed number of rooms in the hotel, forecasting the number of rooms available for sale and
the number of rooms expected to be occupied forecasts the occupancy percentage expected on a given
date. The forecasted availability and occupancy numbers are very important to the daily operations of
the hotel. Occupancy forecasts are the foundation for making room pricing decisions. Thy also influence
when rooms are to be placed on out-of-order status for maintenance or deep cleaning. Without an
accurate forecast, rooms may go unsold or be sold at inappropriate rates. Room occupancy forecasts can
be useful to the front office manager attempting to schedule the necessary number of employees for an
expected volume of business. These forecasts may be helpful to other department managers as well. For
example, the housekeeping department manager needs to know how many rooms the front office
expects to be occupied to properly schedule room attendants. Restaurant managers must know the
same information to better schedule service staff. The chef requires this figure to determine how much
food to purchase for the restaurants. The chef requires this figure to determine how much food to
purchase from restaurants.

Forecasts can serve as a guide in determining operating costs, every effort should be made to ensure
forecasting accuracy.

It is a difficult skill to develop. The skill is acquired through experience, effective record keeping and
accurate counting methods. Experienced front office mangers have found that several types of
information can be helpful in room availability forecasting:

 A thorough knowledge of the hotel and its surrounding area

 Market profiles of the constituencies the hotel services
 Occupancy data of the past several months and for the same period of previous year
 Reservation trends and a history of reservation lead times – How far in advance reservations are
made
 A listing of special events scheduled in the surrounding geographic area
 Business profiles of specific groups booked for the forecast dates
 The number of non-guaranteed and guaranteed reservations and an estimate of the number of
expected no shows
 The percentage of rooms already reserved and the cutoff date for group room blocks held for
the forecast dates.
 The room availability of the most important competing hotels for the forecast dates
(as discovered through blind calls)
 Plans for remodeling or renovating the hotel that would change the number of available rooms
 Construction or renovating plans for competitive hotels in the area
Forecasting data:

To facilitate forecasting the following occupancy data should be collected:

 Number of expected room arrivals: based on existing reservations and historical trends for new
reservation and on cancellations prior to the arrival date
 Number of expected walkins based on historical records
 Number of expected stayovers based on existing reservations
 Number of expected no-shows based on historical records
 Number of expected room understays – based on historical data
 Number of expected room check-outs based on existing reservations
 Number of expected room overstays based on historical records

Overall theses data are important to room availability forecasting, since they are used in calculating
various daily operating ratios that help determine the number of available rooms for sale.

Th percentage of no shows is calcilated by dividing the no. of room no shows for a specific period of
time – day, week, month or year by the total number of room rservations for the same period.

Percentage of No Shows = No. of Room No Shows / No. of room reservations

= 52/288 = 18.06% of reserved rooms

Percentage of Walk-ins : the percentage of walk ins is calculated by dividing the number of rooms
occupied by wakins for a period by the total no. of room arrivals for the same period

Percentage of Walk-ins = Number of Room Walk-Ins/ total no. of room arrivals

= 90/326 = 27.61% of room arrivals

Percentage of Overstays is calculated by dividing the no. of overstay rooms for a period by the total
number of expected room check-outs for the same.

Percentage of Overstays = No. of overstay rooms / No. of expected check-outs

Percentage of Overstays = 47/(346-33=47) = 13.06%

Percentage of Under stays is calculated by dividing the number of understay rooms for a period by
the total number of under stay rooms for a period by the total number of expected room check-outs
for the same period.

Percentage of Under stays = No. of Understay Rooms/ No. of Expected check-outs

To regulate Understay and overstay rooms, front office staff should:

 Reconfirm each guest’s departure date at registration

 Present an alternate guestroom reseervatin form to a registered guest.
 Review group history
 Contact potential overstay guests about their scheduled departure date to confirm their
intention to checkout.
Forecast Formula:

No. of rooms available for sale on any given date can be determined by the following formula:

Total no. of Guest rooms

-Number of Out of order rooms

- Number of Room Stayovers
- Number of Reservations
+Number of Room Reservations*percentage of no-shows
+Number of Room Understays
-Number of Room Overstays
Number of Rooms Available for sale