Cleaning House

[Koz]

Time to vent.

 

I've run hotels for over 20 years and and although I have opened a few new hotels, most of my career I have been brought in to turn around a hotel and then move on to the next one in need of my services. In all of that time, only once had I ever taken over a property and had to fire someone.

 

This hotel that I took over at the end of January is probably my toughest challenge. I kid you not that they do almost everything wrong. There has been zero training and previous GM's let the inmates run the asylum. There are zero controls and zero accountability among the staff. Employees pushed back at the previous GM's at every turn and there were no repercussions for things like no call, no shows or walking off the job. Even if people were dismissed or quit they were usually welcomed back.

 

The first day I was there I noticed the lobby and lobby windows were dirty so I went and cleaned them. The upper windows probably had not been cleaned in 6 months. I then called in the housekeeping supervisor to show her the standards that were expected and her comment was, "What do you think we are, a Marriott?" When I went over the deep cleaning standards including cleaning bathroom floor tile grout she told me that she was not a slave and she wouldn't do it. FIRED!

 

I had another associate that called off 5 times in the first four weeks I was there and then insulted our Maintenance Chief. When I asked her to clear up and misunderstanding she had with him or apologize if she did insult him she walked off the job. FIRED!

 

The first day I got to the hotel I asked the sales manager for pace reports and asked her to put together a list of companies in nearby cities that met specific criteria so that we could target them for sales. I also told her I had a group I had closed a deal on for later in the year. She never gave me the reports and she got mad that I - the GM - was bringing in business to the hotel and told the owner she was going to quit. She didn't. But every time I asked her about a group or an account she would get defensive and nasty. I've been so busy with other stuff I have not been doing weekly sales strategy meetings and I finally had one today. She turned away from me and faced her computer the entire time. When I told her we would be taking on a new tactic with groups and not discounting them during peak season she got really ticked off. She could not understand why we would not discount peak period rooms when we already know we will sell out without them.

 

In the short time I have been here I have offered her much needed training and explained all of my rate and selling strategies to her and she just complains. I told her today that for any group that wants to book that for the time being she needs to run all proposed rates by me so I can ensure they meet my strategies. After all, I'm new at the property, have not worked with her before, and the hotel is under performing.

 

I'm pretty good at what I do and I've done all this before. Heck, I implemented new rates and selling strategies in February so March is the first full month for those strategies to take effect. Not only are we ahead of 2020 revenue pace, we're ahead of pre-Covid 2018 and 2018 pace despite selling 2/3 less group and corporate rooms. In other words, my strategies have worked.

 

Her response it to email the owner and say she's going to turn in her two weeks notice. He copies me on her email. So I run an ad for her position today, she looks for jobs tonight and sees the ad, then gets ticked off at me. She comes to the hotel and throws her keys at me and walks out. See ya.

 

The owner was here yesterday and a housekeeper came to my office and said she refused to clean a room because the my new maintenance chief should have cleaned it up. This room had been out of order for a year now and he got it up and running in 3 days. There were some paint chips on the floor and an ice bucket with rinse water. The owner went to the room, looked at her, and said, "What's the big deal?" I had to remind her that it was her job to clean rooms no matter what.

 

The other day I hired a housekeeper in the morning and she wanted to start that day. I had her go home and change. It should have been a 40 minute round trip. She comes back in two hours and my crew gets her paperwork done and sets her off to work cleaning the restaurant. Then they tell me I need to go check on her. She's tweaking. Holy cow, she could not sit still or look me in the eye. Thankfully she's just about finished and I tell her she needs to head with me and take a drug test before her next shift. She never shows up again.

 

I hired another housekeeper who showed up for 2 days and never came back. But she ended up hooking up with my Maintenance Chief. She grifted him and got him to pay her bills. She stole his credit card. They were at a hotel (not mine), fought, and left. She went back to the hotel and asked for a key to get back in. They let her in even though she was not registered. She stole the TV, all the linens, and trashed the room. The hotel billed him for $6k. He disputed it with his CC company and got that money back.

 

This weekend we have a bass tournament in town and the guys with boats can't understand why our parking lot can't accommodate 40 boats (use the marina - you were warned it was first come, first served) and they can't park in the grass, park perpendicular through the parking spots, and they can't run extension cords through our parking lots and over sidewalks where guests can trip on them. We're a small, 81 room hotel and have only 7 spots with hookups and 8 boat slips.

 

This is going to be a great hotel, but boy oh boy is there work to do. I just have never come across anything like this before. I'm flabbergasted. All that and I have not had a full day off since I started on January 28th.

 

Thanks for letting me vent!

 

 

 

 

[OCdockskipper]

Sounds like fun  

 

After working various retail jobs through high school & college (McDonalds, Kmart, Dominos Pizza), I got my first supervisory position upon graduation, handling inventory for a floor covering company and responsible for a handful of warehouse guys.  They weren't bad employees, just very young and used to their old boss being a friend more than a supervisor.  Less than a month into the job, 2 of the guys are screwing around on the forklift while I am inside the office, one driving while the other holds onto the carpet pole over his head, dragging him around as if he was skiing.  The pole twists off the forklift, comes down on the kids head and literally cracks his skull.  I get to learn how to deal with OSHA, how to give depositions in a lawsuit against the forklift manufacturer and how to tell a mom that her son will never be able to join the Air Force like he had wanted to.

 

Made me realize early on that I prefer not to have any employees that I become responsible for & to. 

[Hammer 4]

As for not so swell employees, I could fill more than a page on the subject, having owned my own construction co. Guys would apply for a carpenter position, my first question is, what is it that you can not do, i.e. layout for framing, walk walls , ect. 99.99% of the time they could anything and things well beyond the job description.

I hired 1 young guy, about 25 years old. I gave him a simple task, frame out for an extension fence on a block wall.

He wound splicing the top of  a bay in the middle of a bay, Never, never do that. I had to rebuild 16' of that framing. I told him here's what I owe you for an hours work, and told him what I had to do to correct his dumb move. I left out 10% of what he would have normally got, then he gets all upset cuz I kept the 10% for the time I had to redo his mess up.

I've had many no shows, guys saying they were going to lunch and never came back, guys drinking on the job, ect , ect.

I know how ya feel Koz. In the end, things will work out for the best. BTW, sorry for long winded reply.  

[N Florida Mike]

Very interesting post , koz. 

I used to be a field manager with my old company. I could write a book on surly employees. I may post some stories later. It seems like you have a lot of authority, which means you’ll eventually get things sorted out.

Middle management nearly drove me crazy. If anything good happens, the employees gets the credit. If anything bad happens with your employees, you get the credit .

[Way north bass guy]

And that’s why I work by myself. 
Most days are very peaceful, get to do things at my own pace, and I only have one idiot to deal with day after day ?

[NYWayfarer]

I have been an operations manager for 15 years. In that time I realized:

 

1) People don’t check their personalities at the door when they arrive at work. 

 

2) The company wants steak (great candidates)on hamburger money (entry level low paying jobs)

 

3) Most people are good at something. Their resume can usually help you pinpoint that.

 

I have gotten very good at interviews. I look for a smile, a “Thanks for giving me an opportunity to interview”, knowledge about the organization and the job they are applying for and questions for me other than how much does the job pay.

 

The interview is their foot in the door. Then it’s their responsibility to come in and stay in. If I hire a lemon I can manage them out through progress reviews.

 

Historically I wind up hiring over qualified individuals who don’t stay long but the work they give me while they are around is great. Many individuals have moved on to better positions in my company and I wear that as a badge of honor.

 

All of this is to say I feel your pain. It will get better. 
 

And I would watch your maintenance chief. His judgment is questionable. With relationships for sure, but that can spill over to his work ethic.

[gim]

Good employees are hard to find in any field. Seems like a lot of people just want to get paid without doing any hard work these days. Keep up the good work over there Koz.

[slonezp]

Sounds like a new reality show. Hotel Rescue.

[Glenn]

Actually, there are 2 such shows.

 

Hotel Impossible and Hotel Hell

[Biglittle8]

Sounds like the owner should have been keeping tabs on the previous managers. The issues seem to be the product of a festering long term lack of proper management.... But that's why you're there! Seems like you got a good handle on it Koz!

[DitchPanda]

Let me take this from the position of worker instead of manager and let you know what ive been seeing in my job lately. Background on me is ive worked for a biofuel company for 7.5 years..I'm a plant technician 3 so that means I'm lead operator on my crew and I'm in charge of shift when my supervisor is gone. So yes I have some leadership and management responsibility but I'm not on the management team.

Recently we hired a guy with some maintenance background but nothing pertaining to what we do...end up finding out he is making as much money as the lead maintenance tech 2 on my day crew...found out because he has a big mouth and has been bragging about it. This is a huge management fail as this may cost them a quality experienced maintenance guy based off resentment and perceived lack of respect for his ability and tenure all to save a new guy that can find his own a#$ with two hands and a flashlight. Stupid.

Another incident occurred where a maintenance tech on the night crew I follow got fired for "attitude issues" and poor attendance. Normally I'd have no issue with this except in this case there is a guy who is plant tech 1 that's been with us maybe 8-10 months and in that time he's missed more work then I have in 7+ years...yet he still has a job. Our management team has shown us they play favorites and that there in consistent accountability across the board. Weak and pathetic.

Best part in all this is they keep saying that they can't afford to lose any good people because of the day to day demands. Yet it seems to me that through mismanagement they are trying to force people out. Yes we all know they have a business to run but nobody wants to work for people they don't trust.

You think its bad when the inmates run the asylum...what about when the people in charge are power hungry and think they are not subject to the rules they enforce so they make them up as they go to fit the narrative? Hard to take managers seriously when they can't manage there way out of a wet paper bag.

[Glenn]

Lead by example, keep employees informed of strategy and results, and give credit when credit is due.  

 

Many employees will self-select themselves when the strategy is known, in place, and enforced. When the positions open up, you're in full command of who replaces them.  You'll soon reach an inflection point when a team starts to form, and momentum begins to take place.  That's when the changes really begin to take effect!

 

It's a process. Know with each firing, with each quitter, you're gaining steps towards that team you need.  So look at it as positive movement in the right direction.

[huZZah]

Funny that the saying is it’s hard to find good employees. Personal experience tells me it’s equally as hard to find good employers.  Been treated like crap at more than one job by someone that I’m sure tells people “it’s so hard to find good workers these days.”

 

To OP hang in there. Sometimes it sucks. But there’s plenty of good people looking for jobs with good people. 

[TOXIC]

I hate to say it but unskilled or low skilled employees that you are referencing will devote their time to things away from the job and advancement.  Look at their pay scale and remember you get what you pay for.  Having retired from the government, I was groomed to manage people from the very first year of my employment, it was made perfectly clear that those in my particular position were the future of the agency and all the while we worked different positions, we were constantly being trained as management.  The biggest mistake companies make is to take those who do the job exceptionally well and make them supervisors or managers.  Managing is a skill all its own and a very, very difficult one at that.  When I reached different levels of management skill, my responsibilities were increased.  At one time I was responsible for 700 employees but that did not even rank with some of the positions I had in the 34 years that were more difficult as a manager.  It’s a tough job and it’s even tougher when the people you have to manage have no vested interest in the job or their future because they can quit and walk out tomorrow and probably find another job within the week.  

[NYWayfarer]

58 minutes ago, DitchPanda said:

Recently we hired a guy with some maintenance background but nothing pertaining to what we do...end up finding out he is making as much money as the lead maintenance tech 2 on my day crew...found out because he has a big mouth and has been bragging about it. This is a huge management fail as this may cost them a quality experienced maintenance guy based off resentment and perceived lack of respect for his ability and tenure all to save a new guy that can find his own a#$ with two hands and a flashlight. Stupid.

I would be careful in this situation. I would not believe someone in the same position as I am is making more money than me unless I see his or her paycheck. 
 

Guys like the one with the big mouth you heard this from are slick. They throw that BS around so they can get a feel for what other make. It could be a trap to find out what others make.

[Jigfishn10]

I did 2 hotel renovations as a construction supervisor. I had to interact with hotel staff from top management down to housekeeping staff on a daily basis.

The maintenance and housekeeping staffs were not well paid at these positions. Although I’m not sure most of them knew that.

I saw what goes on behind the scenes that maybe management doesn’t see. 

All I can say is good luck in shaping the hotel into what you image of it should be. You really have you work cut out for you. 
I know you know this, but what you going thru now will be pretty cyclical. Just the nature of the beast.

 

 

[DitchPanda]

1 hour ago, NYWayfarer said:

I would be careful in this situation. I would not believe someone in the same position as I am is making more money than me unless I see his or her paycheck. 
 

Guys like the one with the big mouth you heard this from are slick. They throw that BS around so they can get a feel for what other make. It could be a trap to find out what others make.

Well this guy is in maintenance and I'm in operations...besides how would he say I make x and its almost identical to what the guy he said it to makes? When I say almost identical I mean less than $1 difference. Also I will ad that if it was me talking about a guy who just started with no  experience in the field making the same as me after 7+ years experience we wouldn't be having this conversation. I would quit on the spot and go find a real job with real managers.

[throttleplate]

retired for 11 years now but when i was a heavy equipment mechanic i was moved into the shop foreman position.

On a friday morning my boss told me i was to fire an employee at the end of the day. I was glad to do it to get this useless person out of our shop.

The friday i fired him he was mad because instead of the boss firing him i was doing it and he disliked me.

 

On saturday morning i went outside to get into my truck and the windows on the drivers side were smashed and a big rock the size of a softball was laying next to the truck.

I picked up the rock and put it in the cab and drove over to his house and rang the doorbell but no one answered so i left the rock at his doorstep and never had another problem.

[TnRiver46]

2 hours ago, huZZah said:

Funny that the saying is it’s hard to find good employees. Personal experience tells me it’s equally as hard to find good employers.  Been treated like crap at more than one job by someone that I’m sure tells people “it’s so hard to find good workers these days.”

 

To OP hang in there. Sometimes it sucks. But there’s plenty of good people looking for jobs with good people. 

Yep!!! I have 3 jobs, each one I am treated remarkably different. Yet I never miss work and typically my shirt is the sweatiest and my hands are the dirtiest at the end of the day 

[NYWayfarer]

33 minutes ago, DitchPanda said:

Well this guy is in maintenance and I'm in operations...besides how would he say I make x and its almost identical to what the guy he said it to makes? When I say almost identical I mean less than $1 difference. Also I will ad that if it was me talking about a guy who just started with no  experience in the field making the same as me after 7+ years experience we wouldn't be having this conversation. I would quit on the spot and go find a real job with real managers.

I worked in a bank before my current job. My manager got laid off and the big boss asked me to clean out his office. I found a paper in his files that showed the salaries of everyone on the floor. You would not believe the discrepancy in salaries with people doing the same work. I am talking about thousands of dollars difference.

 

I ran that paper by the Human Resources department and in less than 6 months they did “market adjustments” for individuals on the floor to make the salaries even out.

[Jigfishn10]

4 minutes ago, TnRiver46 said:

Yep!!! I have 3 jobs, each one I am treated remarkably different. Yet I never miss work and typically my shirt is the sweatiest and my hands are the dirtiest at the end of the day 

That’s because you dig for worms at mid-day and fish the rest of the afternoon. Come back late and bang in for OT! 
Your pics on here are leaving a trail! ?

Just kidding bud!

[TnRiver46]

2 minutes ago, Jigfishn10 said:

That’s because you dig for worms at mid-day and fish the rest of the afternoon. Come back late and bang in for OT! 
Your pics on here are leaving a trail! ?

Just kidding bud!

Catching perch is hard work! 
 

 

[DitchPanda]

1 minute ago, NYWayfarer said:

I worked in a bank before my current job. My manager got laid off and the big boss asked me to clean out his office. I found a paper in his files that showed the salaries of everyone on the floor. You would not believe the discrepancy in salaries with people doing the same work.

 

I ran that paper by the Human Resources department and in less than 6 months they did “market adjustments” for individuals on the floor to make the salaries even out.

I understand this and think in certain cases it makes sense. But in my job situation I would have a hard time making what I make with years of experience operating an Ethanol plant and finding out that the guy who came here from a packing house with zero Ethanol experience is only making 2k less a year. If I didn't find out then I guess it wouldn't matter. If I dud then I guess I wouldn't actually have a hard time...would make my decision pretty easy.

[A-Jay]

12 minutes ago, NYWayfarer said:

I worked in a bank before my current job. My manager got laid off and the big boss asked me to clean out his office. I found a paper in his files that showed the salaries of everyone on the floor. You would not believe the discrepancy in salaries with people doing the same work. I am talking about thousands of dollars difference.

 

I ran that paper by the Human Resources department and in less than 6 months they did “market adjustments” for individuals on the floor to make the salaries even out.

In the military, the entire pay scale is public knowledge.

And these folks signed up to die for us. 

Just saying.

A-Jay

 

[Teal]

Addition by subtraction.   Keep your head up @Koz