ShareProfessor Robert Kelly was live on BBC sharing his analysis of recent global events when his two young children walked into the room. If you haven’t seen it, it is every home-based worker’s personal nightmare: https://youtu.be/Mh4f9AYRCZY.
This video got HSMAI’s Revenue Management Advisory Board thinking about revenue management from home and how to make it work successfully.
While RM from home can absolutely be effective and successful, it’s not for everyone, and it’s not right for every hotel. When used effectively, it can open up your property to more well qualified candidates, increasing revenue potential for your hotel. Here’s a checklist of what you need to make it work well:
1. An established, stabilized property. New builds and transitions have too many competing priorities for other hotel leaders’ time. Without someone onsite, revenue management is not likely to receive the attention it needs.
2. Properties with limited revenue streams. If you are looking for a true Total Hotel Revenue Management professional in a hotel with several significant revenue streams, an onsite professional is needed to maintain the relationships with other departments and keep RM top of mind. These efforts become extremely difficult to manage from home.
3. A supportive General Manager. If the General Manager is adamant that his RM professional be at his side, the arrangement is doomed for failure from the beginning.
4. An RM professional that has a home that is adequate for working there. Ensure there is a quiet office with good internet speeds. When qualifying potential candidates for this, try a Skype interview in the place that would be the candidate’s office. This way you can check for poor quality internet, ensure the office space is neat and tidy, and test for potential ambient noise distractions.
5. A candidate that can stay disciplined and focused. A home environment can be distracting to some, whether it is bingeing a show on Netflix, or unloading a clean dishwasher.
6. Extra time for “water cooler” talk. Working from home removes the capability of the RM professional to bond with the rest of the team in person around the water cooler, in the employee lunch room, office walk-bys, etc. Ensure you have a strong team by adding time for some conversation with the RM professional to ensure they are thought of as part of the onsite team. One example of this is leaving time prior to the start of a conference call to allow for a few minutes of personal catching up.
7. Technology! Ensure you have the right tools for the job to work from home. Some necessities are instant message apps (e.g., Skype), social networks (e.g., Yammer), and video conferencing (e.g., Google Hangouts). When you can’t do video conferencing, a good option is Uber Conference; it’s free and shows each caller participant’s photo during the call to help people connect.
When you have the right technology, the right candidate, a supportive onsite team, and the right kind of property, a work-from-home RM professional will successfully lead your hotel’s RM culture and drive incremental profitable revenues.
About HSMAI’s Revenue Management Advisory Board
HSMAI’s Revenue Management Advisory Board is advancing the revenue management discipline by providing leading education, a best practices exchange, thought leadership, and networking for revenue management professionals, other sales and marketing professionals, and senior management in the hospitality industry. 2017 members include:
• CHAIR: Linda Gulrajani, CRME, Vice President, Revenue Strategy & Distribution, Marcus Hotels & Resorts
• Chris K. Anderson, Professor, Cornell University
• Veronica Andrews, CRME, Director of Active Data, STR
• Ravneet Bhandari, CEO, LodgIQ
• Christian Boerger, CRME, CHDM, Corporate Director of Revenue Strategy, Pacific Hospitality Group
• Denise Broussard, SVP, Revenue Management & eCommerce, Interstate Hotels & Resorts
• Rosemary Browning, President, Global Career Horizons
• Tom Buoy, CRME, EVP Pricing and Revenue Optimization, Extended Stay America
• Brian Burton, CHSE,CRME, Vice President Revenue Strategy & Optimization, White Lodging
• Janelle Cornett, Regional Director, Revenue Management, TPG Hotels and Resorts
• Kathleen Cullen, CRME, Senior Vice President Revenue & Distribution, Two Roads Hospitality
• Tammy Farley, President, Rainmaker
• Neal Fegan, CRME
• Monte Gardiner, Sr. Director, Revenue Management Services, Best Western Hotels & Resorts
• Renee Haddad, CRME, Director, Revenue Account Management, Preferred Hotels & Resorts
• Adam Hayashi, CRME, Vice President of Revenue Management, Accor Hotels
• Mohamed Khanat, CRME, Regional Director – Americas Account Management, IDeaS – A SAS COMPANY
• Kelly McGuire, VP Advanced Analytics, Global Analytics, Wyndham Destination Network
• Karen McWilliams, Vice President of Revenue Strategy, Concord Hospitality Enterprises
• Chris Nixon, CRME, AVP Revenue Optimization, Ashford Hospitality Trust
• Breffni Noone, Associate Professor, Pennsylvania State University
• Scott Pusillo, CRME, General Manager (NorthEast USA), Sales & Account Management , Sabre Hospitality Solutions
• Scott Roby, CRME, Vice President, Revenue Management, Evolution Hospitality
• Tim Schulte, CRME, Solution Consultant, Infor
• Jim A. Struna, CRME, Director of Revenue Management, Auberge Resorts
• Tim Wiersma, Vice President, Revenue Management, Red Roof Inns, Inc.
• Monica Xuereb, Chief Revenue Officer, Loews Hotels & Resorts
• Nicole Young, CRME, Corporate Director of Revenue Management, Rosewood Hotel Group