Front Office Manager

Best Western Plus – Meridian Hotel
Admin & Office
Nairobi Full Time
Hospitality & Hotel KSh Confidential

Job Summary

To directly supervise all front office personnel and ensures proper completion of all front office duties. Directs and coordinates the activities of the front desk, reservations, guest services, and telephone areas. Prepare monthly reports and budget for front office department.

Minimum Qualification:Diploma
Experience Level:Mid level
Experience Length:3 years

Job Description/Requirements

JOB DESCRIPTION FM-09C-BWPMH-IMS-HRD

Department: Front Office

Title: Front Office Manager

Reporting to: General Manager

Subordinates: AFOM, Duty Manager, FO Supervisor, Receptionist, Reservations Agent, Guest Relations Officer, Driver, Porter

Role Statement: 

To directly supervise all front office personnel and ensures proper completion of all front office duties. Directs and coordinates the activities of the front desk, reservations, guest services, and telephone areas. Prepare monthly reports and budget for front office department.

ACCOUNTABILITIES

Trains, cross –trains, and retrains all front office personnel.
Participates in interviewing and the selection of front office personnel.
Schedules the front office staff.
Supervises workload during shifts.
Evaluates the job performance of each front office employee.
Maintains working relationships and communicates with all departments.
Maintains master key control.
Verifies that accurate room status information is maintained and properly communicated.
Resolves guest problems quickly, efficiently, and courteously.
Updates group information. Maintains, monitors, and prepares group requirements. Relays information to appropriate personnel.
Reviews and completes credit limit report.
Works within the allocated budget for the front office.
Receives information from the previous shift manager and passes on pertinent details to the oncoming manager.
Checks cashiers in and out and verifies banks and deposits at the end of each shift.
Enforces all cash-handling, check-cashing, and credit policies.
Conducts regularly scheduled meetings of front office personnel.
Wears the proper uniform at all times. Requires all front office employees to wear proper uniforms at all times and adhere to grooming standards
Prepare performance reports related to front office.
Maximize room revenue and occupancy by reviewing status daily. Analyse rate variance, monitor credit report and maintain close observation of daily house count. Monitor selling status of house daily. 
Monitor high balance guest and take appropriate action.
Ensure implementation of all hotel policies and house rules.
Operate all aspects of Front Office computer system, including software maintenance, report generation and analysis, and simple configuration changes.
Prepare revenue and occupancy forecasting.
Ensure logging and delivery of all messages, packages, and mail in a timely and professional manner.
Ensure that employees are, at all times, attentive, friendly, helpful and courteous to all guests, managers and other employees.
Maintain required pars of all front office and stationary supplies.
Review daily Front Office work and review reports generated by Night Audit touching on the department.
Review Front office log book and Guest feedback forms on a daily basis.
Maintain an organised and comprehensive filing system with documentation of billing, vouchering, schedules, forecasts, reports and tracking logs.
Supervise the activities and the service levels of the Front Desk, Concierge/Porters.
Monitors the Front Office employees to make sure all guests receive prompt and personal recognition
Promote the basic habits of smiling, greeting guest by name and thanking guests.
To ensure that check-in procedures are strictly adhered to and that the correct guest details and charge out details are obtained from each guest.
Oversee the VIP guest process including, but not limited to, reviewing VIP reservations, inspecting cleanliness/ amenities in VIP rooms and ensuring smooth check-in/check-out
To ensure that all charges are correctly entered on the guest`s bill and that this is up to date at all times.
To ensure that accounts are balanced daily by checking and approving all cashiering paperwork and supervising shift take-over and hand-over procedures.
Co-ordinate with the Housekeeping and Reservations departments, for all arrivals at the hotel, to ensure that they are handled in an efficient and hospitable manner 
Assist in monitoring of front office financial operations and ensure front office compliance with accounting controls and procedures.
To ensure that luggage is delivered to and collected from rooms speedily.
To ensure that enquiries, messages & bookings are dealt with courteously and efficiently.
Assist in development, implementation and monitoring of daily, weekly, monthly, and annual department-wide budgets and forecasts.
Review correspondence from guests and incident logs; direct staff according to information obtained.
Resolve guest dissatisfaction by investigating, evaluating, and settling of complaints; following up with guests; personally, resolving difficult situations 
Prepare and conduct briefings/meetings.
Ensure sufficient front office supplies at all times
Conduct daily pre-shifts to communicate activities and /or special information/resolve issues/train staff.
Communicate through pre-shift logs, emails and departmental meetings all pertinent information for the respective shift and areas of operation
During check in and check-out meet and greet guests who may be waiting, offer immediate assistance to avoid any delays so as to ensure the highest standards of guest care and attention
Ensures all records and documents are maintained as per standards laid down by the management
To control group and individual reservations to ensure maximum occupancy
Assist in the daily maintenance of room inventory status to achieve optimal levels of revenues while maintaining high levels of guest expectations.
To ensure that luggage is delivered to and collected from rooms speedily.
To ensure that enquiries, messages & bookings are dealt with courteously and efficiently.
Co-ordinate the preparation of duty rosters and ensure all shift are manned in relation to amount of work
To ensure that at all time, all staff in the department are correctly and smartly dressed as per grooming standards.
To ensure that all Front of House areas are clean and tidy at all times.
To ensure that newspapers and parcels are delivered to rooms without delay.
To ensure that incoming and outgoing telephone calls are handled promptly and courteously
To carry out systematic checks of all Front of House areas for maintenance requirements, repairs or refurbishing, ensuring that these are actioned without delay.
To hold regular performance appraisals with all junior staff, identifying areas for development and training needs and ensuring that this training is affected.
Ensure team members have current knowledge of hotel products, services, facilities, events, pricing and policies and knowledge of the local area and events
Assist in monitoring and developing team member performance to include, but not limited to, providing supervision, conducting counselling and evaluations and delivering recognition and reward
Assist in the recruitment and interviewing of team members
Assist with up-selling techniques to promote hotel services and facilities to maximize room occupancy and overall revenue
Acts as the manager on duty in the hotel when senior managers are not available.
Responsible for the proper functioning and revenue generation of the business 
Responsible for the travel desk team in terms of guest transfers, billing, vehicle maintenance and proper co-ordination between the front desk team and the travel desk team
To maintain constant check of service offered to guests to assure continuing expected standard of hotels standard operating procedures.
To ensure constant follow-up on guest history.
To send out periodic statistical data to the concerned departments
Co-ordinate the preparation of duty rosters and ensure all shift are manned in relation to amount of work
To ensure the completion and follow-up of new and pending maintenance work in front office department
To comply with the stipulated house rules
To comply with any statutory and legal requirement for fire, licensing, health and safety.
Managing all RFPs from Best Western Company office (Head Quarter)
Responsible for Hotel position and ranking in all online portals, Booking.com, Xpedia etc
Perform other duties as requested by management

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATORS.

Timely and satisfactorily troubleshooting any guest issue(s)
Staff training, development and retention
Timely and accurate managerial reports related to Front Office
Positive guest reviews
Seamless communication with other departments to ensure exceptional guest service
Ranking improvement on trip advisor, booking.com, Xpedia and other online portals
End to End guest interaction
BW enrolments and member recognition
Customer Satisfaction
Customer retention
Urgency in handling guest queries
Effectiveness in leading the subordinates.

KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

Diploma in hotel Management/Front Office Management or equivalent
3+ years experience in equivalent role with a rated Hotel
Exceptional listening and communication skills.
A polite, engaging personality.
Commitment to customer satisfaction and service excellence.

KEY COMPETENCIES

Team leader-Capacity to inspire individuals to give of their best to achieve the desired results
Effective Communication   – The ability to communicate clearly and persuasively, orally or in writing
Team orientation.
Quality focus –Focus on delivering quality and continuous improvement
Interpersonal Skills – Ability to create and maintain open constructive relationships with others, respond helpfully to their enquiries and to be sensitive to their situations
Influence and Persuasion - Ability to convince others to agree on or to take a course of action
Customer Focus – Looking after the interests of the hotel guests and ensuring that their wants, needs and expectations are met/exceeded. 

Business awareness – Capacity to understand the business core values, vision and mission.