Front Office Manager Functions

Most Front Office Managers will readily admit that they rarely have all the resources they feel are necessary. Resources available to managers include People, Money Time, Materials, Energy and Equipment. All these resources are in limited supply. The important thing of FO manager how to apply these limited resources to attain the departments objectives.

FO Managers job is evaluating the success of Front Office activities in Meeting the departments Objectives.

Management Functions:

1.     Planning

2.     Organising

3.     Coordinating

4.     Staffing

5.     Leading

6.     Controling

7.     Evaluating

Planning:

          Planning is most important management function performed in any business, without competent planning, the front office would be chaotic. A Front office manager’s first step in planning what the FO will accomplish is to define the departments Goals. The FO Manager sets as short term goal as might be to raise occupancy to 85% for the month. A Long term goal might be to improve guest satisfaction scores. The manager should use these general goals as a guide to planning more specific, measurable objectives.

Organising:

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

Coordinating:

          Coordinating involves bringing together and using the available resources to attain planned goals. A FO manager ensures that they perform the work effectively, efficiently, and on time. Coordinating may involve working with other departments , such as sales, Housekeeping and accounting. Amanagers ability to coordinate is closely related to hisor her other management skills, such as planning and organising.

Staffing:

            Staffing involves scheduling employees and recruiting. These guidelines are usually based on formulas for calculating the number of employees required to meet guest and operational needs under specified conditions.

Leading:

          Leading is a complicated management skills that is exercised in a wide variety of situations, and is closely related together management skills such as organising, coordinating and staffing. Leadership involves overseeing, motivating, training, disciplining, and setting example for the FO staff. The FO Manager steps into the situation and assists until the work done. Strong leadership skill of FO manager is to ensure that the assignment completed successfully.

Controlling:

          Every FO has a system of internal controls for protecting asserts of the Hotel. For example, a form of internal control is requiring, a witness’s signature when a cashier makes a deposit at the end of Shift. Internal control systems work only when managers believe in the systems impotence and follow the establishment procedures for their use.

 Evaluating:

          Evaluating determines the extent to which planned goals are, in fat, attained. This task is frequently over looked in many front office Operations, or is performed haphazardly. Evaluation also involves reviewing and when necessary, revising or helping to revise front office goals.