Replace an absent General Manager

A former 3* hotel, renovated and extended 3 years ago, has become a 5* hotel with 106 rooms and 3 restaurants and a spa, which employs 135 people. The hotel mainly attracts a high-end and international clientele in season, with high standards. Pending the recruitment of a permanent Director, Alexandra Labarthe, interim manager specializing in the hotel industry, has replaced and assumed the role of General Manager in order to manage operational aspects and provide a fresh perspective and advice on improvements. required.

Context upon arrival of the transition manager

The owner of the hotel was greatly destabilized for various reasons:

• The financial losses generated by this period of crisis which lasted several months
• A complex HR context, with a team that is difficult to retain, because it is worried about its professional future and without middle management to support it on a daily basis
• Customer relationship management, which needed to be completely transformed
• Each department needed a formalization of operational procedures, in particular on cost-management.

 

Mission challenges

The first challenge of the mission was to carry out an audit and urgently embody a reassuring top management to put in place a favorable context for customer reception, as well as the tools necessary for the arrival of the summer season.

It was also necessary to support the owner to define the profile of General Manager that would be best suited to her expectations, and to the establishment.

The last challenge was to set up an effective CRM to improve the revenues of 2023. As an interim manager, Alexandra needed to demonstrate tangible and visible results very quickly to reassure the hotel owner.

Tasks performed to complete the mission

The first action carried out by Alexandra was to listen attentively to all the stakeholders. This made it possible, on the one hand, to create a bond of trust with the owner, and on the other hand to carry out very operational and collaborative field management. Alexandra was also able to put in place operational procedures that existed but had not been passed on to the team.

The other difficult task to be carried out was therefore to identify the owner and to be able to bring the General Manager profile to bear on it. Indeed, the owner/GM relationship is often quite complex. One is at home: he has invested and projects himself for several reasons: the need for profitability, the affect… sometimes taking up a little too much operational space without really having the knowledge or the desire to exploit it. daily. The other seeks to embody the place with customers and teams: his role is to become the referent of the place and his staff, to feel at home, to achieve his qualitative and financial objectives.

For a harmony to be created between these two profiles having, in fact, a common goal, a perfect match is needed. In terms of recruitment, it is therefore necessary to make a detailed analysis of the profiles in order to put everyone in their rightful place.

Encountered difficulties

The most important challenge of this mission was of course to correctly identify the owner’s personality in order to precisely define the most suitable General Manager profile.

The other points to be resolved were an insufficient number of employees in relation to the needs of the hotel. This had led to hasty recruitment, preventing long-term strategic thinking.

Finally, the employees were not very motivated by their actions, because of the complex social context in which the interim management mission had started.

Mission success/results

The first success was to successfully outsource the CRM in order to obtain immediate and concrete results.

On the HR side, the teams have regained their motivation thanks to the support of Alexandra, who has implemented effective operational procedures. The recruitment of missing profiles also made it possible to complete the team, and to ease tensions.

The clarification of the roles of the owner and the General Manager reassured the owner about her vision of her establishment and the strategy to adopt.

Finally, the mission ended with the recruitment of a General Manager on a permanent contract to perpetuate the actions implemented by the transmission manager during his 3-month presence.