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Hostel operations

General Hostel Operations

Yaron Burgin started this discussion 13 years 5 months ago

Hi.
I am now in the process of re-organizing the managing structure of my hostel. We are on our way to having 70+ rooms (~210 beds).
These are the current positions:
- Reception & reservations manager - in charge for 24 hour reception, 8-9 workers. Full time worker.
- Tours manager - in charge for 12 hour travel desk, 4-6 workers. Full time worker.
- Bar & coffee shop - 5 hours evening bar, 4 hour coffee shop morning caffe, 4-5 workers. Part time manager.
In addition we have 1.5 maintenance guys, 6 cleaners, and another guy serving breakfast (part time, 5 hours a day).
Last, we have 4-6 volunteers helping with serving breakfast and general tasks around the hostel (e.g. organize the common area, recycling etc.)

I am planning to bring in an operations manager to be full time in charge of house keeping and maintenance.

There are some issues which I am wondering about:
- Hostel events - we have now almost every day an event going on in the hostel (live music, movie night etc.). Until now there were different people who took care of them (tours desk, volunteers, bar people) and I think there needs to be a specific person in charge of them.
Who is in charge of events in your hostel?
Would you make the bar manager responsible for this or someone else?

- Breakfast - since breakfast is identical every day the main thing regarding breakfast is taking care of food supplies and ordering them. The serving itself is something I would leave to the volunteers who usually come for at least a month.
Do you have someone in charge of breakfast? Would you combine it with another task?

- volunteers - who is in charge of the volunteers in your hostel (Assuming you have at least 4-5 of them)?

Thank you in advance for your help

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rjd1983

13 years

It's a good idea to have an event manager. When I was in Sydney, most of the hostels had a dedicated event person, usually a receptionist. They would liaise with the nightclubs and bars in the area, along with rounding the guests up, and taking them out to the bars and clubs. We would go around and knock on all the doors (more like me) and ask who was coming, and if they weren't coming, why they weren't coming!!! I dragged so many people out when they were in their bed or PJs... :)

I'm not sure if you have any longterm guests staying at the hostel, but it might be worth asking if they want the job? I would imagine you don't need a fulltime event manager, just one in the afternoon/evenings. If the event manager is a guest, I would give them free accommodation and some pocket money for taking the guests out. The bars will usually give the events manager free alcohol as well. It needs to be someone who can organise people, and be a lot of fun with guests. Enthusiasm and people-organisation skills are the most important thing for that kind of role.

You could also make the role full-time by making them assist with breakfast in the morning. They would be there to monitor breakfast supplies, washing up (bowls, plates, cutlery, etc) and clean up any spillages the guests make. It will make the hostel look very professional having someone dedicated at breakfast.

With your volunteers, they should be assigned to someone in the area they are working in. For example, when you say organising the common room, you mean clean it, that volunteer should work with the person in charge of cleaning. Same for recycling, the recycler should work with the person in charge of cleaning.

Can you expand on what all the volunteers do?

Thank you.

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byron

13 years

Hi.
Thanks for the ideas.
The idea of knocking on doors is very nice :) We do have some long term residents as well (Students).
As for volunteers - they have to work 5 days a week, 5-6 hours each day in return to a dorm bed & breakfast. They have 3 different shift. Morning shift is helping to serve breakfast with the guy who's in charge. Mid-day shift is taking people to tours in the city, recycling and general cleaning of the common area (on top of the cleaners). Evening shift is hanging around the common area for general cleaning, hanging out with guests, helping the reception/bar for general tasks, helping out with events, and "closing" procedure at the end of the night.

Did you as event manager also was in charge of publicity and marketing for the events?
I am mainly seeking for someone to lead the in-house hostel events

Thanks

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rjd1983

13 years

That's a bit mean, making your volunteers work 25 hours a week for room and board!!! ;)

As you're bringing in an Operations Manager, your volunteers should report to him/her, but ideally the Head Housekeeper if s/he is not too busy. But as you have a large amount of volunteers, I would personally have team meetings on a daily basis outlining what needs to be cleaned, or needs to be done today - even if it's just the same thing you told them yesterday. That way, for the sake of a 5 minute meeting, you can leave them get on with it, and if they have any questions later, they can just find the OM/Head Housekeeper.

As you are wanting a pro-active Event Manager, that should be their primary job. Their first job of the day should be managing breakfast. Why? Because you get to see and talk to everybody at breakfast, and the EM can tell everyone about what events are happening today. When I was EM, I would be mainly talking to guests throughout the day, and telling them where we were going tonight. Kings Cross, Sydney had a very busy nightlife, and lots of the bars were offering free drinks to the hostel, and more people we brought, the more free alcohol we got. If you're living near a similar area, it's probably worth getting your EM to go around to these bars and see if they can do the hostel special prices.

As long as there is an active events programme, with an active EM, then everything else should fall into place. Guests will always want to do something to socialise with other guests.

Do you have signup sheets for the guests to write their names on for events? If not, that's a good idea. Put the sheets in an obvious place so people see them on a regular basis. When you have guests checkin, you should have reception tell them about the events happening today, and events happening during their stay - it's a good way to make an impression.

If any of your events require money to participate, personally I would take payment off them sooner, rather then later. This often because guests change their mind later in the day, and decide they don't want to go out any more. However, if they've paid for an event (even nominal) they will feel like they have to go out, and will go out. So many times I've had people really wanting to go and out party, but when it comes time to go out, you get loads of excuses such as "I'm tired", or "can't be bothered". As soon as they say they want to do something similar, get their money asap so they don't change their mind. Another reason is, people become quite content with just sitting around drinking in the evening and not bothering to go out, however if these people have paid a fee upfront, they will want to do the event. However, it's totally up to you if you want to offer refunds, most people won't even ask if there are refunds for events.

Just remember one thing, people are FICKLE!!!!! :D So keep that in mind when organising events. However, this is where your EM comes in. Often, they have to hard sell and pressure sell the events (even free ones) in order to get guests out. When I say hard sell, I don't mean being rude, but don't take no for answer, most guests need to be told that they are going to have so much fun by going out, and they are being boring by staying in. You need to imply social exclusion, and tell them (in a nice way) that "they are boring, and when they go home their friends are going to ask why they didn't go out, and then you're going to have wished they went out when they had the chance"- you just have to be insistent and tell them how much fun they are going to have. I would often say they might as well come out for the free drinks, and if they don't want to stay out after that, then they are free to go back, and if they were a woman, I would say I would walk back with them if they wanted. Once they were out in the club, most of them didn't want to go back!!! :D However, most of what I said applies in the evening.

You could also pay your EM a commission of 3 shekel for every time they get a person to do certain events (or less, or more, or none). That would definitely encourage the EM to get people out of the hostel.

To sum it up:

Make sure your EM is a fun person, must be able to organise and lead people (basically boss them about), must not be able to take no for an answer, must be pro-active, get reception to tell guests about the events, and they should be doing something in the day (like breakfast) where they get to see guests.

Since you are a large hostel, I'm sure it won't be difficult to get people out to do events. But make make sure the events sound fun (even if it's boring), and the guest's imagination will do the rest. For instance, if the event is watching paint dry, which is very boring, tell them it's the most exciting thing ever - they will never ever ever see paint dry like this. And they will believe you, because you've made it sound fun!!!

If you have any more questions, please ask away. :)

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byron

13 years

Hi
The idea about the events manager doing the breakfast is really good. I am just worried he/she will be very tired as breakfast work starts at 0630 and the events happen in the evening till late.
We do have signup sheets in the reception for events and we charge them right away.
Most of our events are inside the hostel and my goal is to create fun events that will fill up the common area and bar every evening. Otherwise you see only a few people there with many laptops...

The volunteers are not working that hard actually. They have 2 days off each week and mostly their shift does not include "hard" cleaning. We have a weekly meeting every Sunday with all of them.

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rjd1983

13 years

What hours are your breakfast? Let's assume breakfast is from 7am-10am, the event manager should be there approximately at 6.30am before breakfast to make sure the kitchen is clean, and breakfast is ready for the guests.

Come 7am, they should be standing around waiting to clean up any spillages, plates, etc, talking to the guests until 10am. Then come 10am, they should finish the breakfast, and close the kitchen so they can clean (should take about 30 minutes approx). Time now is 10.30am (approx) and the event manager has now finished cleaning, they should now be finished until afternoon/evening. During their off-time, they should (and most likely will) go back to bed, and sleep for a few hours, then wake up in time to start the events. A nice 3-4 hour break would be ideal for them.

Also, if you can (or don't have one) you should place a big whiteboard/noticeboard in the kitchen, and write the daily events down on the board so guests can see what's happening. If it's in the kitchen, then guests will actually stare at it, and pay more attention to it, rather then a piece of paper on wall. How often or long do you stare at a piece of paper on a wall? When you have your meal in the kitchen, what are you usually looking at (if you're not looking at a beautiful guest)? You guessed it, the wall.

Your EM should be a very motivated person, who is willing to approach pubs and clubs (even at your suggestion) and be willing to put the effort in to get guests go out.

The above is of course my opinion, and how I would do it, but since I am not you, and don't know your hostel, you will need to change it around to suite you.

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