Managing staff in the hospitality industry

Francesca:
I'm Francesca Folonari, owner of Relais del Cabreo, which is a small independent hotel, actually two small independent hotels in Chianti, south of Florence in Italy.

Shaked:
What are the biggest challenges in managing your staff today?

Francesca:
I think this year we were very lucky to find very good people. So there's a nice atmosphere.

The problem is more with the people that we use from outsourcing companies, like cleaning companies. So we can't really control the quality of their work.

So the only thing that we can do and we have done is have one of our personnel sort of like housekeeping and who looks after and trains every time the new staff that is sent to us by the outside suppliers.

You can't have a mix system. So like a few of your staff and a few of the outside staff, because otherwise you don't get the commitment. So it's better to have just one from us overseeing and making sure that the quality that we want to achieve is maintained.
And then everything is from the outside so we can have a bit more control in a difficult environment.

Shaked:
What would be like one key tip that you would like to share with small business owners or new managers just starting their business or starting a new boutique hotel?

Francesca:
Just be there most of the time and listen to what customers have to say.
I mean, we've been running one of the two hotels for six years and we still make changes.

We still fine tune, you know, the smallest details.
So that's really, I think, the key. And, you know.