Fixing hospitality ops — one step at a time

Improve your hospitality operations with our step-by-step guide. Learn how to identify problem areas, implement solutions, and streamline your processes for greater efficiency and success. Read more now and take your business to the next level.
Wil Grace
 • 
Apr 2023
4 min read
Hospitality General Manager

Justin, General Manager

“I spend 4 hours in the back office every day. My email is overwhelming, the software is confusing and temperamental, and our most important processes are still on paper.”

Hospitality Operations Manager

Mike, Operations Manager

“I don’t know how my teams are getting on. Some are underperforming but I can’t see who or why, critical processes are missed and we can’t train staff as fast as we’re losing them.”

Hospitality Head of Ops

Sarah, Head of Ops

“I can’t scale the operations reliably. I don’t have enough good managers, consistency and standards are falling behind and my reports don’t paint a complete picture.

The Magic Bullet

There isn’t one. No single ‘Enterprise Solution’ will fix your woes — in fact, you’re more likely to be locked in to the wrong one for years.

Instead, create your ideal operations through a family of modern, well-connected, well designed apps — each of which does one thing well.

One area that’s so difficult to get right at an expanding business is compliance & consistency. Here are some tips:

1. Demolish the back office

Not literally (yet), but get your best people out of there. The tools used every day should work on any device — including personal mobiles. Millenials expect beautiful, fast and incredibly simple apps — give them tools they’ll want to use every day. Oh, and paper is so last century.

2. Trust your team (within reason)

Micromanagement doesn’t work, it makes people sad :( But what about new hires? And critical processes? Try allocating windows of time — start & end — within which to complete tasks. So long as it’s done by the deadline then all’s good, right? And the autonomy makes people happy :)

3. The right tools at the right time

An inbox full of email has a cognitive load each time you open it. Same with a long checklist, especially if most can’t be completed now. Teams should be given just the tasks, information and tools at the point they’re needed. And if there’s nothing to do? Inbox Zero!

4. Connected, automated

In the old days (2005), websites and software were like lonely islands of valuable information. Now, APIs provide bridges between the islands. The best tools take information from all those islands and translates it into new, automated workflows — often removing the task altogether.

5. It’s all bad news

A nice green graph is lovely, but what good is a positive report without actions? Focus on exceptions & actions and soon you won’t need the report at all. This is where context is key

Context puts the onus on the product to deliver information that is relevant within a user’s workflow.

Enter Trail

Those stories at the start? They’re real people. We’ve spent hours on the floor with overwhelmed teams and frustrated managers — we know their pain.

So we built Trail. A super simple timeline of tasks for teams to follow through the day, which answers “What do I need to do now?”. Connect other apps and you have a single destination for all your processes.

It’s not a magic bullet, but it’s fast. It’s easy to roll out with no training. It plays nicely with all your other systems. And it does one thing extremely well — it keeps your teams on track.

So how to fix hospitality ops? Just follow the Trail

Hospitality team

If you’re struggling with growing sites, departments or teams, we can help!
Drop us an email at hello@trailapp.com and we’ll show you how.

What customers are saying

"I f****** love Trail, it's taking my businesses to the next level."
Josh Paterson
Owner
"We rarely provide training to our guys, they just bought into the idea straight away. I love that I have a full visual of everyone's activity in front of me."
Katrin Toots
Compliance Manager
“It’s not a paper diary that’s covered in barbecue sauce. We have clarity over what’s done in our sites and are confident going into our audits.”
Jay Brown
Operations
“The EHO visited almost every site last year and every store was given a five star rating."
Jay Brown
Operations Chef
"We turned our Costa Checks and various compliance forms into regular tasks on Trail, which has contributed to some of the best scores we have had."
Delroy Daniels
Operations Director
"Our teams love it, it gives our managers of all levels absolute clarity on what they need to achieve every day."
James Brown
Operations Director

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