On Demand Episode 64 - Hotel Labor & Scheduling Insights

In this episode of Lodging on Demand, Kelsey Higginbotham, Vice President of Operations at Inflow, sits down with lodging to follow the invisible threads of hotel labor. From the instinct-driven scheduling decisions GMs make under pressure to the metrics owners obsess over that don't actually move the needle. Hi, and welcome to Lodging on Demand. This is a podcast for hotel owners, operators who want sharper strategy, smarter operations, and real-world perspective from the people shaping hospitality right now.

I am Jennifer Glatt, the Senior Contributing Editor for Lodging, here with Kelsey Higginbotham, Vice President of Customer Operations at Inflow, the back office management system company, and we are going to be talking labor issues today. And so welcome, Kelsey. Thanks for joining us. And can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Of course. Yes, I am Kelsey Higginbotham, the VP of Customer Operations at Inflow, the hotel management back of the house software and services providers. So what we do is we work with different hotel management companies, making sure that they have the products and services that they need to best succeed in the day to day operations of hotels. OK, great.

Well, let's get right into the conversation. I have a list of questions for you. if you shadowed a hotel general manager for a week where would you see labor decisions being made on instinct instead of data and why is that still so common given all the technology that we have available absolutely if i shadowed a gm for a week i would see instinct driven decisions most often during staffing adjustments tied to occupancy changes especially talking about housekeeping front desk coverage, and even food and beverage shifts.

So when occupancy dips unexpectedly, the instinct is often we'll just cut a shift. And when demand spikes, it's just call in whoever we can. And although those decisions aren't wrong, they're just so reactive. And the challenge is that they're often made without visibility into productivity standards, historical patterns, and the downstream impact on service scores and overtime are directly affected in those scenarios.

Okay. Okay. So labor is typically discussed as a cost. Where have you seen better labor visibility unlock revenue or get satisfaction instead?

Yeah. So for me, the most powerful shift happens when labor is actually viewed as a performance lever and not just an expense line. So, for example, when housekeeping staff aligns precisely with arrival patterns instead of just total occupancy, then your room readiness obviously will improve. That will reduce early check-in friction, front desk bottlenecks, which directly affects guest satisfaction and even upsell opportunities.

We've also seen properties use visibility into productivity to confidently staff your amenities like breakfast or bar service, which can also directly impact revenue and guest satisfaction during those peak windows rather than cutting back preemptively. That often increases revenue because services are actually available when the guests want it, when they're ready, when the breakfast is ready or when dinner service is available. So when operators trust their labor data, they stop overcorrecting and they start staffing intentionally and not defensively, which can unlock both revenue and guest experience gains because that's the number one guest experience is when they initially walk in.

Is that check in, it starts right then and there, and then it will just continue to proceed throughout the guest experience cycle. Okay. How about a labor metric that hotels track religiously? that actually tells them very little?

And what sorts of things should they be watching instead? Yeah, one that we hear about a lot at Inflow is just the labor cost percentage by itself. So it's important, don't get me wrong, but it's also incomplete. So a property can hit a target labor percentage, but still be overstaffed in one department perhaps understaffed in another And it just causes team burnout And you also have missing revenue opportunities So taking a more meaningful lens is productivity by department tied to also like demand drivers, like labor hours, preoccupied room, your labor coverage and food and beverage, and really looking at labor versus your forecast accuracy.

So to me, I think when you pair cost with output and forecast variance, you move from hindsight reporting to really forward looking control. So it's not just did we hit the number, it's did we deploy the right amount of labor at the right time. So making sure that you're taking the more proactive approach, not reactive. Okay.

And how does staff react when they feel like management is being proactive in that regard? Well, they know that they go into the day feeling prepared. So they're not catching up from other people being called in last minute, which can cause a lot of that initial chaos. So being able to start your day confidently, knowing you have the staff to really finish the day well, can just really boost morale, I think, no matter if it's housekeeping or food and beverage.

But if you start your day missing a person, you know, you're just going to be playing constant catch up. Right. So you really, the owners and operators can really set themselves up for success by being proactive. Yeah.

Yes, absolutely. I remember those days of coming in and you had a lot of pickup and you're just constantly behind already. And the fact that it's so, you know, it's the same thing day after day to really start your day confidently can make the world of difference. So that piggybacks on my next question, and you know, what we're talking about, like flexibility and labor, tell me a little bit more about what that can look like at the property level.

Specifically, you know, how software support can assist in that without burning out teams, you know, to take that proactive approach and set the teams up for success. Yeah, absolutely. So for me, I think flexibility, it isn't the last minute schedule changes, which that's just chaos. So true flexibility, I think, is looking at proactive forecasting, clear productivity targets, cross trained teams that can help each other out and schedules that are built with demand ranges in mind.

So when you're thinking about the properties that have a very high shift in occupancy, like the high rate locations, you already know that you have that, you can have that last minute pickup. So focusing on more of the range of the forecast rather than a single point occupancy assumption is critical. and to your point of like how can software support that i think software supports that by giving operators visibility into forecast accuracy trends also looking at overtime before it actually happens and scheduling guardrails that protect both compliance and just team well-being like you said that burnout so when managers can see issues developing days in advance instead of just hours before your shift starts, it really makes your adjustment strategic and not so last minute chaos stressful.

I think to me, like their goal isn't squeezing more out of your people. It's just removing that unpredictability from their work week. Like we were just talking about that last minute chaos of coming in and starting the day and having that more proactive approach. And I remember the days at a hotel, we would take the schedule, print it in Excel and put it on the wall.

Software, I mean, being able to see that from your phone, from your computer, really being able to project that out day to day and not just something that, you know, you created two weeks ago is key. Having that visibility into that, how did the hotel perform last night so you can make more proactive decisions. How about AI? Is that assisting in any of these decisions?

Absolutely. I think it definitely plays into decisions because AI helps you know, you know, what your projected forecasting is gonna look like. So when you initially do that forecast, just taking that single number, but really building that AI into the trends and the historical data to be able to better staff your property accordingly. Okay.

How about for owners overseeing multiple properties Where does labor inconsistency create the biggest drag on performance And how can that centralized visibility that Inflow offers actually improve that local on-the-ground decision-making? Yeah, I think inconsistency in productivity standards is probably the biggest drag when you do have owners that oversee multiple properties. So you might have a property that might staff like 18 rooms per housekeeper, and you might have another one that staff's 14 without really like a clear reasoning behind it.

So being able to multiply that across departments, across properties, and really compound those performance gaps is critical. Having centralized visibility allows owners to identify those variances. So being able to have that visibility at their fingertips to really have that comparison data, not just force uniformity, but really understand why. Maybe the market mix is different.

Maybe the room configuration is a key player in housekeeping. But when data is shared transparently, you have the best practices that you can make better decisions. So for me, I think the key is balance. Centralized insight, one location.

Visibility shouldn't remove autonomy. It should really just inform it. So being able to bring all of that data together on a day-to-day basis so owners really have that visibility is a really key component. These hotels are not siloed.

They're not running by themselves. This is a multiple property organization. Being able to set clear standards, I think, is key for the property operations as well as the owners. And it sounds like it's really strategy at scale, too, for, you know, whatever metrics that the owners and the operators have decided that, you know, that they're moving toward that it's that strategy, but just at scale among all the properties and not, you know, like you said, siloed and making these decisions for this property independent of the one next door, you know.

Oh, yeah. And be able, I mean, as you grow with the different brands and things, they all have their different standards. So being able to run consolidated reports, not just per hotel, like very siloed. You can see how are all of your brands doing compared to some of the standards that some of the franchise companies provide.

And, you know, it used to be everything was very siloed and you're comparing different, just separate Excel sheets to each other, which doesn't really hold much validation. You don't even know if the data is accurate. Having everything pulled directly from just the time clock, taking that manipulation of the data out of it, it's all just up to date to the second is really key. We have a, I know at Inflow, we have a couple of reports that pulls all of like the daily hours together.

And so you can have a regional that's looking at, you know, their eight to 12 properties. And then you have the owner that's looking at all, you know, 30 plus of theirs and having that data like at their fingertips. First thing when they wake up, they can really just have that visibility in the performance rather than six weeks from now, which looking at a P&L, you're like, what happened, you know, early January, no one can tell you what happened. So being able to make and have that understanding, you know, day to day is critical, I think.

Yeah, that real time information to be able to pivot and respond accordingly. So you're not looking in the rearview mirror. Correct. Yes, exactly.

Yeah. Okay, one more question. And where do labor laws, scheduling rules, and overtime thresholds often catch operators off guard? And how can that better forecasting and scheduling help reduce that risk before it shows up as a costly mistake?

Right. Yeah. I mean, just like we were talking about, rather than looking at a P&L six weeks from now and why is the overtime so high, I think for me, over time, it's just the most common surprise. So it often builds quietly, a few hours here and there.

you know, 30 minutes here and there, someone staying late to finish a room, an unexpected group is coming in. And then by the time the payroll closes, like the damage is done. So being able to better like forecast and schedule tools, surfacing those risks before schedules are finalized is a key component. So when managers, when you do your schedule, you're already projecting overtime that can just be a disastrous event so being able to be more proactive to prevent that overtime in advance and make those proactive decisions as the week is going through is the major game changer I think And that goes back to what you were saying earlier with the cross-training staff members and being able to kind of fill those gaps, you know, during that shift so that you don't have to bring somebody in who's specialized in, you know, in that role, which may then occur over time.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, if you're doing your schedule, I know an inflow, it flags anyone that's in overtime from the beginning. And so if I'm scheduling my night auditor, I know they're already being in overtime, you know, they're staying a little bit later. They got to discuss with the next person coming in what happened the night before.

So you're going to naturally have additional hours that are added and you're looking at it day to day and it might not seem so bad, but at the end of a week or two weeks, that overtime wages really add up. So to be able to say, hey, you know, come in a little bit later, I'll cover, you know, four hours for you can really make a big difference when it comes to the bottom line on the P&L. Okay, great. So I have some rapid fire questions to end up to end with.

What is the most common labor fire drill you see on property? employee no called no shows number one it just sends managers and the other department heads into a coverage panic yeah okay how about a scheduling habit that quietly kills margins over scheduling and like we just said over time number one over all the things yes one operational role that is consistently understaffed I think one that is kind of a silent one is your front desk during peak check-in windows. That's when you have the initial guest experience when they first walk in.

That's your number one way to win them over. If they come in, there's already a big line. We all go through the same thing, checking in or going to a restaurant. If there was a huge line, you're immediately like, oh, I'm going to be here way longer than I should.

So being able to set those guest expectations very high from the beginning and being aware of how many arrivals you have coming in to be able to better staff that is key. Yeah. And that's the front doormat to your guest experience. Exactly.

Like you said, that sets the tone right there. What is the biggest misconception about labor management software? That labor management software, it's not about cutting hours. It's not setting strict guidelines.

It's really about deploying hours intentionally depending on what you have going on that day. Okay. How about the labor decision that hotels tend to delay far too long? Probably adjusting productivity standards that no longer reflect current operations.

So scheduling against an outdated forecast that you did a week or so ago and really making those adjustments day-to-day with any changes that me have come up about. Okay. And the last one, what is one signal that tells you a schedule is about to break? Projected overtime before the week even starts.

Definitely honing it and keeping up. I mean, being able to see, like I said earlier, that if your night auditor is already at overtime or pretty close to hitting that max, you know, they're not, they're not locking out the door at 7am. There's going to be a conversation that's had. They're talking to the breakfast team, being able to staff accordingly and really project that and prevent that as much as possible from the beginning.

Okay. Well, thank you for the conversation, Kelsey. That is it for this episode of Lodging on Demand. If you found value in the conversation, please subscribe, share it with a fellow hotelier, and we'll see you next time with more insight for operators in motion.

All right. Well, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. If anyone would like to know more about Inflow, feel free to visit our website.

And in the meantime, appreciate the time. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you. Bye.

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