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| Describe a typical day? |
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There is no typical day. On Monday, at 07:15, I’m in the office, and I will walk the hotel and say good morning to everyone, whether it’s in the kitchen or the offices. You’re checking that everything is clean, operating well, up to standard and that everyone is in the places that they should be.
I go to my office and do a little bit of paperwork prior to 08:30. At 08:30 every morning we do lineup, where all my managers and supervisors are represented by department, and we discuss what’s happening in a given day, and who we are and how we do business.
From there I meet with the executive team for about 15 minutes, where we discuss some of the daily challenges and upcoming meetings for the day. Normally the morning is a series of different meetings, with customers, guests, associates, vendors, whatever the case may be.
Up until lunchtime, we try to be involved on the floor, for example tasting the soup prior to lunch or engaging with guests. The afternoon tends to be another series of meetings, these could be financially driven, or quality driven, marketing, you name it, all the way until dinner starts at 18:30, when you are again on the floor engaging customers.
It depends on the day of the week, but normally I finish at around 19:30. If its busy, for example in the ballroom or with different events, or if there’s people you need to say hello to, then I finish later.
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| What are the main tasks and responsibilities? |
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Making sure that the hotel is successful, financially for us as a company and for our owners.
Maintaining the level of service throughout the hotel, whether its the food or interaction with guests, to the marketing and positioning of the hotel.
That it’s sold in the right way and positioned well financially, and that we remain an integral part of our community.
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| What are the main challenges? |
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Number one is to ensure that the hotel is financially secure and that it’s a profitable entity.
Number two is, in a fast paced environment, not just to maintain a very high quality of service but to work every day to improve it.
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| What's cool? |
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What I enjoy is the people that you meet, the friends that you make. I find it cool to be given a significant challenge and find ways to overcome it. I think that there’s great satisfaction whether it’s cool or not, it’s rewarding.
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| What's not so cool? |
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The part that I least enjoy is when we would lose an employee.
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| What particular skills do you bring to your workplace? |
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Skills and knowledge tend to intertwine, skills that you learn over 20 years in the business, starting out with the very basics from your culinary background, to attending the kitchen, to your time in food and beverage, whether in restaurants, food operations or office operations.
Having a wide array of skills really gives you a wide base to work from. When you’ve personally operated in most positions throughout a hotel, the further you go up the line, the easier it is to understand what it takes to put them all together.
I wouldn’t categorise our industry as a set of skills. If someone wants to be a chef, there’s a set of skills that needs to go behind that, if someone wants to be a director of finance, that individual would want to have a great attention to detail, and be meticulous in their approach to work and to life. If someone wants to be a beverage manager, the ability to communicate and the ability to engage guests is essential.
As a manager, you have to encompass all of those skills. In the hotel industry we tend to encompass many many many skills, but 5% of what we do is in the skills, 95% is in how we apply ourselves.
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| How did you go about getting your current job? |
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The Marriott International Hotel Group has in place an ongoing development process for all managers. Through this process I would have received feedback from senior leadership that they felt I was ready to take on a role at this level.
I subsequently applied for this position and following an interview was successful, which resulted in my transfer to the Shelbourne Hotel.
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