Four Seasons in Park Lane, London, is a one-of-a-kind hotel with a world-class reputation. While guests relax at the Four Seasons, staff members strive to provide an unforgettable experience to anyone walking through the doors of the iconic hotel.Deploying labour strategically to meet customer demand is a challenging task.However, managing labour efficiently while protecting profits is now crucial to ensure ongoing profitability, at a time of global economic recovery.
Challenges
Throughout the years, the iconic Four Seasons Hotel, Park Lane, London, operated with a traditional labour model, hiring core team members on 40 hours contracts to ensure maximum coverage to deliver the five star experiences their guests had come to expect.
However, adoption of this traditional labour model meant that departments heads didn’t have the flexibility to adjust labour scheduling to actual customer demand, resulting in wasted labour costs or under-staffing during quieter periods and peak season. Building staff rotas on spreadsheets was also a manual, time-consuming process, making it hard for department managers to adjust rotas and communicate with staff members efficiently on time.
Results
Moved the scheduling busy work from manual spreadsheets to managers using Fourth’s dynamic employee scheduling software.
Deployed labour efficiently by adopting Fourth’s forecasting model that uses hotel specific labour standards and actual service demand to calculate the optimal hours required for all jobs, across departments.
Utilised daily and weekly reports, detailing labour performance KPIs, to help department managers and finance understand the direct impact of labour costs on the bottom line.
Download a free copy of this success story to discover how Four Seasons took advantage of Fourth’s workforce management software to drive efficiency and increase productivity.
“Labour is a big cost in our business. Probably the biggest cost. It is essential we show a return on the business. I have been using the solution to show our owners that these are the tools we are using to improve awareness; to improve flexibility; to be more productive and drive productivity.”
— Mathias Cocuron, Regional Director of Finance, The Four Seasons Hotel
