Leading innovator of labor and task optimization technology demonstrates the four key pillars required to achieve effective shift coverage and high-quality service while maximizing staff loyalty and hotel revenues.
DALLAS, TX – UniFocus, a leading provider of Workforce Management Systems, announce its participation as an official exhibitor at the upcoming Lodging Conference in Phoenix, Arizona. Taking place September 27-30, this year’s event will see UniFocus provide key insight into how hoteliers can plan, align, execute and validate their labor and task management strategies to achieve the heightened level of optimization and flexibility that today’s industry demands. In addition to exhibiting at the conference, COO Ken Heymann will be speaking on a panel discussing how to keep top talent, train to build a strong workforce, and foster a healthy, engaging environment.
“Hoteliers more than ever need to be able to make informed decisions over how and where they utilize their available labor resources to prevent service gaps or misalignment of staffing from affecting a property’s profit margins and reputation,” said UniFocus CEO, Mark Heymann. “With so much at stake, our mission for this year’s Lodging Conference is to educate attendees over the key labor and operational areas that must be addressed in order to be able to deal with current market challenges. By demonstrating how hoteliers can raise the IQ of their workforce management processes at each stage of their overall strategy, we look forward to empowering Lodging Conference attendees with the exact capabilities required to maintain a competitive business able to attract guests and potential employees alike.”
Workforce Planning
With effective planning serving as the first essential step in maintaining both workforce and operational efficiency, UniFocus will offer insight into how today’s advanced labor management platforms can seamlessly automate the process while providing vital real-time analytics into a property’s precise staffing needs. This includes demonstrating how the company’s intelligent, AI-based algorithms can instantly forecast the number of employees required to achieve service level goals by shift and department based on anticipated fluctuations in demand. With UniFocus, attendees can further learn how its labor management platform can link daily labor standards to a property’s budgeting processes and parameters, ensuring accurate labor costs, better performance, and seamless alignment with hotel business priorities. As a fully comprehensive labor management solution provider, UniFocus will also showcase how its platform can even fully automate shift scheduling processes, saving hours of time for managers while ensuring an ideal balance of both team member and business needs.
Operational Alignment
Key to any successful labor strategy is the ability to effectively communicate and coordinate workforce plan objectives and requirements. For this stage, UniFocus is set to demonstrate how its Time & Attendance solution offers a smarter approach to communication between managers and staff, minimizing any potential for assigned shifts to be overlooked. A powerful mobile-enabled platform, Time & Attendance can instantly alert employees to any assigned shifts while providing managers with immediate insight into any attendance issues needing to be addressed. With its smart time clock capabilities, Time & Attendance further ensures that managers know precisely when an employee clocks in or out and whether there are any potential overtime concerns.
In showcasing the all-new ShiftGenius, UniFocus will demonstrate how hotels can automatically align business needs with the individual needs of their employees without reducing service quality. As more employees look for job opportunities that can accommodate modern expectations for work/life balance flexibility, ShiftGenius is currently the only solution able to empower employees with the ability to select their own schedule, based on UniFocus’ industry-leading algorithms that accurately reflect upcoming shift needs. Eliminating any risk of mis-applied staffing throughout the day, ShiftGenius is further credited with minimizing administrative tasks and providing managers with the opportunity to focus on more immediate priorities.
Also new to this year’s Lodging Conference is Odin, an intelligent assistant specifically designed to equip operators with the relevant, timely data they need to make the best labor management decisions for their business, staff and guests every day. Odin’s analytical insights include sharing daily actionable reports on demand projections, past performance and critical issues that need to be addressed before the day ends. Odin can further highlight open shifts that may require a staff schedule realignment and is also able to track shift swap or time-off requests as well as overtime hours by pay period and much more.
Seamless Strategy Execution
With UniFocus’ recent acquisition of Knowcross, a global leader in developing and delivering operational optimization software for the hospitality industry, attendees can next learn how they can translate their workforce strategies into the highest possible level of employee efficiency. This includes providing demonstrations of KNOW Housekeeping and KNOW Maintenance, solutions credited with creating double-digit improvements in staff productivity using mobile-based task assignment and coordination. Other operational optimization platforms to be showcased include KNOW Glitch, a solution able to instantly identify any service quality issues requiring immediate attention, and KNOW Inspection, an advanced tool capable of sharing smartphone compatible task checklists for even greater operational visibility, responsiveness, and efficiency.
Workforce Strategy Validation
Critical to a hotel’s ongoing success and ability to provide the level of service that today’s guests expect is the ability to analyze and benchmark the performance of labor management strategies. With this in mind, UniFocus’ comprehensive workforce management expertise will also be on offer to Lodging Conference attendees on how they can keep an active pulse on the health and shifting needs of their organization. This includes providing demonstrations of UniFocus’ innovative dashboard which in addition to a range of analytical capabilities, can automatically benchmark property performance in comparison to other hotels within a portfolio or within the same market segment.
With employee and guest feedback likewise essential to determining if a workforce strategy is delivering intended results, UniFocus also provides hospitality professionals with instantly accessible guest and employee engagement survey abilities. Unlike the cumbersome and time-consuming processes associated with annual surveys, UniFocus surveys are developed using the company’s years of industry expertise and through a range of template options, provide hoteliers with the effortless ability to select questions that are most relevant to their current performance benchmarking needs. Able to be shared via email or SMS as well as in an individual’s preferred language, UniFocus Surveys ensure maximum engagement and the ability for hoteliers to discover what matters the most in the minds of their guests and employees.
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales.
She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
