To achieve its vision, mission, goals and objectives, every hotel needs a formal structure known as the organizational structure. The structure defines the distribution of responsibility and authority among the company's management staff and employees.
It determines the form and scope of roles, power, and responsibilities and determines how information flows between different organizational levels. This structure depends entirely on the purpose of the organization and the strategies chosen to achieve them.
The most common way to represent the organizational structure is in an organization chat. Since each hotel has different and unique features, the organization schemes of the hotels also differ from each other. The organizational structure depends on the size and function of a hotel.
Some hotels may lease their outlets to another company or use another agency to operate the restaurant or cleaning services. In such cases, these parts will not be included in the organization chart of the hotel. An example organizational chart of a commercial hotel is as follows:
Core Areas/Divisions of the Hotel
The organization of a hotel today is very complex and consists of several departments. The number of departments varies from one organization to another. All departments may have their own managers, depending on the general manager and the assistant general manager.
Hotel departments fall under the category of Revenue generating departments or Support departments.
Revenue generating departments are the operational departments that sell services or products to the guest and thus generate revenue directly to the hotel. These departments include the front desk, food and beverage, and hotel-run shops.
Support departments are those that indirectly help generate revenue by playing a supporting role in the revenue generating departments of the hotel. These include human resources, maintenance, purchasing, cleaning, etc.
The various sections in a hotel are briefly discussed below:
Room Division Department
In a large hotel, housekeeping, front desk and maintenance departments are under the room department. Together, these departments are responsible for the maintenance and sale of a hotel room. In most hotels, these are departments that directly or indirectly generate more revenue than other departments. This is because room sales make up a minimum of 50 percent of a hotel's revenue.
A hotel's largest profit margin comes from the room because once a room is made, it can be sold over and over again. The room division is managed by the room division manager to whom the front desk manager, the executive housekeeper and often the chief engineer report.
room cleaning department
The housekeeping department is responsible for the cleaning and maintenance of the front facades of the house areas as well as the back areas of the house, so that the hotel property looks as fresh and aesthetically appealing as the first day it was put into operation. This department is managed by the executive housekeeper or the housekeeping manager in chain hotels.
Front Office Department
The front office department, managed by the front office manager, is the operational department responsible for welcoming and registering guests, allocating rooms and helping guests check-out. Uniformed services such as concierge and bell desk and EPBAX operators are part of the front desk department.
maintenance department
The maintenance department, also called the engineering and maintenance department, is managed by the chief engineer or chief maintenance officer. The department is responsible for all maintenance, repair and engineering works of equipment, machinery, fixtures and fittings.
Food and Beverage Department
The food and beverage (F&B) section includes restaurants, bars, cafes, banquets, room service, kitchen and bakery. The department is chaired by the food and beverage manager. Restaurants, bars, cafes, banquettes and room can be grouped under the food and beverage service department specifically headed by the food and beverage manager, while the kitchen and bakery fall under the food and beverage production department headed by the executive chef.
human resources department
The human resources (HR) department, or personnel department as it was previously called, is headed by the human resources manager. Recruitment, orientation, training, employee welfare and compensation, labor laws and safety norms for hotels fall within the scope of the HR department.
The education department is an auxiliary department of the HR department. This is chaired by the training manager, who takes on a specific task such as the orientation and training of current employees as well as new employees.
Sales and Marketing Department
The sales and marketing department is headed by the sales and marketing manager. A large hotel may have three or more employees in this department, while a small hotel may do so with just one employee.
The function of this department is fivefold - sales, personal relations, advertising, MICE (meeting, promotion, conference and exhibition) business acquisition and market research. All these functions are common to sell the hotel's product, i.e. rooms and hotel services, by 'creating' the customer.
leads to its purpose.
The purchasing department
The purchasing department is led by the purchasing manager, who may report to the financial controller on some properties. The procurement of all departmental inventories is the responsibility of the purchasing department. In most hotels, central stores are part of the purchasing division.
Financial Control Department
Also called control department, the financial control department is headed by the financial controller, who is responsible for approving all the inventory items of the operational departments. Stock control procedures are the responsibility of the division.
The financial controller is responsible for finalizing the budgets prepared by the general manager and other department heads. The accounts of the hotel are also kept by the control department. Accounting activities include paying for bills, issuing invoices, collecting payments, generating statements, executing bank transactions, processing employee payroll data and preparing hotel financial statements.
Security Department
Led by chief security officers, the security department is responsible for protecting the hotel's assets, guests and employees. Their duties include conducting fire drills, monitoring surveillance equipment and patrolling the property.
