Aparium Hotel Group Hiring For Rooms Operations Manager (sme Guest Services), Field Support at Chicago, IL, United States Full Time

Job Description

Rooms Operations Manager – Field Support

s to: Area Director of Operations + General Manager

THE ROLE

As a member of the Aparium Headquarters team, the Rooms Operations Manager – Field Support s directly to the Area Director of Operations with a dotted line to the support property General Manager. The person in this position must be tactical and strategic; if you only prefer to “see the forest” and not “plant the trees” then this is not a role for you. All leaders of Aparium are required to get down and dirty to unearth existing needs and personally ensure what needs to be fixed is repaired. We are a young company that is in hyper-growth, so having the ability to be a soldier is as critical as being a general. As field support, you will be deployed to Aparium Hotel Operations and will be responsible for developing, guiding, and working directly with our field teams in Guest Services and Housekeeping by ensuring they are living the company’s operating principle of translocal hospitality through your hotel’s people and programming. To be successful as a leader within Aparium Hotel Group, you will work with a phenomenal group of peers who insist that you are collaborative, humble, experienced, and open-minded – no egos are allowed.

As a field representative of Aparium HQ, you will be expected to lead change through influence, collaborative leadership, and joint accountability with our leaders and teams in the field. A large degree of self-motivation and adaptability is required for this role. You will be expected to travel when and where needed and for long periods during openings and hotel operation transitions.

WHO WE ARE

Aparium has recently been awarded Travel + Leisure’s Top 25 Hotel Brands Worldwide. When launched in 2011, Aparium saw a clear need for a company that could bring c-suite service and accommodations to underserved yet distinct and important cities while maintaining and celebrating the unadulterated character of each. Driven by the belief that the poetics of their surroundings should fuel all hospitality experiences, Aparium was born with an intense focus on unearthing the amazing moments unique to every city. Since its founding, the company has grown into a new kind of hotel brand that ventures off the beaten path, both geographically and philosophically. It is a sophisticated hotel brand known for its singular ability to combine the business acumen of large hospitality companies with the charm of boutique hotels, bringing the disparate forces together in bustling, smaller markets.

WHO YOU ARE

Your experiences have led you to understand the art + science of how and what a hospitality professional is responsible for. Not all remedies can be outlined in a training manual. You see hospitality, not as a career choice but as a calling. You are humble and understand the need to work side by side with others, and you take feedback to make things better seriously. It is quite natural for you to walk into a hotel and want to fluff every pillow you see, judge the level of cleanliness or ask the front desk what type of system they are using. You get excited about how amenities are packaged, a guest service story created by an employee’s intuition and not a standard or implementing a new service concept. You have great pride in having worked your way through a variety of room division department head roles. It’s easy for you to rattle off the hotel standards that are difficult to achieve, policies and procedures that you believe need to be revised, and possibly strip a bed faster than the best housekeeper. For you to feel comfortable within our portfolio you will have familiarity with secondary markets and recognize that hospitality differs from city to city and even from neighborhood to neighborhood. You are comfortable with casual sophistication and realize the concept of luxury has evolved to be approachable and not cookie-cutter.

WHAT YOU WILL NEED

• May travel up to 80% of the time; sometimes more, sometimes less and may be short notice
• Minimum of five (5) years of hospitality experience, with a mix of guest service and housekeeping experience
• Minimum of two years (2) years consecutive management experience in hotel rooms operations
• Bachelor’s degree in Hospitality or related field or equivalent work experience
• Adaptable interpersonal skills to communicate and address all employee levels of the hotel
• Professional proficiency in the English language in reading, writing, and verbal communication
• Ability to lift, balance, and carry up to 50 lbs.
• Ability to stand or walk for prolonged periods to serve guests, and assist others

WHAT YOU WILL DO

• Uphold and model the company’s principles of People, Place, and Character; and ensure your team also models the way our values drive collaboration, intuition, and translocal hospitality
• Build and maintain a trusting and transparent relationship with all stakeholders, explicitly developing rapport and respect with the hotel Directors of Hotel Operations and General Managers.
• Refine and implement world-class tools, training, systems, and back-office processes that enable operations to run efficiently and effectively behind the scenes
• Assist during the transition of leadership roles by filling in for those roles throughout the recruitment process. Those roles may be related to (but are not limited to) guest services leadership, housekeeping leadership and EC level Hotel Operations leadership.
• Actively recruit, hire, onboard, coach, support, and inspire our Hotel Operations leaders to become the best service professionals they can be and be able to deploy yourself to a hotel when needed to support openings, leadership transitions, training, and programming implementations for Hotel Operations.
• Be a subject matter expert in advising during the annual budgeting process; helping to establish goals based on a proforma, competitive set, current performance trends, and all other information available; and participate in budgeting, forecasting, proposing, and purchasing OSE for Hotel Operations in the pre-opening stages of development
• Assist and educate our Hotel Operations in establishing strategic operating and improvement plans and relentlessly follow through on the execution and results of the plans by critically evaluating ongoing business performance, letting numbers, facts, and experience-based intuition guide the evolution of your management plan to achieve forecasts and/or budget
• Proactively advise on outlet staff onboarding & training, continuous education exercises, recruitment tactics, and opening & closing procedures.
• Assist in identifying root causes of service issues and advise on actions to sustainably correct them with your expert knowledge of all hotel operation items
• Actively research and work with the HQ team to create implementation plans for enterprise technology related to guest services, housekeeping, and guest communication
• Collaborate with the F&B Director, Lifestyle, and Sales leaders to strategize on innovative ways to drive revenues with healthy flow through in mind
• Demonstrate passion and aptitude for all aspects of a guest’s experience, handling all guest interactions with the highest level of hospitality and professionalism, accommodating special requests whenever possible; serve as the shepherd of all on-property experiences and able to uncover the details that will add a special touch for guests and associates that turn into a memory
• Fluent in operational metrics, KPI’s and P&L’s and demonstrates critical thinking skills by connecting those with operational observations; provides coaching and corrective action that targets root causes of issues and the highest priorities in the operation of the Rooms Division
• Works directly with outside contracted companies to assure quality and timeliness of work while prioritizing the guest experience and developing long-term partnerships
• Champion Aparium divisional and hotel-wide initiatives and best practices (Guest Service Ambassador Program, Property Tours, Onboarding Success Checklists, Training and SOP’s) by ensuring you take time to communicate and/or train on the purpose of each initiative.
• Communicate regularly with the Area Director of Operation to provide updates and align on priorities, discuss plans, and request any additional resources to support the operations; and any additional tasks and responsibilities as requested by the GM in support of a successful operation

HOW YOU LEAD

• Exemplify leading by example by working directly with each member of your team and be willing to coach and counsel with gentle correction and critical but constructive feedback
• Openly collaborate with all departments in the hotel to provide an exemplary guest experience; be comfortable in debating ideas before implementing a decision that will impact operations property-wide, as we do not work in silos
• Be respectful in your daily interactions with your direct managers, direct s, and your peers; be an example of the utmost professionalism and a pillar in your community
• Highly analytical in thought and recommendations; although will never act like the smartest person in the room; and continually seek out the facts; can express a point of view without it be driven by an ego
• Engage others in general conversation tactics to build rapport quickly; and can lead and adapt communication and presentation tactics to engage audience; displays adaptable interpersonal skills for a wide range of audiences and stakeholders
• Approach fact finding and discovery missions in a collaborative effort; values input and experiences of others that creates additional insight to uncover deeper issues that need to be addressed or removed as a barrier to implementation
• Passionate in driving results of your efforts to influence others to take direction and execute on strategy through tactical methods; and is comfortable in prioritizing their work and that of others
• Comfortable in being a “general” in identifying strategic needs, yet can be a “soldier” to ensure the implementation of a strategic plan is implemented
• Prioritizes and organizes their own work, when necessary, by working flexible or extended hours to accommodate increased workload; to flex to the needs of an opening hotel or short-notice assistance.

As an Equal Opportunity Employer, Aparium Hospitality Services celebrates diversity and is committed to creating an equitable and inclusive environment and sense of belonging for all employees. We do not discriminate and believe every individual should be proud of who they are, where they come from, and take pride in who we serve.