Marsham Court Hotel case study
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Meet the team
- Who: James Dixon-Box
- Role: Operations Director
- Business: Marsham Court Hotel
- Where: Bournemouth, Dorset
That serves up
- A focus on community and sustainability
- Flexibility on shifts and hours for staff
- A healthy work/life balance for improved mental health
Who is Marsham Court Hotel?
Marsham Court Hotel is a four-star, 95-bedroom hotel in Bournemouth, boasting beautiful sea views. It has dog-friendly rooms, wedding and event spaces and even a heated outdoor pool.
The hotel has been in (and run by) the Dixon-Box family for over 37 years, with sibling trio Rosie, James and Russell currently at the helm.
And that family ethos stretches to the staff, who are the backbone of the business. Marsham Court Hotel ensures its 94-person team gives everyone control over when and how they work.
There's a strong focus on accessibility – and not only for guests, but staff too. As a Disability Confident Leader, Marsham Court Hotel employs a high number of people with a declared disability, compared to the industry average. And they work with organisations to offer placements and work experience for the disabled community.
It’s just one example of the inclusive, family-driven community they have created at the hotel, which leads to engaged staff, motivated teams and happy guests.
The challenge
Managing rotas and timesheets in a changing industry
“Covid and Brexit changed our industry massively in terms of the way people wanted to work,” James told us.
“I think the younger generation in particular, of which we employ a lot, want more control over their work-life balance and when they can work and when they can't.”
Staff happiness and a healthy work/life balance are incredibly important to James and his team, which is why the number of staff has increased in recent years. Where they used to have 75 staff working longer hours, they now have 94 working fewer hours with greater flexibility.
It’s a win-win approach, giving the staff that much-needed flexibility, while giving James more options for cover on busier weeks without being tied to anything long-term.
But it comes at a price. James was manually creating rotas in Excel while trying to juggle the different needs of 94 employees. It took hours each week, with multiple changes needed and lots of confusion for staff.
“I was trying to do rotas and give everyone flexibility, but I was managing 94 people contacting me with different availability that was constantly changing. So I was looking for a tool to help me manage that availability and manage how people wanted to work.”
Add to that things like manual timesheets, payroll, managing sick leave and tracking holidays, and James and his managerial team were losing a lot of time. Time that could be spent on the floor, supporting their staff and interacting with guests.
The solution
Creating a happy, engaged community
It wasn’t just lost hours that were creating a headache for James and his team. It also meant confusion and uncertainty for staff, last-minute changes and missed opportunities for extra work or shift swapping.
If extra cover was needed on a certain night, for example, it would mean emailing each department to find someone. And once the shift had been filled, there would inevitably be other people emailing in only to be disappointed. It led to confusion and frustration for employees.
But with Planday everything can be communicated quickly and easily. Not to mention the 30 hours a month James estimates he’s saved – giving him the flexibility to work on other things and get out of the office and into the hotel.
“It’s not just about scheduling and it’s not just about payroll. It’s about communication. My team can communicate their availability with me, and I can communicate schedules and what shifts are available really easily.”
And James has been quick to use some of the other features of Planday, beyond scheduling and timesheets, to create that sense of community and family that is so important to Marsham Court Hotel.
The messaging feature has come in very handy for communicating announcements, team meetings and operational changes, while the newsfeed feature is set to become a big part of their staff engagement.
“A big focus for us this year is sustainability and the work we do with community charities, but also employee welfare and mental health within the hotel,” James told us.
“And a lot of that is going to revolve around team engagement. So the newsfeed is how we’re going to keep the team engaged with what’s going on in the business and how they can help.”
“I love using Planday. It has completely transformed my whole job and made my life so much easier. It has so many great features, and centralising everything has made it much quicker to communicate with my whole team.”
The result
Better communication, happier staff
Managing such a huge team, with so many differing priorities, is always going to be a challenge. But with regular communication and engagement with their staff, Marsham Court Hotel has created a happy work environment full of motivated people.
“Generally I think my team are just happy to pick up a shift and muck in, which is another byproduct of their positive mental health,” James said.
“If people are finding life stressful and you ask them to work a last-minute shift, they’re going to say no. But if they’re happy and content and have a good-work life balance, they’ll be more willing to help out. It’s all cyclical.”
Responding to changing customer habits
Customer habits have changed in recent years, with everything much more last-minute nowadays. Couple that with a young workforce and James has found it best to schedule shifts two weeks in advance.
Planday helps make this possible. Features like open shifts make it easy to fill the schedule, and the simple shift-swapping option puts the control fully in employees’ hands.
“I hadn’t really considered Planday as the right option for us, because I thought our rotas were too complicated for a system like this,” James said.
“But I love using Planday. It has completely transformed my whole job and made my life so much easier. It has so many great features, and centralising everything has made it much quicker to communicate with my whole team.”
“Scheduling used to invade my whole week, but now I don’t have to think about it until I sit down to do that schedule. It’s already there for me. I've got to the point with Planday where I can pump out a weekly rota in an hour max, whereas it used to take me three.”
Looking to the future
And this sense of community is going to be vital as Marsham Court Hotel looks to the future, with big changes on the horizon for the hotel.
The last few years have seen a real focus on accessibility, for both customers and staff. And the business is now building on that with a focus on sustainability and mental health.
They already have Mental Health First Aiders on site, and a large number of the team are mental health aware, but they’re going even further. They’ll soon be working with the Burnt Chef Project – an initiative to improve mental health across the hospitality industry.
Beyond that, they’re about to embark on a huge project to fully replace the hotel’s plumbing, which will include 95 new bathrooms and an extension to the restaurant to make roof space for new air conditioning units.
It’s a huge undertaking, but with their commitment to their team’s mental health and happiness, backed up by regular, open communication, it’s a challenge they’ll meet together as a family.
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