Mora Hotell & Spa
Delivering outstanding hotel experiences for your guests is the best way to stand out from the competition and grow your business. So how can you unlock the most from your best asset, your people? The Planday Blog sat down with Petter Lund, Mora Hotell & Spa’s Head of Operations. He is using a smart shift planning system to manage staff, communications and payroll. It minimises time spent on scheduling from a week’s work to two hours.
About Mora Hotell & Spa
Mora Hotell & Spa was established in1830 and is situated in the heart of Mora, Sweden, with an unbeatable view of Lake Siljan and beautiful landscapes of Dalecarlia. Attracting thousands of guests from all over the world in the Swedish summer or magical white winter, Mora Hotell & Spa’s 90 staff have plenty of activities and adventures ready for the visitors to discover while staying in luxury at this hotel.
Petter Lund
Operations Manager
Mora Hotell & Spa
“Planday does and delivers what I hoped for. It has really helped us to reduce our costs and focus on what we need to do more,”
Share important information fast
To create the best-possible experiences, staff need the best-possible information, Petter says. Sharing information quickly and delegating tasks online, as well as catching up on progress and changes, helps managers run the day-to-day business better.
“Everyone is using Planday, even our head office. We use it both for scheduling and internal communication because it is much easier. You can use it on your phone and communicate in an instant,” Petter says.
“To give job instructions to our staff, such as our maintenance people and cleaning staff is easy and done instantly in Planday. When things need to be done right away, staff get the message on their phones.”
“The flexibility makes it easy for us to reduce the number of staff using the system during low season and increase it during high season”.
Easy and user-friendly scheduling tool
Keeping track of staff hours with help of the punch clock, monitoring hours worked and using the reporting tool for better predictions has become easy with Planday.
“We keep track of staff and get a hold of who has clocked in and who hasn’t in Planday, so that we’re able to hurry and solve any challenge or situation that may arise in the daily operations,” Petter says.
“We don’t give work orders in the usual way that many companies do. Instead, we give a heads up to our staff saying: ‘Have this in mind’ or ‘Remember we need to do this on Friday’”.
“These days people live with their phones rather than using them, so it’s easier for us to reach (out) to staff”.
Run instant reports to understand your operations.
Petter says Planday has revolutionised his reporting system, giving him an instant insight into staff attendance and vacation data.
“Planday is a great system if you need to dive into certain areas of work or evaluate your employees and their performance. It’s a useful tool if you need to get an overview of you employees’ sick leave and vacation,” Petter says.
“Planday is easy to understand and easy to use. Last summer when we used it for the first time after implementing the system, 45 seconds after I left the room, my phone started pinging because people we’re already applying for shifts”.
One week-long task down to two hours
Scheduling your employees effectively can be a challenging task, even if you’re using an online software solution. Petter tells us he had been using three different systems before deciding to go with Planday.
“One of our shift leaders used to spend roughly a working week doing the summer schedule for 10 weeks, but with Planday they spend around two hours, so that is really the biggest single improvement,” Petter says.
“It’s easy to do the schedules and Planday integrates well with our HR, Payroll and POS-system. Using our payroll system Hogia and Trivec as the POS-system with Planday means my economy assistant or accounts team doesn’t have to spend that much working time on the wages.
“The reporting tool also helps us do better budgets and planning of the overall working year. Being able to get an overview of how much you have sold, comparing to our budgets, helps me keep track of where we are in terms of monthly goals and do predictions”.
Employees can swap shift themselves in the app
Strong businesses run on smart and streamlined communications systems. Petter quickly discovered the day-to-day benefits of sharing important information with his staff in an instant.
“It took less than one working week for everyone to adapt to the system. First day or so a few staff were a bit hesitant, but the younger people adapted to Planday quite fast. Within a week everyone could see its benefits,” Petter says.
“Previously we had to call individual staff and ask if they’re available. Now it’s done in Planday. The mobile app is user-friendly and just makes it more accessible.”
“Our staff communicate a lot more internally now and use Planday to exchange and sell shifts with each other, so the managers don’t have to spend so much time to find new staff for each shift.” With time and money saved and a smarter way to plan his hotel scheduling, Petter says Planday has made a big difference to his business.
“Planday does and delivers what I hoped for. It has really helped us to reduce our costs and focus on what we need to do more,” Petter says.
Want to know how your staff can improve hotel guest experience?
It all starts with better staff management. Empower your employees to perform their best with smarter communication and slick shift planning.
See how Planday can help you make your day work, speak to a specialist for a solution that fits your needs and book your demo today.
