Intro to Labor Reports
There are three aspects of reports that need to be considered: Reporting, Evaluating and Feedback.
About Reporting
Reporting determines whether the short range goals of the operation were achieved for a particular day.
When the day is complete, it is important to assess what has happened. Were the standards (both labor and quality) maintained? Were there any problems with guest service, labor cost? Was the proper amount of resources used? Were the employees able to work at a comfortable pace? By utilizing a Daily Operating Report which enables the manager to compare the actual use of labor hours to standards, the manager has an opportunity to review the previous day.
LMS produces Daily Operating Reports for each department. The Report provides essential information about Actual Hours used, and compares those hours to Standard Hours which are based on the actual volumes experienced by the property.
About Evaluating
Evaluation determines what factors contributed to the achievement of standard or the factors responsible for the failure to meet standard.
Once the Daily Operating Report is complete, it is necessary to determine if any problems need to be addressed. Was there any scheduled work not completed? Any guest demands not met? Anything not cleaned, or not left clean? By answering these questions while viewing the Daily Operating Report, the manager is better able to determine how to solve operational problems. Perhaps the forecast was inaccurate. Perhaps the schedule did not accurately reflect the guest demand pattern. Regardless of the source of a problem, a careful analysis of the Daily Operating Report and an evaluation of the previous day’s effort will help the manager decide what steps need to be taken to correct any short-comings.
LMS also provides Summaries used by upper management for performance analysis. The Summaries detail actual and standard hours, and actual and standard dollars for each Day, the Payroll Period to Date, and Month to Date.
About Feedback
Feedback provides useful information to people about their performance and how, if appropriate, it can be improved.
Effective feedback is fundamental to the proper operation of an organization. Useful critiques and careful discussions about the operation enable managers to determine what steps need to be taken to deal with operational problems.
LMS provides key information and a set of essential tools which simplify the day-to-day process of providing service to the guest. The departmental manager is encouraged to focus on pre-defined performance standards. When standards are not achieved, the manager is then able to determine what steps need to be taken to correct the problem(s), or whether the results of a specific day represent an exception to the standard and do not require specific action.
Finally, LMS provides for an executive information system which enables upper management to understand the criteria line managers are using to control and assess their operation, thus ensuring that all levels of management are examining the same information.
From an organizational perspective, LMS ensures that all managers are using the same planning and evaluation tools for controlling resource use and maintaining quality levels. This, in turn, promotes transferability as managers moving from one department (or property) to another will already be familiar with the tools.
About Reporter
RMS
Labor Reports are classified as Forecasting Reports, Planning Reports, Scheduling Reports, Labor Analysis Reports and System Setup Reports. This section addresses only those reports that the manager should be familiar with on a daily or weekly basis. It does not go into detail on all of the reports available in the system.