Drifting Toward the Storm

Ray Misnick was upset with himself. As the GM of a 600-room hotel, he should have known that a hotel's physical plant doesn't take care of itself. Hadn't his father always told him that? His father had owned and operated a little mom-and-pop hotel many years ago; Ray worked there during the summer while he was going through high school and college. Ray could still remember his father holding up six fingers and saying, "Your hotel takes in six dollars" and he'd pause to start wiggling one finger before continuing" you've got to spend this one dollar to heat it, light it, and keep it up! You may not want to spend it, but you've got to. If you don't, sooner or later you're going to run into some stormy weather."

That's exactly what had happened to Ray, except that, instead of scrimping on the funds to keep his hotel up, he had scrimped on the money necessary to manage the hotel's facilities. And now he was facing the consequences.

It all started 11 months ago when his director of engineering got a promotion and moved on to another hotel in the chain. That was $100,000 in salary andbenefitsthat dropped off the payroll, so Ray thought he'd take his time hiring another director. Maybe the assistant director, Tim Francisco, could keep the hotel running. If Tim passed the test, then Ray could forget about hiring a new director ofengineeringand the hotel could save that money year after year.

At first, the plan seemed to be working. Tim scheduled the engineering department's employeesashe'd always done, and he kept the day-to-day work orders, purchase orders, and other routine paperwork flowing smoothly.Maintenancecalls were taken care of in the manner that they'd always been taken careof. That was all to the good.

But other engineering department issues began to surface. For example,severaltimes since the director of engineering had left, Ray had gotten a call from the hotel's controller: "What's going on with engineering? Expenses are way under budget for the month." Ray would call Tim, who would say, "Oh, sorryI've got some invoices down here that I haven't turned in yet." "Some" usually turned out to be a stack an inch thick. Guest satisfaction scores started trending downward, primarily in categories related to the hotel's facilities. Utility costs were trending upwardRay wasn't sure why, and, unfortunately, neither was Tim. Just last month, the hotel had been fined by the city Building Department because the city's inspector certificates in the hotel's elevators had expired. Last but not least, during the budget meeting for putting next year's budget together, Tim had some good comments to make about the maintenance budget, but he had no suggestions for the hotel's capital expenditures plan. That had made Ray a little uneasy; the year before, the director of engineering had had a whole laundry list of engineering items he wanted to spend moneyon.

All of these issues had made Ray begin to reassess whether going without a director of engineering was such a good idea after all, but yesterday was the final straw that pushed him to the conclusion that something had tobe done. Yesterday morning, a grease fire had broken out in the kitchen, causing the dry chemical fire suppression system to go off. Fortunately, the firewas putout quickly, but there was a huge mess in the kitchen.A coarsewhite powder was everywhere, and the kitchen had to be shut down while the cleanup was underway, so thousands of dollars of thediningroom and room service saleswere lost. The fire department responded to the fire and slapped the hotel with a codeviolationbecause the hood over the kitchen ranges had notbeen cleanedduring the last six monthsTim had let the maintenance contract expire. While they were at the hotel, fire department personnel checked other elements of the building's fire safety system and discovered that other fire safety maintenance and testing activities had not been performed. More violations, more fines.

So yesterday, the alarm bells had gone off literally for Ray. It was past time for him to hire a new director of engineering. It wasn't that Tim wasn't a good employee--he had done a good job of keeping up with the engineering department's day-to-day tasks. But now Ray realized that there were a lot of other engineering duties and responsibilities associated with operating a 600-room facility properly. Without a director of engineering, the hotel was encountering costs and problems that could havebeen avoided, if Ray had not been so intent on saving the salary costs of the director of engineering position. Dad was right, Ray thought ruefully; you have to spend that dollar.

Ray visited the HR department and picked up the job description for the director of engineering position. Reviewing it back in his office, Ray thought the job description was incomplete, so he decided to update it. Also, it might not be a bad idea to write down some interview questions in advance, he thought. If he was going to spend themoney to hire someone, he wanted to make sure he found just the right candidate for the job.

Discussion Questions

1. What should Ray include in his job description for the director of engineering position?

2.What types of questions shouldbe coveredwhen Ray interviews job candidates?

3.How would the interview questions change if the property was much larger than Ray's 600-room property?Muchsmaller?

4.In addition to Ray, who should be involved in the interview process? What are their likely concerns?