&

Sir Plantin Hotel Antwerp

• Trendy lifestyle hotel

• Living room concept

• Great significance for money

• Added value and service concepts

Our competitive edge :

• An excellent prize-quality ratio

• Exceeding expectations of our guests

(also in the high housekeeping standards)

• The offering of warranty-concepts like Sir’s ‘No Excuse’ program

and the ‘100 % Conference Satisfaction Guarantee’

• Complementary services & added value as free minibar, free

Express Sir’s Grab & Run breakfast and free Wi-Fi

Brief presentation Sir Plantin Hotel

Summary of the facility organization

• Increase strength by thinking cost effective

• 1 partner (ISS)

• ISS

• Cleaning from rooms, public & back of house areas

• Washroom services

• Night survaillance with soft check-in and check-out facilities

• Setting up meetingroom

• Catering (breakfast, banqueting, bar and seminar service)

• Windowcleaning, gardening, handyman service, pest control,

HVAC, snowplowing, Christmas decoration

• Direct communication between Housekeeper Manager and

Operation Manager of Sir Plantin & decisions will be taken together

Housekeeping Manageru

= A critical role to the success of the operation

• Has complete ownership and responsibility of the Housekeeping service

• Is our contact person for all the services provided

Supervision

• Responsible for checking the quality of cleaning and standard on a daily

basis

• Report all maintenance faults + monitore on a daily/weekly basis

• All supervisory lever employees will have previous experience of the role

in a similar brand hotel or will have been recognized as a ‘star of the

future’ and will be fast tracked through a supervisory training program

Catering

• Breakfast (Express grab and run and Breakfast Buffet)

• Meeting and events

• Bar

General description of the project

• Starting up a new hotel -> decision: outsourcing of certain services

• Providing solutions to the flexibility-problems who frequently occur to

hotels

• Facility services have an impact on the organisation and HR

workforce of the hotel + customer experience

• Quality control of the facility services = based upon measurable

results (customer comments, visits from mystery guests, routine

inspections & daily reports from the responsible from the hotel)

Detailed description

• Start April 2010

• Different stadia?

• Bidding and negotiations phase of the project

• Detailed constructive phase

• Major pre opening clean-up (also industrial cleaning)

• Startup phase / daily operations of the project

• Implementation completed?

• Our cooperation has no end-date

• Evaluation degree of success?

• After the startup phase we noticed

from our own monitoring reports

the success of the operation

• Booking.com 8,5/10 based

upon 248 guest comments

till 21/03/2011

• Investment project?

• ISS carried certain investment fees

(Eg purchasing of housekeeping trolleys, installation of

linnen and storage room, housekeeping office,

working equipment, staff uniforms and lockers,

products,...)

• Involvement ISS?

• About 25 people from different divisions• Management and operational

• Commercial

• Implementation & representation for each division

(Eg pest control, catering, washroom services, window

cleaning…)

• Involvement Sir Plantin?

• The general manager

• Operations manager

• Front Desk

• Survace?

• 8370 m²

Objective of the project

• Situation added value?

• Reduction indirect costs (No HR department and related cost)

• Scalability of the cost in function of the hotel’s occupation

• Quality service

• Housekeeper manager on duty who co-ordinates with the

hotelmanagment

• Innovativeness?

• Budget and cost control

• Integrated facility outsourcing

• Evolution?

• From supposed high internal staff count (50+) to a small headcount

of approx. 15 co-operators

• Expected results?

A successful company where bookers, guests, employees, shareholders,

management company and all stakeholders such as ISS are satisfied

• Concerned departments?

• Purchasing, Finance, Logistic• Reducing workload purchasing

• No HR inside Sir Plantin

• Simplification budget A&G

• Involvement Senior Management?

• Follow-up

• Major decisions and changes

• Evaluation of provided facility services

• External help of consultants?

• The project was initiated by the management of the Sir Plantin

Hotel Antwerp and was developed with the local team

Project Management

• Management of initial problems?

• Recruitment of qualified staff

• Planning of flexible work schedule

• Budgeting of facility costs

• Cost-analysis for facilities

• Social HR-aspect

• Objectification and quantification of needs?

• Based upon ‘Outsourcing Quickscan’- document

• Evaluation of the necessary investments?

• Saving time from recruitment & setting up HR department

• Purchase & contract negotiation with suppliers

• Training of staff

• Preparation of the action plan and the procurement?

• Preparation of action plan and the procurement by making

discussions with potential facility providers

• Dialogue between all departments

• Establishment of a pro- and counter plan per department

• Financial analysis

• Measurable performance indicators?

• Comments of our guests

• Reviews directly or through third party given at the hotel

• Management by ‘walking around’

• Through which information sources?

• By guest-questionnaire

• Assessment pages on the websites of third-party booking channels

• Evaluation reports from our mystery guests

• Use of specific instruments to determine success?

• Every guest rates hotel facilities at a number of criteria

• Daily evaluation reports

• Biennial audit of a mystery guest who is also specialized in the field

of hotel facilities

• Have been used for this project?

• These are commonly used techniques who allow us a finger on

the pulse and quick response to make adjustments

• Communications to the management of the organization:

• The management was narrowly involved

• Few communication problems where solved by

• Team room of ISS

• Central management and easy access to documents

• The management was involved in commercial and transition

steps

• Involvement suppliers and staff?

• Staff of Sir Plantin Hotel were informed in early stage

• Communication with suppliers from different pathways

• Press Releases

• Social Media, such as Facebook/Twitter/ LinkedIn

• Management communication by Sir Plantin during periodic

meetings within the tourism organization of Antwerp

• Within ISS through a news-mail and intranet + staff magazine

• Directly affected users?

• Guests are not directly informed

• The objective is to optimize customer service

• Towards the guests, the hotel retains full responsibility for its

outsourcing policy

Implementation of the project

• Obstacles with the development?

• Regular adjustments depending on the situation

• Review of the concept to the legal framework to achieve a

workable and manageable task within the partnership

• Solutions?

• Open communicaton between hotel & facility providers

• Implementation within time frame?

• The main deadlines were not met as was evident by the numerous

changes of the new hotel opening date

• Which delays were incurred of the time table?

• With a delay of time in opening date this project was pushed back

which put the flexibility of both companies to the test

• Could these delays be caught up again?

• It was impossible to restore the time lost

• Therefor both parties had to make major efforts such as additional

staff, to work under a lot of pressure until creative solutions were

found

Results

• Financial results of the project

• Costcontrol in the areas of:• HR

• Executive housekeeper and supervisors

• Less confrontation with:• Fluctuating schedules (weekends – weekdays)

• Absenteeism problem

• Associated costs

• What is in this perspective the return on investment?

• Startup of the hotel gives fluctuating occupancy -> outsourcing has

a positieve influence on the ROI

• Simplify the procedures?

• Simplification of internal stress and worries

• Less own employees

• Fewer staff expertise (HR, Exec HK)

• Clearer procedures

• Increase of the efficiency & quality?

• High flexibility and quality service (ISO norms)

• Assurance of quality is important in a service providing

organization like ours

• What is the impact of the project on user satisfaction?

• Increased guest satisfaction

• Less stress moments provided by secured service

• Higher expectations of the guests

• Which positive impact the project had on the environment?

• ISS helps us in different ways:• They have the ISO14001 tag

• Partnerships with suppliers of green cleaning lines

• Based on several initiatives regarding diversity

• Golden Service Award in 2010 for Sustainability

• Which impact has the project on the company / community?

• A positive working environment within the company

• Happy Staff = Happy Customers = Happy Employers

• Our customer-driven team can be more focused on guest

satisfaction and offering services beyond expectations

Benchmark

• To what extent is this project a model for the best practice case within

the organization?

• Learning experience for our hotel, our management company and

as a fact for the Belgian hotel sector in general as we are

experimenting the implementation of the first full integrated facility

concept

• To what extent is this project a model for best practice case against the

art of Facility Manager?

• Deeper penetration in the non-core activities of the hotels ->

possibility of greater service delivery and on-site management to

take on

• Its evolution into a total provider of facility services

• This gives hotel the opportunity to focus more on the essence of the

hotel industry and core business success of the company