Is technology making staff obsolete?

It’s a busy day in the life of a hotel. The delivery person drops off newspapers—enough for each room and for the on-site store. The vending machines have broken down yet again, and the maintenance person has the front of the machine off to see what is wrong. The front desk staff are helping people check in. The concierge is giving people advice and directions, and in the hotel dining room, wait staff are taking breakfast orders. And behind the scenes in the hotel kitchen the dishwashers are unloading yet another batch of dishes, sorting the plates, bowls, glasses and cutlery and arranging them in their proper spots.

Take a good look, because it seems that soon all or part of these jobs may become obsolete with technology taking over their functions.

Take the newspaper delivery person. Hotel PressDisplay.com now offers more than 550 newspapers translated in up to 13 languages online. “Guests can read any newspaper they want on their laptops and can even download them to read while in transit to their next destination,” said Richard Miller, vice president, sales and marketing for NewspaperDirect, the Vancouver-based company offering the service. “Hotel PressDisplay.com is the ‘green’ newspaper solution for hotels that cater to the techsavvy mobile professional.”

Vending machines? Toronto’s cStar Technologies has an answer for that. Their Vending Genie systems marries room card technology with vending operations, creating convenient, cashless purchasing using hotel room key cards or RFID wristbands. Foodservice is available 24/7, and because there is no money involved, there’s no need to have maintenance people empty the machines, and less likelihood of vandalism. Plus which, front desk staff don’t have to provide coins to those wanting to make purchases.

Check in? That can be done using self-service kiosks. In this issue, NCR’s Michael Taylor makes a great case for using self-service, saying it can not only automate routine tasks, but also enable guests to upgrade online.

Concierge offering advice? Wait staff taking orders? Microsoft Surface can do both those jobs. It’s a 30-inch rectangular plastic surface that can fit into a table or a wall, and acts as a touch screen that can be operated by a number of people at once. For example, customers can order drinks in a bar or restaurant. If the person wants to know more about the drink, they can place the glass—which has a digital tag—on the table, which reads the tag. If the drink is beer, up could come information about the brewery, and suggested food pairings from the bar or restaurant menu. In a hotel lobby, Surface can be used as a virtual concierge, to reserve concert tickets, review the menu at a top restaurant, book a spa treatment or order other hotel services.

Dishwasher? If you’ve got a large foodservice operation and a cool half million to spend, you can buy a machine that washes thousands of dishes per hour—but more importantly, once the dishes are clean, it sorts and stacks them properly, making sure that the cutlery is separated and that each fork or spoon faces the same direction. This machine, which was on display at the Host Milan show in Italy last October, could eliminate several jobs, and it wouldn’t complain, get tired or call in sick.

Labour shortage? What labour shortage? You don’t need people when machines can do the work!

Or so it would seem. But interestingly, there seems to be a shift towards getting the human element back into at least one process that has become increasingly digital. I’m talking about Click-to-Call, which enables people reserving online to use their mouse and dial a real person if they’re stuck or have questions while making an e-transaction. It can be selective—the technology only becomes active when the customer reaches certain levels of complexity or cost—and it prevents the hotel from losing a customer.

Maybe that’s the answer—using technology, but retaining the personal touch where it’s most effective in terms of cost and customer relations.

-- Colleen Isherwood, Editor