After more than a decade in the industry working for one of the world’s largest multi-brand hotel companies, Mike Martin tapped into his global hospitality operations experience to establish a solutions-oriented platform that helps optimize hotel labor. As a result, Hotel Effectiveness was born with Martin serving as the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer.
Hotel Effectiveness is the only complete labor optimization system designed exclusively for hotels and management companies. The firm’s advanced technology and real-time data helps achieve rapid return on investment by matching employee schedules with customer demand. From economy hotels to large convention hotels and luxury resorts, the solutions fit all types of properties.
Since its launch, more than a decade ago, Hotel Effectiveness has helped hotels save hundreds of millions of dollars of labor costs with its innovative labor management system, working with 5,000+ hotels from more than 80 brands.
The firm’s technology helps improve gross operating profit and net operating income without sacrificing the guest experience.
Leaders in any industry must formulate specific questions for the team to answer whenever you need them to focus on something, Martin said.
COVID-19 led Martin to appreciate just how much a question can both empower and focus a team. “Just prior to COVID, our business had been on fire, and we had tripled the size of our business the prior two years,” he said. “Business hit a wall when COVID hit, and the hotel industry was shut down for several weeks.”
As a result, Martin realized that if the business was going to survive, it was going to be the result of its biggest asset – the high-energy team members who he needed to harness their creativity and focus. “To get the focus right, I framed a simple question: How do we reactivate 75% of our customers by July 1?” he said.
This question was a turning point for the team as they came up with new products, new training ideas and countless other ways to reactivate customers.
“I learned that I don’t need to have the answers, but I do have to make sure everyone is crystal clear on the question that they need to answer,” said Martin.
For his commitment to asking the right questions to foster employee empowerment, Martin has been named a Titan.
