Hotel Labor & Scheduling Insights | Inn-Flow’s Kelsey Higginbotham | LODGING OnDemand Ep. 64

Why It Matters

Proactive, data‑driven labor management transforms a cost center into a revenue lever, boosting guest satisfaction while protecting margins across single‑ and multi‑property hotel portfolios.

Key Takeaways

• Instinct scheduling overrides data during occupancy spikes and dips
• Viewing labor as performance lever improves guest satisfaction and revenue
• Labor cost % alone misleads; focus on productivity per occupied room
• AI-driven forecasts enable proactive staffing and overtime prevention
• Centralized visibility standardizes labor across multi‑property portfolios operations

Summary

In this Lodging on Demand episode, Inflow’s Vice President of Customer Operations Kelsey Higginbotham explains how hotel labor decisions often default to gut instinct, especially when occupancy fluctuates, and why that reactive approach hampers both service quality and profitability.

Higginbotham argues that treating labor as a performance lever rather than a mere expense unlocks revenue: aligning housekeeping shifts with arrival patterns reduces check‑in bottlenecks, while precise staffing of breakfast and bar services captures upsell opportunities. She warns that the ubiquitous labor‑cost‑percentage metric is misleading; true insight comes from productivity per occupied room, department‑level coverage, and forecast variance.

Key examples illustrate the point: owners who rely on static Excel schedules face “no‑show” fire drills and overtime surprises, whereas AI‑enhanced forecasting flags projected overtime before the week starts, allowing managers to adjust cross‑trained teams proactively. Centralized dashboards pull real‑time clock data across properties, exposing inconsistencies such as 18 rooms per housekeeper at one hotel versus 14 at another, and enabling best‑practice sharing without eroding local autonomy.

The takeaway for operators and multi‑property owners is clear: invest in data‑driven scheduling tools that provide granular productivity metrics, AI‑powered forecasts, and real‑time visibility. Doing so reduces burnout, curtails hidden overtime costs, and elevates the guest experience from the moment they check in, ultimately driving top‑line growth and margin expansion.

Original Description

How can hotels better manage labor while improving operational efficiency?

In this episode of LODGING OnDemand, Kelsey Higginbotham, Vice President of Customer Operations at Inn-Flow, joins LODGING to explore the often unseen complexities of hotel labor management. From the instinct-driven scheduling decisions general managers make under pressure to the performance metrics owners rely on, this conversation reveals which strategies truly move the needle for hotel operations.

Topics discussed:

The realities of hotel labor scheduling for GMs

Why some labor metrics fail to reflect operational performance

Data-driven approaches to managing staffing more effectively

How better labor insights can improve efficiency and profitability

Guest: Kelsey Higginbotham, Vice President of Customer Operations – Inn-Flow

Series: LODGING OnDemand

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