Associate Hotel General Manager

[Jeter02]

Has anyone else noticed this NEW position on board the ships lately, "Associate Hotel General Manager"?. I noticed it on the new digital officer board on the ship. I'm confused to what this person's role is compared to the actual Hotel General Manager. 

[neverbeenhere]

Mr Google, Esq says: 

 

Job Responsibilities:

• Delivers strategic initiative to ensure exemplary service across all guest touch points.
• Drives the use of all programs and Princess Medallion Class tools & applications to enable first contact resolution, reduce recurring service failures by driving root cause analysis and attention to detail to provide workable solutions throughout the guest experience.
• Directs the day to day operational efficiency of the Guest Service, Entertainment & activity programs, Housekeeping, Laundry and onboard revenue operations, ensuring product standards and cleanliness are maintained.
• Collaborates with the Technical team to ensure all guest areas are well maintained and issues that would negatively impact the guest experience are quickly rectified.
• Ensures each division within their area of responsibility adheres to all policies & procedures and delivers the agreed product in support of a consistent and efficient operation.
• Supports the Guest Services and Entertainment teams in the delivery of group requirements and in port functions.
• Oversees the planning of the daily events schedule by the Entertainment Director and Business & Brand Director to maximize guests access to and awareness of all activities available onboard
• Participates productively with the Hotel General Manager in the planning of future itinerary deployments or sudden itinerary changes, anticipating potential problems relating to Entertainment, revenue, demographics, logistics and clearance requirements.
• As the Hotel General Manager’s designate, responsible for driving all onboard revenue performance and achieving revenue objectives
• Advocates on behalf of the Business & Brand Director to achieve financial and revenue goals in line with company targets and guidelines.
• Supports the Business & Brand Director in the creation of strategic and tactical marketing plans for new initiatives which incorporate analytical results
• Oversee all marketing, advertising and promotional material and activities while remaining consistent with the company’s goals and brand standards.
• Promptly completes performance appraisals that are fair and objective, based on observed behavior.
• Observes each manager’s performance using his or her role description as a guide and delivers prompt and appropriate feedback. Coaches and develops skilled, engaged team members, identifying and mentoring future leaders.
• Regularly monitors the effectiveness and completion of onboard training programs and participates as a facilitator as required.

 

All duties must be completed in accordance with the company Core Values and all aspects of the Service Essentials program.

 

[satxdiver]

Evidently Princess feels the hotel general manager needs a right hand man to assist.  Despite the long official list of duties, the assistant will do whatever the hotel general manager assigns to him.  Nothing unusual here. 

[Steelers36]

9 minutes ago, satxdiver said:

Evidently Princess feels the hotel general manager needs a right hand man to assist.  Despite the long official list of duties, the assistant will do whatever the hotel general manager assigns to him.  Nothing unusual here. 

Or woman.  And I agree.  I don't see the big deal here.  I am sure the Hotel GM has always had one or two 2IC's.

[skynight]

Basically an assistant to reduce the Manager's tremendous workload. Probably long overdue as ship sizes increase.

[Jeter02]

27 minutes ago, neverbeenhere said:

Mr Google, Esq says: 

 

Hahaha. Actually I did do that. I just find the position odd considering the hotel manager has never needed a right-hand man to begin with so why does now make it any different. Hmmm. just found my observation to be very interesting when I was last on board.

[Colo Cruiser]

3 hours ago, Jeter02 said:

Hahaha. Actually I did do that. I just find the position odd considering the hotel manager has never needed a right-hand man to begin with so why does now make it any different. Hmmm. just found my observation to be very interesting when I was last on board.

Exactly.

Same with the ED. Never needed one for 30 plus years.

Big ships (Royal Class) have been around for 6 years with Princess.

 

[Jeter02]

8 minutes ago, Colo Cruiser said:

Exactly.

Same with the ED. Never needed one for 30 plus years.

Big ships (Royal Class) have been around for 6 years with Princess.

 

Slightly different story on ED. First off the royal class ships really aren't that big. Thank God princess doesn't do those large shift like an oasis class of any form. 

 

ED and cruise director are just simply a position title name change. Cruise directors changed to ED and the deputy Cruise director which was always the cruise directors right-hand assistant, they got the new titles of cruise director. Making the ED less involved with interacting with passengers as they're more behind the scenes now.

[skynight]

10 hours ago, Jeter02 said:

Slightly different story on ED. First off the royal class ships really aren't that big. Thank God princess doesn't do those large shift like an oasis class of any form. 

 

ED and cruise director are just simply a position title name change. Cruise directors changed to ED and the deputy Cruise director which was always the cruise directors right-hand assistant, they got the new titles of cruise director. Making the ED less involved with interacting with passengers as they're more behind the scenes now.

Not exactly. Previously the CD had all the administrative  and entertainment responsibility with little time for passenger contact. The Deputy was assigned the Princess Patter as well as the ass't CD daily assignments. With the change the CD now has little or no administrative duties releasing time for passenger contact. The ED now handles the Princess Patter and other entertainment duties, mostly while in their office. The ED has very little passenger contact. 

[skynight]

14 hours ago, Jeter02 said:

Hahaha. Actually I did do that. I just find the position odd considering the hotel manager has never needed a right-hand man to begin with so why does now make it any different. Hmmm. just found my observation to be very interesting when I was last on board.

I think the assistant may have been needed for many years with Princess just getting around to relieving some of the workload. Companies always change their organizations.

[Jeter02]

6 minutes ago, skynight said:

Not exactly. Previously the CD had all the administrative  and entertainment responsibility with little time for passenger contact. The Deputy was assigned the Princess Patter as well as the ass't CD daily assignments. With the change the CD now has little or no administrative duties releasing time for passenger contact. The ED now handles the Princess Patter and other entertainment duties, mostly while in their office. The ED has very little passenger contact. 

Interesting. Thank you for the insight. 

[Steelers36]

I also think that whatever the department (hotel, f&b, entertainment), the creation of new positions is an HR move to allow for more upward mobility, etc, in effort to reward and retain employees.

 

[richmke]

Consider the ship the equivalent of a 1,500 room hotel. I would hope that a GM of a 1,500 room hotel would have an assistant (the Associate). The Associate can also assume GM responsibilities during the GM's off hours. 

[nukesubsailor]

If Princess is like one corporation I worked for, they created this new position of assistant because the department head was having to do more work than desired.  Now the assistant gets to do all the crappy little jobs the department head doesn't want to do.  In order to pay for this new position, two or more low level employees get fired and the rest have to absorb their work load without any increase in compensation.  Corporate headquarters would then issue a press release using all the latest corporate-speak buzzwords to explain this paradigm shift enabling the company to more fully utilize all the available synergy.

[crystalspin]

And the immediate supervisor says, "You're doing more work with fewer people... but it's taking you longer." And the crew say "Yes sir (or ma'am), we'll get right on that!" Rather than, "And your point would be?" which would be the appropriate answer, if your job didn't hang on it.

 

BTDT

Edited July 13, 2019 by crystalspin

[chengkp75]

Not sure how Princess organizes their hotel department, but on NCL, under the Hotel Director (Hotel General Manager) are:

 

Executive Housekeeper:  oversees cabin staff, hotel utility crew, laundry and storekeeper

Food & Beverage Director:  oversees all restaurant and bar staff and operations, and provisions

Cruise Director:  oversees entertainment staff, kid's staff

Chief Purser:  oversees Guest Relations and financial staff

 

If their organization is different, perhaps the HD has more areas of direct responsibility and needs the assistant to take some of this, particularly in light of Carnival Corp's need for more environmental compliance, so one more supervisor could add the extra set of eyes that are needed to ensure training and compliance.

[skynight]

22 minutes ago, chengkp75 said:

Not sure how Princess organizes their hotel department, but on NCL, under the Hotel Director (Hotel General Manager) are:

 

Executive Housekeeper:  oversees cabin staff, hotel utility crew, laundry and storekeeper

Food & Beverage Director:  oversees all restaurant and bar staff and operations, and provisions

Cruise Director:  oversees entertainment staff, kid's staff

Chief Purser:  oversees Guest Relations and financial staff

 

If their organization is different, perhaps the HD has more areas of direct responsibility and needs the assistant to take some of this, particularly in light of Carnival Corp's need for more environmental compliance, so one more supervisor could add the extra set of eyes that are needed to ensure training and compliance.

Pretty much as you indicated.

There is now an Entertainment Director, uniformed 3 1/2 stripes, who handles all the entertainment staff, guest entertainers and their cabin assignments, the Princess Patter, passenger activities and all the administrative duties of the entertainment department. About two years ago the Cruise Director was relieved of most administrative duties and now has more direct contact with passengers, including daytime and evening activities.

I believe the Executive Chef and the Maitre'd are separate departments and also at the 3 1/2 stripe level.

The F&B director and the Passenger Services director are 3 stripe positions.

CD and CD staff, Chefs and maitre'd are not uniformed.

Edited July 13, 2019 by skynight

[chengkp75]

1 hour ago, skynight said:

Pretty much as you indicated.

There is now an Entertainment Director, uniformed 3 1/2 stripes, who handles all the entertainment staff, guest entertainers and their cabin assignments, the Princess Patter, passenger activities and all the administrative duties of the entertainment department. About two years ago the Cruise Director was relieved of most administrative duties and now has more direct contact with passengers, including daytime and evening activities.

I believe the Executive Chef and the Maitre'd are separate departments and also at the 3 1/2 stripe level.

The F&B director and the Passenger Services director are 3 stripe positions.

CD and CD staff, Chefs and maitre'd are not uniformed.

NCL, the F&B Director is 3-1/2 stripe, and the Executive Chef is 3 stripe (though not uniformed), and there is a "Restaurant Manager" at 3 stripes that oversees the dining venues, so co-equal to the Exec Chef.  Can't remember if Chief Purser is 3 or 2-1/2 stripe.