Luxury Golf Course and Club

After successfully collaborating with Carpedia Hospitality to install a labor management program in their ultra-luxury hotel property, an ownership group in the Caribbean hoped to apply the same strategies to improve efficiency and cashflow at their luxury TPC golf club as they planned to expand the operation.

THE CHALLENGE:

The Caribbean golf club experienced unique challenges in effectively organizing labor to optimize service for its members while preparing to open an additional 18-hole course. Management of landscaping and course maintenance teams had historically been complicated as stations were spread out over 1,500 acres and the physical nature of the work led to high turnover. The Golf Operations and Food & Beverage departments also had difficulty planning schedules due to the perceived lack of predictability of member activity. To further complicate matters, the club’s management team had limited visibility to reporting and performance metrics and lacked structure for reviewing and managing labor. Carpedia Hospitality was tasked with building a culture of labor management that would allow for operational expansion without significant headcount increases, all while ensuring that the members who utilized the facilities on a daily basis were still provided the high level of service they had come to expect.

THE SOLUTIONS:

Carpedia Hospitality spent 12 weeks on the ground working with the client to observe and analyze the Landscaping, Golf Operations, Food & Beverage, and Housekeeping departments to uncover efficiencies and install a refined management operating system.

Landscaping leaders worked closely with Carpedia Hospitality to identify key activities for maintaining the course and club grounds. Observations were structured to understand the time associated with maintaining each square foot of land to arrive at an ideal level of daily staffing that could flex around planned projects. This analysis also showed that existing stationing did not reflect labor needs, so Landscapers were redistributed across the property as requirements dictated.

In addition to conducting observations and establishing volume-based labor standards for Golf Operations and Food & Beverage, Carpedia Hospitality collected previously un-tapped historical data in order to identify trends and correlations to better predict member movement. Forecasting and scheduling tools were constructed to improve workforce planning on a daily and weekly basis. Observations also revealed opportunity for the club’s departments to collaborate and communicate more effectively to streamline the member experience.

As tools and strategies were implemented, Carpedia Hospitality worked to train the leadership team on the importance of productivity concepts and to build confidence around the updated standards. Weekly meetings were established to drive performance.

THE RESULTS:

The club’s management team worked diligently to implement the recommended method changes and began seeing financial improvement before Carpedia Hospitality had even left the property. The Landscaping department was able to reduce their time spent on hiring activities and reinvested management hours into the operation. Planning was significantly improved as the tools implemented provided forecasts that were accurate within 5%. Most importantly, armed with a new focus on data analysis and process improvements, the property leaders used this energy to continue to brainstorm ideas for even greater efficiency after the project closed.