Many of us are today honing our working from home skills and since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, those who can work from home are being encouraged to do so, that is certainly the case here at Duetto.

How have you adapted to your new working environment?

Of all the roles in hospitality, revenue management is the one most perfect for working from home because you really do just need access to the right technology.

And this is where a cloud-based technology infrastructure really helps.

Having to connect via a VPN or connect your laptop to a server back in the hotel, is not conducive to home working. You need to be able to pull up data in real time and be able to work in the same reports as your other team members.

You need to be able to pivot on rate changes very quickly, you don't have time to verify if the data is correct. You need all your systems working together and all of them available at all times.

Using a cloud-based system also means that anywhere can be your office. For now, that’s home, but hopefully one day soon that could also be the local coffee shop, on the train, or even while watching your children play soccer after school.

In fact, being on property may suddenly feel like a drawback. I can remember from my time working on property as a director of revenue management, I would constantly be pulled into meetings that were not directly relevant to me or distracted by other people in the office.

Revenue management is perfect for working from home because you really just need space to think and analyze. Hospitality is very much an action-based profession – you’re judged on how frequently you walk down the hallway, engage with guests or how many meetings you attend – there’s not many roles in hotels where you just have to sit and think.

But for the revenue manager it’s more about how much data you can ingest into your brain and then calculate, and that requires peace and quiet – being able to work from home helps tremendously with this process.

4 Tips For Successful Home Working

I’ve been with Duetto for four years now, and most of that time has been spent working from a home office. Before that I was very much based on property, so I’ve seen both sides of the coin. Here are my four top tips for revenue management at home:

• Have a dedicated workspace. I thought that was a given, but so many people are struggling to find a quiet space. A dedicated room that you can shut the door on and just focus in is a huge benefit. It also means you get to leave the office at the end of the day, which is also a good thing.

• Draw boundaries. To be able to capitalize on your quiet working space you also have to draw boundaries because otherwise it’s easy for your loved ones to distract you with longer lunch breaks or impromptu dog walks, for example. Set your working hours, let everyone around you know what those are, and stick to them.

• Be calculated with meetings. Because we're in a remote setting now people have a tendency to invite you to more meetings than you would have gone to before. And this can be a drag on your time. Be more assertive. Ascertain if there’s an agenda and ask yourself what you can contribute by attending. It’s easy to think “If I'm not in all these meetings and I'm not showing my face that I'm not being productive,” when in fact it's the reverse for those of us working in revenue management. Feel comfortable saying “No”.

• Balance your time. This is from a work and personal perspective. With work, make sure you are dealing with the here and now while also considering the future and your overall strategy. And personally, make sure you step away from the laptop. It’s easy to end up working around the clock when the office is also the kitchen table and emails can be sent and received 24/7.

Daniel Lofton, Director of Hospitality Solutions, West Coast, Duetto

Daniel has served in several roles throughout his time at Duetto over the last four years, with the lion’s share of his time spent in consulting, working in the field with Duetto customers to optimize their revenue strategy. Prior to that, he was a Director of Revenue Management at Landry’s Hospitality where he worked with both their gaming and non-gaming hotels. Over the course of seven years with them, he handled property openings, brand transitions, and expansions.

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