In a sector as demanding as hospitality, ensuring excellent service depends largely on how teams are organised and managed. At the hotels of the Savoy Signature group, located in the Madeira archipelago in Portugal, the digitalisation of workforce management has been transforming internal processes and improving operational efficiency. One of the most relevant examples is the application of competency-based management to the housekeeping teams at the Savoy Palace and Savoy The Reserve hotels, through the customisation of the SISQUAL® Tasks module, integrated into SISQUAL® WFM.
The Savoy Group is renowned for its position in the luxury hotel sector and for the high-quality experiences it offers its guests. With around 560 rooms spread across 46 different types, each with its own characteristics and distinct cleaning and preparation needs, team management becomes particularly demanding, especially in the operational areas responsible for room preparation. This diversity implies different execution times, varying levels of knowledge, and appropriate skills among the cleaning teams.
The right person, in the right place, at the right time
To meet this challenge, the SISQUAL® Tasks module has been specifically tailored to the needs of the Savoy Group, allowing tasks to be managed and distributed automatically based on a skills management logic. Each employee can have hundreds of skills associated with different room types, procedures and levels of specialisation. At Savoy, some employees have more than 500 skills registered in SISQUAL® WFM, reflecting the complexity of its operations.
Based on these skills and the previously defined cleaning times for each room type, the tool can automatically generate tasks and assign them to the most suitable employees. ‘This automation ensures a more balanced distribution of work and ensures that professionals with the necessary skills perform each task,’ explains Pedro Neves, a member of the SISQUAL® WFM development team responsible for customising the project.
Another key element in this process is the integration with the hotel’s reservation system. Through the connection to the booking API, SISQUAL® WFM automatically collects essential information, such as room number, type, and check-in and check-out details, allowing it to calculate the time needed to prepare each room and distinguish, for example, rooms that require a full clean after check-out from those that only need maintenance.
Thus, before distributing tasks, SISQUAL® WFM uses this data to support team sizing, ensuring that available resources are aligned with the hotel’s occupancy level. The result is much more accurate and efficient management of daily operations.
Reduced management time increases productivity
The impact of this transformation was quite significant. The task of ‘planning and distributing rooms to cleaning teams, which previously could take about eight hours a day, now takes approximately thirty minutes,’ explains Fábio Peixoto, a member of the Delivery team responsible for implementing SISQUAL® WFM in the hotel chain.
This reduction in time not only decreased the administrative burden but also allowed managers to focus on higher-value activities, such as team monitoring and on-the-job training.
The system also began generating detailed reports on cleaning needs and room status, providing managers with a real-time view of operations and helping maintain high service quality standards.
By investing in an approach based on data, skills and process automation, the Savoy Group demonstrates how technology can be a powerful ally in increasing operational excellence in the hotel industry.
For SISQUAL® WFM, this partnership not only demonstrates the tool’s adaptability across different contexts and needs but also materialises the growing commitment to the hospitality sector, contributing to more efficient resource use, more organised teams, and a higher-quality guest experience.
