Director of Rooms

What you’ll do…

• To take overall responsibility for the management of the housekeeping, front office, guest experience and engineering teams, ensuring guests are well cared for and guest expectations are exceeded.
• Lead the rooms division through the pre-opening phase, including recruitment, onboarding, SOP development, training plans, room readiness, operating supplies, mock stays, engineering handover requirements and opening checklists.
• Develop and own the end-to-end rooms guest journey, ensuring arrival, departure, housekeeping, in-room experience, guest recognition and recovery moments feel seamless, personal and appropriate for a luxury lifestyle hotel.
• Ensure the Engineering team is fully integrated into the rooms operation, with clear communication around room readiness, defects, guest-impacting maintenance, preventative maintenance and service recovery.
• To ensure that all hotel standard operating procedures are trained and adhered to across front office, housekeeping, guest experience and engineering.
• To own the rooms P&L, contributing to annual budget planning and ensuring expenses, labour, productivity, maintenance costs and operating supplies are kept in line.
• To partner with the Chief Engineer to ensure effective PPM schedules, statutory compliance, health and safety, contractor management and engineering records are maintained to the required standard.
• To own all quality evaluation processes and strive to improve all qualitative metrics.
• To take ownership of problem solving and ensure guest satisfaction levels are the highest possible.
• To pro-actively identify opportunities to improve and enhance processes and procedures across housekeeping, front office, guest experience and engineering, particularly where maintenance or room condition impacts the guest journey.
• Responsible for the accurate completion of all people documentation including payroll, recruitment, disciplinary and grievance and appraisal documentation.
• To coach and develop the team, ensuring that they are well motivated and informed.
• To set stretching yet realistic objectives for the team, monitoring these and providing regular feedback.
• To be ultimately accountable for delivering projects that involve housekeeping, front office, guest experience and engineering teams, including room readiness, defect resolution, snagging, OS&E readiness and guest-impacting maintenance matters.
• To pro-actively project manage any changes in policies and procedures for housekeeping, front office, guest experience and engineering.
• To achieve and maintain the highest possible levels of customer service to both external and internal customers, forging long-term relationships with suppliers, contractors and service partners.
• To ensure all health and safety procedures and policies are adhered to at all times.
• To be a member of the hotel crisis and fire teams and to be fully conversant in all related procedures.
• Support a culture of luxury service, discretion, warmth and attention to detail, ensuring Delano London feels distinctive and not simply process-led.

What we’re looking for…

• You are an experienced Head of or Director of Rooms and have prior experience in a similar role, ideally within luxury, lifestyle or high-touch boutique hotels.
• You have experience leading multi-disciplinary rooms teams and are comfortable with Engineering/Maintenance forming part of your overall divisional scope.
• Previous pre-opening, repositioning or luxury hotel opening experience would be a strong advantage.
• You understand what it takes to create a refined rooms experience, from immaculate housekeeping standards to intuitive arrival, guest recognition, room condition and service recovery.
• You are confident working with technical teams and can balance guest experience priorities with operational, safety, compliance and maintenance requirements.
• A natural at leading and managing others, you lead by example and create an environment where your team can be their best self.
• A balance between a methodical, process and results driven approach and flexibility and creativity when it comes to juggling multiple priorities, meeting deadlines and finding solutions.
• You are comfortable with the strategic as well as day to day detail.
• You are commercially aware and confident managing budgets, labour, productivity, quality scores, guest satisfaction and maintenance-related costs.
• You are an excellent relationship builder, confident in working with other teams, leaders and ownership; you’re passionate about what we can achieve together.
• Culturally aware and globally minded, able to inspire teams in diverse, international environments.

What’s in it for you…

• The opportunity to launch a visionary hospitality brand in London and have a real impact on its success.
• Join an innovative, fast-growing, international group that’s committed to not just building new hotels but building a global brand.
• The chance to challenge the norm and work in an environment that is both creative and rewarding.
• Become part of a team that’s very passionate about creating great hospitality experiences and building a portfolio of brands.
• A competitive package and plenty of opportunity for development.