Suddenly find yourself working from home as a hotelier? Decided it’s something you’d like to do a little more often in order to get stuff done?

Of all professions, hotel management may not feel like one you can effectively undertake away from the hotel itself, but technology has come a long way to make many tasks possible.

It’s all about choosing the right tools for the job, and to help, we’ve picked out five of our favourites. Don’t leave home (or the hotel) without them.

1. Video conferencing: you choose!

First things first: you need a great video conferencing tool if you’re to work effectively remotely.

There are so many options for this, and the first which might spring to mind probably begins with an ’S’. However, Skype isn’t the only option. If your team has Apple devices, group FaceTime chats are now possible, but even WhatsApp allows conferences of up to four people.

The trick lies in picking a tool that works for you all. It’s also worth bearing in mind that if you have an Office 365 subscription, it might include Teams, which is a great way to hold video and text chats with larger groups.

A video conferencing tool will enable you to keep those daily meetings in check, no matter where you are.

2. Trello

Hotel management covers a huge number of areas. As a result, you probably have a number of projects ongoing.

Tracking these projects can be challenging, but use a tool like Trello, and you’ll have a far easier time of it – even from home. 

Trello can be thought of as an advanced to-do list app. It operates on the Kanban principle which encourages you to group tasks into stages of varying progress. Imagine three boards labelled ‘to-do’, ‘doing’ and ‘done’, with the constituent elements of each project passing between them.

Trello lets you get far smarter than that, but it’s ability to bring teams together and enable everyone to see what’s going on is game changing for hoteliers.

3. Toggl

Not sure where your time goes? Toggl might be able to help.

Although traditionally an app that’s used to track time for billing clients, as a hotelier, you can use it to see where you’re spending your time.

This can be particularly useful when working from home if you need to get down to some serious admin. By tracking your time on each item, you can take a look back at each day and identify areas where you should be delegating tasks or automating them with software.

4. Dropbox

More of a service than an app, Dropbox is a brilliant platform for storing files in the cloud.

That means you can access the hotel’s most important information securely, safely and from any device you have to hand. No longer will you have to print reports to take home or ask someone to take a photo of page 8 of your marketing plan. It’ll be there, in Dropbox, whenever you need it.

5. Google Drive

You might be wedded to Microsoft Office like so many hoteliers, but if you’re yet to make the leap to Office 365 yet need the ability to work on stuff from home, there’s another option.

Within Google Drive you’ll not only find cloud storage to rival Dropbox, but a suite of office applications that match Office almost pound-for-pound. What’s more, you can collaborate on documents, spreadsheets and presentations with others easily and on pretty much any device. 

Google Drive is free, too, so there’s no reason not to give it a try.

Wrapping up

It’s important to note that we’re not endorsed or in any way affiliated with any of the above. They’re just tools we like, and we hope they help you work from home whenever the need strikes.

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CMS Hospitality holds over 30 years of experience in delivering hospitality software solutions. CMS offers the most complete solution in hospitality software, whether you’re running a hotel, a resort or a hostel. Our highly experienced support and installations team holds a unique understanding of the hospitality industry. We will aim to provide software that suits your property’s needs.

Call us today at (+61) 2 9440 9711, or email us at sales@cmshospitality.com. We will be happy to guide you to the CMS Hospitality solution that’s right for you.