Terrible management - Hostess Kimpton Clocktower Hotel Employee Review

Management has been consistently poor, with employees being overworked and the team understaffed on a daily basis. As hosts, our responsibilities begin each day with answering customer phone calls and from room service, as well as managing emails that cover a range of issues including finance, large party bookings, and pre-orders. Additional duties include completing all comps and voids at the end of each shift, cleaning the menus, and host end-of-day report. Occasionally, we are also required to clean the cloakroom. One major concern is that we are never allowed to sit down to complete administrative tasks, even during 10-hour shifts. Staff are expected to stand all day, while management sits comfortably while completing their work. During the interview, I was informed that the last couple of hours each shift would be spent in the office or seated to handle admin tasks, but despite raising this multiple times with management, no changes were made. I was also told that breakfast and late shifts would be fairly distributed throughout the week. However, for the first three months, I was only scheduled for late shifts, after this I was assigned only two or three breakfast shifts per month, as they refuse to schedule hosts for breakfast during the week. While I understand the need to have someone greeting guests at the door at all times, it is unfair and unreasonable to expect one person to juggle a full admin workload while standing all day and also assisting the floor. On weekends, when there are two hosts scheduled, one is often pulled away to work as a waiter for the entire shift by Kennedy, which places additional pressure on the remaining host to manage all responsibilities alone. Kennedy frequently implemented this, which created an unsustainable workload. Additionally, there was pressure from him to upsell items such as water, olives, and bread to every table served, despite the limited staffing and workload. I was repeatedly pushed to do this even though Fran, the manager, had instructed otherwise. Throughout my time there, it felt like the hard work I put in was never really appreciated or rewarded. It wasn’t just me—others on the team also went above and beyond, often covering extra shifts or taking on more responsibilities, yet recognition was almost non-existent It made it tough to stay motivated, especially when the workload was so heavy and the support so minimal.