Pros
Bonuses for KPIs. Discounted rooms. If you be supportive to your team members, they will pay back with same. You get everyday satisfaction that you pulled the day through and your hotel is staffed and rooms are clean. Until your night receptionist calls an absence.
Cons
Overall: Dead end job where every day is the same. Same issues, same routines, same absence problems etc.
Career:
Hotel Manager position is as high as 95% of assistant managers will go. 10-15 years in the same HM position is quite normal, there is nowhere to progress after. Meanwhile you keep watching how management positions (that could be filled by internal resources) are filled with external candidates while people with years of experience are deemed not ready for the holy hotel managers position. It will happen even if you as AHM are covering HM position for months until the next wonderkid is found somewhere else. Your reward? Couple hundreds of pounds for additional duties.
You're also stuck, you can migrate to Premier Inn, but nothing more than that really. Marriott, Hilton, Novotel, Crown Plaza will max consider you for department manager as your versatile knowledge of housekeeping, f&b, front desk, HR, admin, maintenance and everything else that you do in Travelodge means quite nothing everywhere else.
Workload:
Depends of the size of the hotel. In larger ones Assistant Hotel Managers will usually get a field of responsibility, such as f&b or HK. It's better in smaller hotels as your day will not be confined to a single department and you would be looking after the whole hotel.
However,if your housekeepers fail to turn up to work (because of minimum wage and abnormal work load) you're expected to clean rooms. If it's your cook who called sick then you're cooking. Youre checking people in while doing vital and crucial health and safety checks, you'll eventually will end up doing double shifts because of absences and night shifts because payroll is everything and there is no usage of agencies if your hotel is understaffed. Overtime is not paid for management. You end up constantly recruiting due to low pay, low morale, high staff turnover and at one point it is easier to fill positions on first come first served basis because looking for someone better or developing your teams just does not pay off.
Freedom to make decisions:
Non-existent, slightest detail in running the hotel is dictated from head office.
Environment:
It's a toxic dictatorship run by hotel manager and district manager. HMs will do anything their DM will tell them to do and if you have any issues with your HM it will be your problem. If you fall out of favour of leadership, you will be made to leave via disciplinary route or simply bullied out. DM will always take HM side, no matter what. There is a reason why there are so many assitant manager positions available in the hotels and it's not that AHMs are being promoted within the company.
