Kfar Hamacabiah is a unique blend of a hotel, suites, and a conference and event center, featuring: six halls, 20 classrooms, indoor gardens, and one of Israel’s largest sports clubs. The complex spans about 80 dunams of greenery, located near the Ramat Gan National Park, an open space in the heart of Tel Aviv Metropolitan Area.
The complex, known for its exceptional service, employs 570 people, including 360 salaried staff, 100 permanent CA employees, 40 operations staff, and 70 independent contractors.
Like other organizations in the hotel and hospitality industry, payroll costs are among the highest and most significant expenses. This creates a constant tension between the need to control labor costs and the commitment to maintain and enhance the service quality guests expect.
Work demands in this industry are influenced by factors such as: seasonal demand, peak tourism and vacation periods, and concurrent event scheduling. To effectively plan and schedule staffing, managers must consider service demand, and the labor costs associated with meeting expected service needs. To effectively plan and schedule staff, managers must factor in service demand and the labor costs required to meet expected needs. During these periods, employee mobility between departments is high, with some working part-time if needed.
At Kfar Hamacabiah, managing labor costs for each department is a top priority, with internal accounting between departments. This challenge is particularly evident in departments like the dining room, which serves both hotel guests and event attendees. The dining room is managed by a professional chef who focuses on dish quality and the guest service experience, with personnel costs being a secondary concern. Therefore, a key challenge is to encourage department managers to take an active role in managing labor costs while maintaining the bottom line.
Another example of this challenge is calculating accurate costs for an event, such as: a conference with 1,000 guests held across 15 classrooms and halls. The event includes refreshments and lunch in the dining room, requiring coordination between departments and employee mobility throughout the conference.
Additionally, Kfar Hamacabiah recognizes the impact of employee satisfaction on guest satisfaction and prioritizes factors such as employee availability and preferences, compliance with labor laws, and more.
Synerion Hospitality Suite includes: Standardized planning and work arrangements aligned with legal requirements and the hotel industry’s collective agreement, Synerion Direct – self-service for managers,
attendance and absence management, Synerion Mobile Pro – reports and work arrangements distribution via smartphone, and an expanded employee portfolio..
“The transition to Synerion Hospitality Suite was an opportunity to rethink employee management,” says Sharon Hod, Human Resources Manager.
Most changes stem from the new work arrangement, which integrates regulatory requirements, actual hotel occupancy, data from the hotel’s management software, and planned events. Now, the right employee can be assigned at the right time and place.
With the system’s help, the right number of employees are assigned to prevent over- or understaffing, enabling flexible shifts across departments for full or partial days. The system also evaluates assignment quality based on feasibility factors such as: Employee availability and preferences, employment type (internal or external), costs, seniority, remaining monthly hours, vacation balance, and more.
Employee compensation is based on a combination of actual attendance and scheduled work arrangements.
To ensure compliance with labor laws, collective agreements, and individual contracts, Kfar Hamaccabiah has restricted shift assignments that do not meet regulations. This includes limits on working hours, shift frequency, time gaps between shifts, consecutive workdays, and other predefined criteria. To comply with legal requirements, a reassessment of shift start, and end times was conducted. If necessary, employees are released earlier from the evening shift to be assigned to the following morning shift.
As a result, all managers are aligned on the issue. A daily work arrangement report—standard execution—is generated to ensure the manager has prepared a complete work schedule.
Sharon Hod, Human Resources Manager, Kfar Hamacabiah
All the information needed for ongoing management is centralized on the manager’s desktop in the Synerion Direct system. The system enables managers to track attendance and absences, allowing them to respond immediately to the required changes. For example, if a replacement is needed for an absent employee, the manager can assess the impact on the work schedule and update it to ensure compliance with labor laws.
Managers use the system to review employee attendance reports, approve them, and make corrections (which can be made and approved up to three days in advance). Additionally, managers must ensure employees have not exceeded their monthly hour limits, review overtime distribution, and more, preventing surprises at the end of the month and enabling real-time responses.
The system displays notifications (prompted messages) about issues such as: standard vs. performance (lack or excess), labor policy exceptions, and more. These alerts draw managers’ attention to critical issues and allow them to drill down to details at the individual employee level.
Using the system, managers can quickly identify gaps between budget forecasts and actual performance, spot trends in the department (such as overtime, absences, etc.), and optimize vacation planning, job assignments, and overtime.
