Labour cost is not the problem. The rota is.
Most hotels with a labour cost issue do not have a wage issue. They have a rostering issue. The labour line gets squeezed in the wrong places, the right places stay over-resourced, and service suffers as if cost had never moved at all.
Where the leakage actually sits
Walk into most hotels at 8am on a Tuesday and the labour line is being run on autopilot. The rota was written off last week's rota, which was written off the one before, which was originally written for a property whose business mix has long since changed. Productivity targets, when they exist at all, were set against a benchmark from a previous role.
The four checks that actually move it
A useful rota is built against forecast occupancy, food and beverage covers, conversion and the operating standards you need to hold. Each department has its own productivity benchmark. Agency and overtime exposure is reviewed weekly with named accountability. Role design is revisited annually, not assumed.
Why this is not a finance project
Labour is operational. Finance can flag the variance, but only operations can fix it. The fastest improvements come from changing the conversation at the operations meeting, not the conversation at month end.