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The SOP Roadmap: From Library to Living Standards

How we propose to move, for the two scoping sessions with Fiona: Rooms and Spa on Tuesday 21 July, Food and Beverage (F&B) on Friday 24 July. Three stages, each finished before the next is committed, inside Aleph's Category A milestone.

Where We Start

In hand. The files themselves, uploaded by Fiona on 19 July: Rooms in English and French, Spa in English and French, the Food and Beverage (F&B) manual with its Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and the Food Health and Safety manual with its checklists. Before that, on 18 July, the positioning material: the Michlifen statement, the Marchica positioning pack with its tone of voice, and the Marchica summer action plan. That is the identity layer the adaptation draws from, an Alpine chalet in the Middle Atlas and a lagoon sanctuary in Nador, and we now have the standards to set beside it.

What a first read shows. One pattern runs through Rooms, Spa and F&B alike: the standards are written generically, not fitted to Michlifen or Marchica, and not separated by star grade. Rooms has procedures but no divisional manual. The F&B manual is recent, in English only, and has not yet been through Aleph's own review. The Food Health and Safety checklists sit in a format that has resisted translation. None of that is a surprise and none of it is a criticism: it is precisely the gap this work closes, and it means the sessions can start from the documents rather than from a description of them.

Still to come. The library index, which shows what sits outside the divisions we now hold, and the marketing toolkit Fiona has offered. The running picture of asked and arrived stays on the data register.

The Three Stages

Stage 1 · Take Stock

Know exactly what is there

Before anything is rewritten, an honest inventory of Rooms, F&B and Spa:

  • What exists, what is duplicated, what is missing, division by division, property by property
  • Each SOP checked against Leading Quality Assurance (LQA) and Forbes expectations and the guest journey: keep, lift, or create
  • The output is a gap map both hotels can see at a glance, with the mystery guest findings telling us where to look hardest
Stage 2 · One Spine, Two Properties

Adapt the Category A set

The architecture is agreed with Fiona first, building on today's numbering and manual structure, not replacing it. Then the adaptation:

  • A common spine shared across the group, with the property layer woven in from the positioning material: the chalet in Ifrane, the lagoon in Nador
  • English masters; the existing professional French aligned, the F&B French brought up to the same standard
  • One division at one property goes first, is read back and validated, and only then does the method widen
Stage 3 · Make Them Live

Standards people actually use

An adapted document on a shelf changes nothing. The set is built so it can serve the daily operation:

  • Checklists, induction and self-testing drawn from the same source, so nothing is written twice
  • The quality programme gains a concrete standard to audit against, and results feed back into focus areas
  • We demonstrate one working example first; what gets built beyond that is chosen together, and Aleph's team is trained to produce the rest themselves
The order is deliberate: no adaptation before the gap map exists, and no operational tooling before one adapted division has passed review. Each stage earns the next.

The Two Sessions

Tuesday 21 July, 11:00 Dubai · Rooms and Spa (Fiona, Annette, Jad as he wishes)

  • Walk the Rooms and Spa files as they are, now that both are in hand; Fiona ring-fences what is in and out
  • The missing Rooms manual: whether it is wanted, and whether it comes before or after the procedures are fitted to each property
  • Agree the first division and property for the proof of concept, and what "done" looks like for one adapted SOP
  • Agree the working rhythm: short working sessions with Fiona, who brings others in as needed

Friday 24 July, 16:30 Dubai · F&B (adds Marc Matar)

  • The new F&B manual and how the older SOPs correlate with it, division by division, and where Aleph's own review of it has reached
  • The F&B French: what was translated against the deadline and how it catches up to the rest
  • The Food Health and Safety checklists, where the format itself is the obstacle to translation and to daily use
  • The three, four and five-star split Marc had begun: whether it belongs inside this work or alongside it
  • Where the guest-facing service moments sit, restaurant by restaurant, for the property layer

Held Steady Throughout

  • Compliance, food safety and fire life safety documents stay with the relevant experts; operational SOPs reference local laws, and property-level validation stays with Aleph
  • Nothing that already works is rebuilt; the structural pass outside Rooms, F&B and Spa looks for consistency and gaps only
  • The General Managers are brought in at the checkpoints Fiona advises, so the result reads as theirs, not corporate's
  • Everything produced remains inside Aleph's own environment and governance
The SOP Roadmap: From Library to Living Standards 20 July 2026 · draft for discussion Deep Hospitality  ·  Programme Dashboard