Hotel Front Office Management, 3rd Edition

324 CHAPTER 11: MANAGING HOSPITALITYtain to some of the employees’ recent personal experiences at the time of check-in orcheckout may initiate some opportunities for discussion. Training continues with a list ofempowerment policy standards, which describe the authority and responsibility that areincluded in their job description. Employee-manager dialogue about these standards willhelp clarify employee understanding and concerns and identify manager communicationissues. The manager will want to demonstrate and have employees go over the use ofempowerment policy standards. Managers will also want to have follow-up training sessionswith review of employee performance and opportunities for employee feedback.Training for Hospitality ManagementPart of a service management program involves employee training to deliver hospitality.Just as managers discuss what they want in an employee, managers decide what mustbe done to convey hospitality to travelers who are away from home. Of course, thisdiscussion is not performed in isolation and requires input from employees. Using theguest service cycle (see Figure 11-6), the planning group determines what each frontlineemployee must do at each point to extend hospitality.The key to making training pay off is knowing what we want the trainees to beable to do when they have finished the program. An effective training process startswith a performance analysis. We must analyze the various jobs to be done in servingthe customer well, and then spell out the knowledge, attitudes, and skills requiredof the person doing the job. 19You cannot take it for granted that the desk clerk knows to maintain eye contact withthe guest during the check-in procedure while using a computer, that the switchboardoperator knows to alert a security supervisor when a guest mysteriously hangs up in themiddle of a call for information, or that a bellhop knows to check the operating conditionsof the heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning unit and television when he or she bringsthe guest’s luggage to the room. The communications of hospitality must be identified,so that each employee can be trained to convey them.Evaluating the Service Management ProgramAny program requires methods for evaluating whether the program has successfullyachieved its goals. This chapter opened by defining hospitality as the generous and cordialprovision of service to a guest. How do the owners and managers of a hotel know thathospitality is being delivered?Albrecht and Zemke base the development of a sound evaluation procedure on identifyingthe guest’s moments of truth. 20 Figure 11-6 outlines the moments of truth in theguest service cycle. This outline can serve as a guideline for what should be evaluated.The more research put into identifying the components of the guest service cycle for aspecific hotel property, the more effective managers and employees will be in evaluatingTLFeBOOK