Hotel Front Office Management, 3rd Edition

340 CHAPTER 12: TRAINING FOR HOSPITALITYkeeping, maintenance, marketing and sales, food and beverage, and front office departments.The front office must take the lead in establishing good communications with thevarious departments. Since the front office is the initial contact for the guest, obtainingstatus reports, maintaining communications, and knowing the functions being hostedeach day are the responsibilities of the front office staff. Overlooking trivial misunderstandingswith other departments takes colossal effort on some days, but the front officemust keep the communication lines open. The guest will benefit from and appreciate theefforts of a well-informed front office.Administering the Orientation ProgramAdministering the orientation program requires planning by the front office manager. Thefront office is a hectic place, and there is much for the new employee to learn. Concernfor the guests and the services and information they require must be a priority. A standardorientation checklist should be prepared, which summarizes all items that must be coveredduring orientation, such as that shown in Figure 12-1. This will ensure that the newemployee has been properly introduced to the front office. This checklist should be initialedby both the new employee and the orientation supervisor after the program iscomplete, to verify that all policies have been covered. This ensures that no one can claimto be ignorant because there is written evidence that the material was covered in theorientation program.The orientation program should be delivered by a member of the supervisory staff ora trained senior staff member in the front office. This person must have the ability toconvey the attitude of the organization as well as the tasks of the employees. Whoeverhandles the orientation should not be on duty at the same time: it is impossible to explainso much about the property to a new employee while performing other tasks as well.The orientation program helps the employer-employee relationship begin on the rightfoot. It introduces the workplace, guidelines and procedures, co-workers, and managementstaff to the new hire. The orientation program also introduces new employees totheir work environment and encourages them to be a part of it.Developing a Training ProgramTraining is an important management function and is required to develop and ensurequality performance. 1 In the hospitality industry, some hotel organizations take trainingseriously; others talk about it extensively but have no real program in place. Those thathave developed, instituted, and continued to update their training programs considerthem great assets in human resources management. They give the management team anopportunity to develop qualified employees who can perform jobs according to prede-TLFeBOOK