Let every hire know that they have a key role to play in the hotel
Businesses have never done as much hiring as they do today. They’ve never spent as much money doing it. And they’ve never done a worse job of it.
Many years ago, I recall driving up to a hotel and as I got off my car, the valet parking driver greeting me with a cheerful ‘Good morning’. When I asked him if it was a busy day for the hotel (something I frequently do by briefly chatting with the first hotel employee I meet and to test the water), he excitedly replied “Yes sir, we’re running full occupancy and we’ve also got a big wedding reception taking place this evening”. I was not only impressed with his answer, but also how he said it. He was genuinely proud to be a part of the action.
A few weeks later, arriving at another hotel for a breakfast meeting, I asked the young valet driver who greeted me, the same question, he wasn’t quite sure and stuttered out “I'm sorry…don’t know, I'm just a valet parking attendant”. I then asked him to drive me to where he was going to park my car and whilst walking back together, told him not to downplay his role. Being the first person a guest would meet on arriving, he had the power to either make that 1st impression either a remarkable one or a dull encounter. I went on to explain, that if his role was not important, the hotel would have not hired him in the first place. He paused and after a short while, said “Thank you, I never thought of it that way.”
Hotel operations as we all know do not take place in one confined area of the property. Nevertheless, we sometimes tend to forget that various forms of operations do take place simultaneously across the organisation. Service wise, the direct point of contact between the service provider (hotel staff) and the recipient of the service (hotel guest) is the most obvious operation. Mostly, they are front-of-the-house ‘touch points’ (also referred to as ‘moments of truth’), which occur both indoors and outdoors (as in valet parking).
However, there are a countless number of operations that also take place at the back-of-office areas as supportive actions. In hospitality services, the difference between the point of contact and the support activities has been depicted as an ‘iceberg’. Managers focus on what they see of the iceberg, giving scant attention to what lies below the water.
Take the case of a kitchen steward hunched over a pot, sink or a dish machine for hours. No one bothers to tell him how important his job is, that they protect hotel guests from catching food borne illnesses or that dried food on a fork drives people away. By the way, did someone mention that some of the greatest chefs in the world started as dishwashers? Absolutely correct!
The motivational force for a behavior, action, or task is a function of three distinct perceptions: expectancy, instrumentality, and valence. Expectancy is the perceived probability that effort will lead to good performance; Instrumentality is the perceived probability that good performance will lead to desired outcomes; Valence refers to the value the individual personally places on the rewards.
Hotel Managers and Heads of departments must let every employee know exactly what they want from him / her and let the employee know the goals and the outcomes expected? Every member of the hotel’s staff must be made aware that their job plays a significant role. They need to understand the deeper purpose of their specific role and how it supports the hotel accomplish its objectives. In the larger scheme of things every employee must feel valued and recognized for the work he or she is contributing at the end of it all.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex- Hotelier
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