In the highly competitive hospitality industry, the key to success often lies in consistently delivering guest experiences.

To achieve this, resorts must go beyond simply creating standards.

The standards must resonate throughout the operation. They must be deeply embedded in daily operations.

The right training professional can ensure that standards are embedded and delivered. In this article, we will explore the impact the correct training person can have on the operation, and how they can achieve so much so successfully. As complicated as a training role can be, successful impact on a property's service delivery can be assured by the professional following a handful of steps. Consider these steps the trainer's "pathway to success".

Defining Guest Service Standards

Guest Service Standards are the "rules of engagement" with our guests. Resorts/hotels need to have consistent expectations for the way they welcome, manage and say farewell to their guests. Ideally there is consistency in how reservation assistants answer the phones, how banquets staff set the tables, serve the food, clear, etc. Such rules must exist in every guest-facing area of the property. Existing is not enough – they then must be shared with the appropriate associates so they know what to do, when and how. It takes the right person to share this information.

The pathway begins with the right person.

A good trainer is hard to find. Candidates often have pieces of the ideal role – some might be excellent presenters, others might be great designers of content, some are collaborative while others are very creative. A resort wants a very special person for this role. They need to have some skill in course design, but they need to be outgoing, highly collaborative, and magnetic when presenting.

The Mindset

The training professional must possess the right mindset to succeed in hospitality. The right mindset consists of two primary ways of thinking:

  1. The training person needs to understand the organization's brand, live it, breathe it and be able to communicate it. The training professional is the brand champion; what they teach and spread becomes the way the organization translates its culture/brand into the actual guest experience.
  2. The training professional must clearly see themselves as hoteliers or resort experts first, and trainers second. They must understand that they are part of the operation and not separate from it.

Embedding Oneself

Traditionally, training programs at resorts have been treated as separate entities from daily operations. Such separation amounts to disconnect from the reality of what is happening on a day-to-day basis. Training professionals must be service-oriented and willing to do whatever it takes to learn the general business and the specific property culture and nuances.

While this professional should be able to design coursework (and perhaps author some of it), a trainer in our industry needs to experience their properties and learn all areas of guest service delivery. Eighty (80) percent of their work time ought to be on the floor at all hours of every shift. This is no "desk job", as the right person must infuse themselves in every facet of the hospitality operation. They must take the time to understand the specific needs and challenges of their particular property.

The "trainer" should be so entwined in the operation, that there ought to be genuine debate whether the trainer belongs in human resources or operations. The optimal trainer should so understand the nuances of the operation that they may know how departments run better than the department managers themselves. In my view, the trainer should report to the General Manager with a dotted line to the human resources leader; that dotted line should in fact be thin.

The training person must be prepared to do more than train. Training is not a one-time achievement but instead an ongoing commitment. Training professionals must follow any training with a "quality assurance" component to the material they train. This piece of accountability is sufficiently critical to include Quality Assurance as a portion of the job title. Companies might consider Director of Training and Quality Assurance as the appropriate title for this role.

Assuming the right person oversees your training, there is a "pathway to success" with steps that will drive them and your resort forward. The pathway consists of steps that are easy to identify and follow.

Step One: Identify & observe current guest service standards

The training professional's first step on the pathway is to understand current standards as they are. Jackpot if these standards are documented; however, they may only be in the "heads" of the line staff and/or managers. Regardless of where they are, the training person should determine what consistent standards are in practice and share their understanding of the standards with the department head.

As both courtesy and to build credibility and alignment, a trainer should communicate with the department head their intent to visit the department and observe service standard delivery. The timing should not create new burdens for staff (do not expect staff to welcome you if you schedule yourself for dinner at the resort's fine dining establishment Friday night at 6:30pm). That being said, the trainer should have exposure to the operation and how it guides guests through the service journey. Prime time on Friday night may not be a good idea; neither is late night dinner at 11pm on a Wednesday.

One visit is not enough. To genuinely understand how associates are delivering steps of service, one needs to observe multiple staff at various times through various shifts.

Step Two: Collaborate with the Department Head and memorialize standards

Once the trainer collects the service standards that were observed in practice, they need to schedule time with the department head. This next step is important, and it necessitates both deference and collaboration.

The training person is not the operator. They should never take a position of superiority to the actual individuals "doing the job". Instead, the trainer should collaboratively discuss the standards/steps of guest service with the department head and ensure that that manager's vision for service delivery matches the actual service his/her team is providing to the guests. If there is a gap between that vision and service delivery, the trainer and department head collaborate and determine how to fill that gap. They then memorialize the standards/steps-of-service from the beginning of the guest's "entry" into the department to their "exit". This collaborative effort becomes the "blueprint" for the guest's journey through that part of the resort experience. Once there is a blueprint, there is the potential foundation for consistency and excellence.

Step Three: Train both current and future staff on the memorialized standards

If the training professional has the plans, they can translate those plans into actual training sessions. As stated previously, this design/creation portion of the trainer's role is a small percentage of their job, though a very important one. They take the memorialized, collaboratively-built service standards and translate them into training presentations. The presentations themselves ought to be delivered in a manner best suited to the staff receiving the programs.

A best practice would be delivering such coursework in multiple sense-deliveries – perhaps through a visual program, accompanied by audio and the standards in physical writing (or perhaps texted/e-mailed to each participant). Adults learn and retain in very different ways; to accommodate different learning styles, the trainer should use different methods of message delivery and communication.

Step Four: Audit to ensure consistent delivery of the "correct" service experience for the guest

Once the training person has delivered training, thus communicating standards and establishing expectations, he/she should launch the final step on the pathway to success – assess/evaluate. The training person should revisit each area with a checklist of some kind and ensure that trained associates are carrying out each step in service delivery.

The best way for the training professional to assess the journey is to experience it first-hand. The training person should come as a guest and "enjoy" the experience from the first point of entry to the final point of exit; meaning that even if one enjoys the resort and its amenities, the trainer cannot lose sight of the fact that this is important work. Every step needs to be found, observed and, when necessary, commented upon.

The training person should be empowered to hold associates accountable. He/she should feel comfortable pointing out missing service steps and/or discrepancies in the overall service experience. The training person's role is not one of disciplinarian; the staff delivering the service standard steps has a manager whom they report to and who holds them accountable. The trainer, however, should feel comfortable providing feedback and pointing out ways to improve. Ideally the trainer and department head work in unison and the department head is encouraging the trainer to point out shortcomings or areas of improvement. Associates should not fear the trainer but respect their role and remain vigilant in completing the service standards.

The pathway to success is cyclical and never ends. Upon completion of the audit, the training person identifies gaps, discusses with the manager, fills those gaps, trains new and incumbent staff and again assesses. Thus, the pattern is repeated over and over. If the goal is optimizing the guest experience and delivering consistent, exceptional service, repeating the cycle is not repetitive – it is essential.

Conclusion

In the competitive world of resort management, the quest for excellence in service is ongoing and ever evolving. Training staff to ensure they create a phenomenal guest journey is no easy task. A training professional must infuse themselves deeply into the operation to understand how things work and why things are done. Once embedded, the training professional can follow the pathway towards service success by following the steps noted above – identify/observe standards, categorize and memorialize those standards, train to the standards, assess them and train to any gaps. Repeat the steps with no intent to end.

It is rare that we can take a job and identify the few steps necessary that ensure its success. Yet in the hospitality industry, we can do that with your trainer. Once the trainer aligns with daily operations, customizes programs, and proceeds with all pathway steps, guest service will flourish.

Reprinted from the Hotel Business Review with permission from http://www.hotelexecutive.com/.