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The Importance of Training & Development in the Hospitality Industry
In the hospitality industry, providing great services to customers is a must. However, having a strategic location close to popular tourist attractions and investing in well-furnished rooms and well thought out amenities, from a gym to high-speed WiFi, are not enough to guarantee that you will succeed in the industry. You need that one huge factor that will convince guests to keep coming back if they ever need future accommodations and that is customer satisfaction. This is why you need to train your staff so they will provide excellent customer service, now and in the future.
What happens if customers are not happy?
If you’re a hotel owner with a vision of making your hospitality brand grow, then you should focus on ensuring customer satisfaction among each of your guests. Otherwise, you risk ruining your brand with negative reviews coming from your unhappy customers. Considering how fast such reviews spread online, especially on popular travel sites, it is quite easy to shred your reputation to pieces and discourage potential guests from staying at your hotel. Without repeat business, you might not reach the level of profitability that you need to keep it going.
Moreover, it is easier and less costly to convince customers to book your hotel again than to attract new ones, especially with the stiff competition you’re probably getting from hotels in your area. But if your guests remember how warm, accommodating, and polite your hotel staff is, they will likely keep booking your hotel in the future.
Why it is important to participate in training?
A career in the hospitality industry can be something that you can pursue through life. It can be a rewarding career path as you can climb up the ranks, from being a busboy, for instance, to being the hotel manager. This is made possible with dedication, hard work, further education and training, some of which the hotel owner may provide. But employees can also supplement the hotel-sponsored training with voluntary training. If needed, you can always take out personal online loans for training. The cost of training will be worth it if it means opening up more career opportunities for you in the future.
Online training is beneficial for hotel employees due to the following reasons:
- People are more likely to engage in videos instead of reading documents or articles.
- People who train online tend to learn five times more than other people who train through other media.
- It is around 50% more cost effective for employers.
- It can give employers a positive ROI (return on investment) in less than a year.
- It is favored by over 40% of global Fortune 500 companies.
Why hotels should invest in training?
There are many reasons why hotel owners should focus on developing and training their own hotel staff. These include the following:
Better cooperation as a single unit
Guests often see hotel staff as a single unit, hence the bad service that they get from one member of the staff may taint the others. But if you train people to improve their teamwork and deal with other people coming from different backgrounds in diversity training, it makes it easier for them to operate smoothly to the satisfaction of your customers.
An improved pool of potential hotel managers
They would likely discover that there are a lot of potential talents waiting to be discovered and ready to take on the hotel’s managerial positions after completing enough training. After training, it will be easier for you to identify talent that can be honed and developed into great managers.
Reduced employee turnover
Higher turnover meant higher cost in hiring and training new people. It also meant time lost in interviewing new applications and productivity wasted as new people need time to get used to their job. Well-trained people also tend to stick it out, thanks to increased job satisfaction, the satisfaction that stems from having co-workers who follow a written code of conduct, for instance, and from knowing what is expected of them, given their position. Proper training helps employees do better in their jobs and when they know that they are performing well, they remain happy, satisfied, long-term employees.
Better problem-solving skills
If things go wrong, it is important for the hotel staff to resolve the problem in a positive way to still ensure a satisfactory experience for the guests. If they are satisfied with the way the issue was resolved, they tend to choose to continue staying at the hotel and wanting to return.
Improved feeling of safety and security
In case of an emergency, guests would rely on the hotel staff to keep them safe and taken care of. It is up to the staff, who are more familiar with the hotel and the area, to direct or assist the guests in need. This is why hotel staff should receive proper training in performing CPR and first aid. They should also be trained to execute plans in case of natural disasters or potential attacks. If proper training is conducted, people in panic can be managed better, preventing the worst scenario from happening.
With great training comes happier, better performing, and more loyal staff – and happy hotel staff means satisfied customers. So if you’re ready to train your employees, start developing an online training program or a traditional program now!
