STM CHAPTER 6-9

CAPACITATING THE SERVICE PROVIDER (The Power of Training and Motivation for the Provision of Effective and Efficient Service) COURSE OBJECTIVES: ✓ To recognize the importance of training and development to hospitality organizations ✓ To discuss the different methods used by hospitality organizations to train and develop their employees ✓ To study how hospitality organizations measure the value and effectiveness of their training programs TOPICS: ✓ EMPLOYEES TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT EMPLOYEE TRAINING Hospitality organizations are not only confronted with the challenge of training their employees to improve the skills required in the job; they must also teach them how to solve inevitable problems creatively and how to interact positively with guests. Berry's 5 Training Principles

Focus on critical skills and knowledge. A hospitality organization can determine these critical skills through a methodical analysis of the service, delivery systems, and staff.
Start strong and teach the big picture. It is crucial to teach the organization’s culture among the employees to give them a way to make sense out of their jobs and how they do them.
Formalize learning as a process. This pertains to the process of building learning into the job, making learning a requirement for everyone, and institutionalizing expectation.
Use multiple learning approaches. Different employees have different learning curves. Since they will learn differently, using varied learning approaches is also important.
Seek continuous improvement. Essentially, one must be committed to continuous improvement. DEVELOPING A TRAINING PROGRAM What do needs to be improved? Training should always be preceded by a needs assessment to check if the perceived organizational weaknesses or problems should be addressed by conducting training or by some other management strategy. Solving the Guest's Problem The needs assessment also helps identify the objectives of the training, as well as the learning goals. Listed below are some examples of the types of training programs offered in the hospitality industry:
Mandatory training EEO/diversity Orientation Safety training
Skills-oriented training Basic skills training Computer training Crisis training Cross-functional training Language training Retraining Specialized skills training
External training Some large organizations can afford internal training department. Others rely on individual managers, high performing employees, and supervisors to provide the training for both new and existing employees.
Internal training In-house training departments are found in larger hospitality organizations. Every major company has an internal training unit that provides programs to its employees.
1. Training Costs Although some companies keep all trainings as in-house to preserve organizational security and culture, the common determinant of whether to use in-house or outside training is cost. TRAINING METHODS
2. Mentoring
3. Coaching
4. Apprenticeships
5. On-the-Job Training
6. Simulation
7. Classroom Training Simulation
8. Cross-Functional Training
9. Training at home
10. Retraining
11. Audio visual Training
12. Training in special competencies
13. Computer-assisted Instruction EMPLOYEES DEVELOPMENT People either shrivel or grow. Commit to helping people help themselves.”

Norman Brinker, Chili’s Employee Development encompasses a combination of work experience, educational background, and training. Training routinely focuses on teaching people how to do the new jobs for which they have been hired for or to overcome deficiencies they may have in performing their current jobs. Employee Development, on the other hand, is generally focused on getting people ready for their future. While Training tends to look at the present to pinpoint and correct employee deficiencies in performing the job today, Development anticipates the skills, competencies, and areas of knowledge that the employee will need to become successful tomorrow. PART. 2 SERVING WITH A SMILE: LESSON PROPER MOTIVATING EMPLOYEES Employee motivation is defined as the enthusiasm, level of energy, commitment, and creativity that a company’s employees bring to their job every day. It is concerned with how engaged an employee feels in line with the organization’s goals and how empowered he/she feels. Motivation is categorized into two: INTRINSIC MOTIVATION – occurs when we engage in an activity/ a behavior because we find it rewarding EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION – when we are motivated to engage in an activity/ a behavior because we want to either earn a reward or avoid punishment THE NEEDS PEOPLE HAVE Before managers can know how to design a system to motivate and reward employees, they need to figure out what their employees need and want. There are many theories that try to explain people’s needs. Generally, they suggest that people seek to fulfil four levels of needs when joining organizations. THE FOUR NEEDS THAT PEOPLE HAVE Survival needs • most basic employee needs • the need to earn a living Social Needs • establishing an environment wherein employees can work in harmony with informal and formal work group to support each employee’s effort to achieve group goals, which will-directly or indirectly-help achieve the organizational goals Recognition Needs • employees’ desire for praise and attention from colleagues and superiors • everybody likes to be appreciated one way or another Achievement Needs • employees’ belief that what they do is significant and the companies they work for do important things • employees feel a legitimate sense of importance THE REWARDS PEOPLE WANT Once the managers know what employees need and what makes them feel good, they can start devising ways to meet those needs. To do so, managers have a variety of financial and nonfinancial tools at their disposal
Financial Rewards – salaries, wages, bonuses, group incentives. The most effective hospitality companies also use Nonfinancial Rewards - formal recognition programs, acknowledging a job well done STM CHAPTER 7 Involving The Guest: The Co-Creation of Value OBJECTIVES:

To get involve in guest co-create values
To determine when guest participation makes sense
To infer how, when, and why hospitality organizations empower guests to help provide their own guest experiences.
To explain the advantages and disadvantages of guest involvement for the organization and guest.
To know why and how some hospitality organizations ‘fire’ their guest INTRODUCTION: Customers today have become active participants in the co-creation activities of companies, be it product or service development or the promotion of these products or services. The more customers realize that a company is committed to listening, accepting, and delivering their precise requirements, the more they want to be involved in that company. GUESTS CO-CREATE VALUE Unlike in the traditional manufacturing organization where people involved in the core production tasks are not visible, the people providing many hospitality services are right out in the open where the guests can see and even interact with them. The guest-centric view is that the guestologist seeks to determine what the customers want and involves them in the co-creation of the experience, before or after the actual experience itself. During the hospitality experience, the management can use different strategies to engage the guests in the co-production of that experience so that they co-create quality and value. The guests themselves will take the primary role in coproducing the service. As defined by Crandell (2016), co-creation is the “purposeful action of partnering with strategic customers, partners or employees to ideate, problem solve, improve performance, or create a new product, service or business.” Guests as Quasi-Employees Hospitality organizations have realized that they must help manage the confusion, stress, and perplexity that guests can create for their employees while on duty. To do this, they must train their employees in both job skills and the management of guest co-production. Another effective way to manage this confusion is to think of guests as quasiemployees and “manage” them appropriately. Schneider and Bowen’s three-step strategy for managing quasi-employees:
Carefully and completely define the roles you want guests to play. Define the knowledge skills, and abilities required to perform the jobs identified as desirable and appropriate for guest.
Make sure that guests know exactly what you expect them to do and that they are physically able, mentally prepared, and sufficiently skilled to do those tasks. Show guest that performing that task is to their benefit.
Once task performance is underway, evaluate the guest's ability and willingness to perform well. In effect, conduct a performance appraisal on the guest to ensure that the experience being coproduced is meeting the guest’s expectation. If not, identify what needs to be fixed. STRATEGIES FOR INVOLVING THE GUEST
Guests as Unpaid Consultants When the hospitality organization tries to find out what the guests like or dislike about their experience, the guests turn into unpaid consultants and act as quality control inspectors. Since their input regarding their experiences will become part of the information that the management uses to review and modify the service product, environment, and delivery system, the guest become expert consultants in giving this important feedback to the organization.
1. Guests as Marketers Everyone has asked a friend or colleague about a hospitality experience.
2. Guests as Part of Each Other's Experience If you simply enjoy observing other guests, you may view them as part of the service environment. If other guests are especially important to your enjoyment of your experience, you might even consider them a part of the service product itself.
3. Guests as Co-producers The most prominent way in which guests can participate, aside from simply being there, is to become active co-producers of the guest experience. During parts of or the entire service experience, they can emerge as participants in the production and delivery system.
4. The High Cost of Failure An unsatisfactory co-production can be a minor annoyance to a restaurant diner, but it can be disastrous if the cost of failure is great. The best hospitality organizations strive hard to ensure that guests succeed as coproducers, but the risk of failure is always there. Motivating Guests to Co-Produce Guest can safely participate when they have the necessary knowledge, skills, and attitudes to create the service product, but guests must be enticed to be in the process. The Guest as a Substitute for Management Guests as Supervisors Guests have a great deal of contact with the service staff, communicate with them more often, and witness more of their job performance than the organization's supervisors do. Guest as Motivators To have guests participate in supervision can be highly encouraging to employees when guest tell them in both verbal and nonverbal ways what a good job they are doing. Guest as Supervisors and Trainers for Other Guests Guests can also supervise and train each other. We all learn from watching other people and given the volume of people in most hospitality situations on a regular day, we can learn what we're supposed to do to enjoy the experience by merely observing others. Determining When Guest Participation Makes Sense There are times when both the organization and the guest benefit from the guest participation, but there also times that they do not. Discerning when, where, and to what extent the guest should or should not be involved in any part of the guest experience depends on a variety of factors. In general, co-producing the service is in the interest of the guest when they gain value, reduce risk, or improve the quality of the experience. Enriching the Wait Hospitality organizations should try to reduce the feeling that the wait is too long by giving guests something to do, ideally something that will enrich the overall experience. Co-Producing Value Most people are happy to co-produce if it enriches their hospitality experience. By definition, value can be added by reducing costs (for the same quality), increasing quality (for the same costs), or both. And by cost, it doesn’t only pertain to the price, but the other costs incurred by being involved in the guest experience are also included. Time and Control For the guest, the feeling of how long something takes is equally important to how long it actually takes. The degree of control over the quality of experience that the guest apparently gets by participating is as important in determining the value of his participation. Cutting Cost, Increasing Capacity From the company's point of view, the most distinct reason to incorporate the guest into the guest experience is to save money. Every time the guest produces or co-produces a hospitality service, the guest is providing labor that the organization would otherwise need to hire. ONE LAST POINT: FIRING THE GUEST Despite the old adage that the customer is always right, every organization knows that the customer may sometimes be wrong by any reasonable standard; specific extreme behaviors are unacceptable in any hospitality setting. Firing Airline Passengers passengers cursing at the flight crew, punching attendants, trying to open an emergency door, trying to break into the cockpit Abrupt Firing customers threatening the well-being or safety of other customers, employees, or themselves, excessively rude or loud guests, customers endangering the physical and mental health of an employee Subtle Firings refusal to allow unaccompanied children under 18 to book passage in a cruise ship, a resort hotel's unwillingness to book a convention of ex-convicts, a sign in a gift shop saying "No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service" Maintaining Guest Dignity The dismissal should be carried with minimal harm to the guest's well-being (physical or mental) and dignity. Albeit the firing of a guest is a response to a guest failure of some kind, the hospitality organization must also realize that it has also failed in some way. Those rude, troublesome guests had expectations, too – which may be reasonable and realistic or not – and the organization failed to meet them as well.

Chapter 8: The Hospitality Service Delivery System COURSE OBJECTIVES: At the end of this chapter, the student is expected to: • State the importance and uses of communication and information to hospitality organizations. • Describe the ways how information enhances the service product, setting, and delivery system. • Learn about the sophisticated information systems that hospitality organizations use today, including their advantages and disadvantages. COMMUNICATING FOR SERVICE “Communicate everything you can to your associates. The more they know, the more they care.” - Sam Walton, Walmart What went wrong? Who was at fault? In the above-mentioned case, the manager failed to alert the waiter about a possible problem with one of the diners since he did not inform him about the diner’s concern. Because of this, the waiter was caught unaware and was unable to do something to make the customer’s dining experience better. The manager had the information but did not communicate it. In this day and age, knowing how to communicate effectively has become one of the most essential life skills to learn since it helps people manage the daily challenges in their personal lives and at their workplace. In the hospitality industry, communication greatly impacts the daily business operations, as well as the entire customer experience. THE CHALLENGE OF MANAGING INFORMATION Managing Information Systems • Developing a system that can manage information effectively is one of the most important challenges that hospitality organizations is facing right now. Information is comprised of data about something or someone, while an information system is a network or method used to get the information to those who need it. • As defined by Valacich and Schneider (2010), information systems are combinations of hardware, software, and telecommunications networks that people build and use to collect, create, and distribute useful data, typically in organizational settings. • An information system that is well-designed delivers the right information to the right person at the right time, thus, supporting decision-making, control, coordination, and analysis. In the hospitality context, the term right person may refer to the either the employee, the guest, or both. Bear in mind that information that is unable to provide value to either the guest or the organization is rendered useless. Informing Guests • Since service is intangible by nature, the information that a hospitality organization relays to help the guest make the intangible tangible is a critical consideration of the information system. The organization should carefully determine the kind of information, the type of format, and the quantity of information that they should provide so that they can create the experience the guest is expecting. They should also take into account even the tiniest details and structure all the information they have in order to provide the guest with cues regarding the type of service and the level of excellence they offer. Realizing That Cues Communicate • A cue is a signal for someone to say or do something (Cambridge English Dictionary). In terms of consumer behavior, it is defined by as a relatively minor influence on human behavior that, acting jointly with the more powerful influence of a primary drive or learned drive, can control when, where, and how a response will be made • Every informational cue in the service setting relating to the quality and value of the experience should be carefully studied to communicate what the organization wants to communicate to the guest. The guestexperience elements – product, service, and delivery system – can be glued together with information to create a "whole", seamless experience for the guest that will make him/her want to come back. Adding Quality and Value Through Information The hospitality industry is seeing an increased demand for a more personalized, customtailored customer service. Both information and information technology can be utilized to: • Personalize service, hence adding a special touch to the guest experience • Improve the service itself • Transform an organization or an industry Getting Information Where It Needs to Go The challenge of information systems lies on how to collect data, organize it into information, and then distribute that information exactly to those who need it and when they need it. Hospitality organizations that have become adept in getting information where it needs to go have understood that the act of providing information itself is already considered a service to guests. More often than not, it is as relevant as the primary service itself, and a requisite for hospitality employees. It is therefore important to pinpoint the information needs of both the guests and the employees in relation to all three components/elements of the guest experience. Information And Service Product Typically, the information about the services being offered can be found within the environment rather than as part of the service product itself. This “tangibilizing” leads customers towards positive impressions and favorable judgments about the value and quality of the guest experience. Example: • Displaying food reviews inside the restaurant • Hanging a 5-star certificate in the hotel lobby • Publicizing a service excellence award received by the establishment Giving Employees Information They Need • Employees are also entitled to information that’s timely, accurate, and relevant for them to do their jobs efficiently and effectively. When information is perceived to be a service product, the employee becomes an internal customer for that product. Internal Customer • For the internal customers, the service given is the delivery of the information needed by employees needs to make decisions about how to serve and satisfy external customers. This information-as-product is provided either by an employee or an informationgathering unit acting as an internal “hospitality service organization.” • Both the managers and the empowered employees must have access to information that will help them make sound decisions and measure the results of their decision-making activity. Integrated Information System • An integrated information system may be defined as a network of software programs that combine different databases and link several information sets using data integration tools and models. It gives an organization the competitive advantage to achieve its strategic goals using the latest technologies that cover all areas of the organization’s activities.

INFORMATION AND THE SERVICE SETTING Many kinds of useful information may be provided to the guest by the service setting and its features and aspects. • Customer-provided information Guests need not to wait for organizations to provide them information. Currently, many sources of information are readily available for customers that will help them assess a hospitality experience before having it.
INFORMATION AND THE DELIVERY SYSTEM Certainly, information is needed to make the service delivery system work. That system involves both the people and the processes through which the service and accompanying tangible products are provided to the customer. Study the nature of the service product so that the delivery system to be developed will be unique to that product and the ideal information system for it can be determined. • Know Your Customers • Deliver freshness • Information on Service Quality • Information to the People • High Tech Becomes High Touch
ADVANCED INFORMATION SYSTEMS Two systems that do more than just providing information are decision systems and expert systems.
DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS (DSS) • A system that goes beyond getting information to the right person at the right time can actually help improve business decision-making capabilities. Computers collect a great deal of information across multiple aspects of the hospitality business, resulting to a vast database of information on customers and their behaviors. • A decision system is preprogrammed to manage situations that do not require judgment. Generally, it is particularly useful to organizations and companies that want to build lasting relationships with their customers. Examples: • an automatic warning that signals a manager when an inventory level of a critical product gets low • a computer icon that flashes on a computer screen to warn a cruise-ship engineer that a piece of equipment is heating up or malfunctioning CALEBTECH Crewsolver A Decision Support System (DSS) for Major Airline Crew Recovery By Mary Grace Whealan (Knowledge Management – Spring 2010) Who Uses CrewSolver? • Continental Airlines • Southwest • Northwest Airlines • jetBLUE Airways • COMAIR • AirTran Airways What is CrewSolver? CrewSolver is part of a product suite of advanced decision support poducts that provides airlines with powerful solutions to recover from irregular operations and manage their manpower in real-time. As a DSS, CrewSolver… • Is not an expert system, giving one definitive solution; it gives multiple (3) solutions based on up-to-the-minute system data. Crew schedulers work with this information and their knowledge base to make the ultimate scheduling decisions. • Outlines important factors that must be considered in decision-making process and makes information (crew impact, cost, overall disruption) more quickly accessible. • (Ideally) helps crew managers determine best solution based on both financial and quality-of-life factors. EXPERT SYSTEMS • An expert system is set up to make decisions that require selecting between alternatives when the correct decision is not clear cut. It replicates the decision-making process of an expert who systematically gathers, organizes, and interprets data, then makes a decision that mirrors the application of his expertise. • The key to using expert systems is to find experts, identify the criteria they use in making decisions, program their decision rules in a logical sequence, then apply the program to problems that lend themselves to computerized analysis. An advance form of expert systems is sometimes referred to as artificial intelligence. Examples: • a system that automatically orders and ships a predetermined quantity of fresh produce when the inventory drops to a certain level • the classic chess-playing program on the computer THE HOSPITALITY ORGANIZATION AS AN INFORMATION SYSTEM • The organization itself can be considered as a big network of information that provides each staff with whatever information he/she needs, whenever he/she needs it, to better serve the customers. Everyone becomes a transmission point in the organizational network – gathering, sending, and processing information into a decisionfriendly format. • The people who will design the organization as an information system must consider how all these network participants are linked together along with their information needs. Reengineering the organization and its information system around the customer's needs is becoming a necessity in this present-day competitive market.