Hampton Inn Mission Valley Job Shadow With Kim Lam

By: Abigail Schwartz & Anne Lin

HTM 320

Kim Lam
Email: kim.lam@hamptoninnmv.com
Phone: (619)-794-1305
Graduated from the L. Robert Payne School of Hospitality & Tourism Management at San Diego
State University in 2012 and is currently the Front Office Manager at the Hampton Inn by Hilton
San Diego/Mission Valley.

Job Shadow: Wednesday December 6, 2017 at 1:30pm

Questions & Answers with Kim Lam:

1. What is your educational background?

“I went to San Diego State and graduated from the hotel management program in 2012. It
took me five years to graduate because I studied abroad my senior year and by the time I
came back, I was so behind in classes so I split them up and got them done as quick as
possible. I am from Los Angeles and came out here just for school.”

2. What inspired you to work in the hotel industry?

“In high school I was very involved with theater and did a lot on the technical side like stage
management but then going into college it was such a different atmosphere and I knew it
would be hard to find a job. I knew I wanted to be a leader but didn’t know what field would
allow me to do so. I ended up looking through catalog for anything with the word
management and then started in hospitality management. The first HTM class I took was 201
and was inspired to work in hotels and got first job sophomore year of college.”

3. How many years have you worked for Hilton?

“This is my fourth year with Hilton. My first hotel exposure was with the Double Tree and
then I moved around to the Holiday Inn and this is my first management position.”

4. Did you complete a Hotel Management Training Program after graduating?

“I didn’t have the grades to get accepted, but I really wanted to as I applied for Hilton.
Honestly there isn’t enough position for everyone. I always stuck with the managers I had
and the relationships I made and then the managers I worked for recommended me for a
management position. If you keep with it and find a good mentor that’s how you will be
successful.”

5. Can you describe to me what a typical workday is for you?

“In a typical workday I oversee the front office and breakfast area. For example, making sure
the food is up to quality and everyone has what he or she needs. I always am talking to guests
and greeting them while making sure their stay is great. Quality control is probably the
biggest factor of my job as I am in contact with the housekeeping department and
engineering. We do property walks every Tuesday in every guestroom and around the
property to look make sure everything looks excellent and if it doesn’t we will replace it.”

6. What is the hardest task to achieve as an employee here?

“For me I think it is the unexpected stuff that is the most challenging. You can set a schedule
and think everyone is going to come and show up but If people call out I am the person who
has to stay because we can’t have a front desk with no staff. Dealing with employees is also
hard to because its not the guest where you can just give them an amenity and make them
happy. When employees aren’t happy its tough; I wanted to be in human resources but since
 this position it is very hard because restriction on what you can say and do.”

7. What skills or experiences do you look for in potential employees?

“For the front desk I look for bubbly, friendly, kind, and someone who will mix well with the
agents at the desk already. It is quickly evident the people who take pride in their work and
constantly have a good attitude. Working front desk is hard, so having thick skin is crucial
and not taking things personally.”

8. How do you handle guest complaints?

“Well I try to follow HEART which Hilton created as a guideline to deal with upset guests H
stands for hear them out, E is to empathize and feel for them along the lines of if I was a
guest I be upset too, A is for apologize, R is to react and respond such as what we are going
to do to compensate them, and T is thank them. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.
Make them feel as though them bringing the issue to you is helpful.”

9. What strategies do you use to compete with larger chain hotels?

“All the brands within Hilton are all so different so there is not much competition. The
Hampton Inn is very simple and family friendly with no bar or restaurant and breakfast
served in the morning. Whereas the Garden Inn they have a bar/restaurant and better rates for
business travelers because that is their target market. If anything there is competition about
wanting people to come in summer.”

10. Can you describe a time where you turned a negative guest situation into a positive one?
“I had a guest upset about his shower being clogged up and it took a long time to get it
unclogged with the help of our engineer. We apologized and realized he was a Hilton Honors
member and offered him points to make his overall experience better. This guest didn’t
realize he had points and was a member and he felt so excited about the points. The situation
turned positive because while the shower was getting fixed I was able to occupy his time
explaining about the program and giving him more points for the inconvenience. I wanted to
make sure he knew that he wasn’t a bother to me so I made sure to thank him for brining this
to my attention and allowing us to fix the problem.”

11. What is the most important quality you can offer a guest so that they are pleased with their
stay and will return?
“The overall experience, the moment you walk in here with a friendly atmosphere. If you
aren’t greeted genuinely and kindly no matter how amazing and clean your hotel is the guest
still wont have a great experience. We make sure our front desk staff is properly trained to
give our guests a great experience at check in so it starts their stay off right.”

12. How do you oversee the training of the hotel staff?

“What I do is after I hire someone, I’ll sit down with them to go through the check list and
then their first couple of shifts I will have them watch me and what I do. Then during the
next shift they are on their own as I observe and am there for questions. Following that then
they will shadow the senior staff at the front desk during their assigned shifts. Training is
hard because you can’t train staff on every situation and detail, but it takes about a month or
two to fully train somebody.”
13. What is the most unusual experience you have had to deal with in one of your hotels?
“I was working at the front desk and this guy came up to ask me if he could sit in the lobby
because his wife was meeting him shortly after. I responded and told him that of course he
could sit and wait. About three minutes later the front desk gets a call that a naked homeless
man is in the Jacuzzi. After immediately contacting security, this man was removed from the
property along with his friend (the man who asked me if he could wait in the lobby for his
wife). Later the pieces were put together that the man who asked me about waiting in the
lobby was a distraction to get the homeless man past the front desk into the pool deck to go
swimming.”

14. If you were not in hotel management, what alternative career bath would you choose?
“Growing up I wanted to go into the theater field but now I realize those dreams are
unrealistic because it is such a competitive field and I have focused more energy into the
business and hotel management side of my life. A goal that I do have for myself is to be apart
of a task force team within a company. Basically if a hotel struggling or needs a revamp I
would come in and assist them. This seems like such a great job because you can travel all
around the world and meet so many new people.”

15. As future college graduates entering a very competitive business world, do you have any
advice for us?
“You have to go above and beyond because for example when I was in the front desk if I was
just the person to check people in and I wouldn’t get to where I was today. I was always
asking questions, looking for new challenging tasks, and helping out my managers. You want
to stand out and have people rely on you. If you can make it at the front desk you can make it
anywhere.”

Abigail Schwartz’s Takeaway & Summary:

I was a little bit hesitant to reach out and ask managers within different hotels if I could
shadow them because I did not want to be a bother to their busy day and I was nervous they
wouldn’t have time. After sending out a couple of emails in addition to leaving different
voicemails, no one was getting back to me and I felt discouraged. Finally, I received a call back
from Kim Lam who was the Front Office Manager at the Hampton Inn Mission Valley. Over the
phone she sounded so excited to hear from me and even told me she graduated San Diego State
University! After talking about the job shadow we set up a time to meet for Wednesday
December 6, 2017 at 1:30pm. Upon arrival to the property Anne and I had come up with
questions we both wanted to ask Kim during our job shadow. We made sure to not collaborate on
the question making until after we both wrote out questions because we wanted to make sure
they were personal things we desired answers to. After carpooling to the job shadow, Anne and I
walked in to the hotel and were kindly greeted by the two women working at the front desk. I
told them we had a meeting set up with Kim at 1:30pm and they went to the back office to get
her. Kim came out and took us over to the tables by the breakfast area that overlooked the pool
and jacuzzi. We were able to sit down and ask Kim all the questions we had prepared for her.
Something that stood out to me was when Kim became engaged and interested in what Anne and
I were doing, what our goals were, and where we saw ourselves ending up. It was inspiring to
see that someone could take time out of their day to let us observe what she does and ask her
questions but also the fact she was just as eager to get to know us. During the interview part of
our session, the biggest thing that interested me was when Kim talked about the management
training programs. One of the goals I have set for myself is to work hard enough to get accepted
into a management-training program within a hotel upon gradation. This program seems like the
perfect gateway from graduation to real world work in my opinion and I am very excited to take
the steps needed to go into one. Kim really put things into perspective for me about the fact if
maybe I do not get accepted into one of the programs. She applied and interviewed with Hilton
for their program and did not get accepted. In the beginning her world was shattered and she
didn’t know what she would now do with her life post graduation. But, she picked herself up and
continued to work her hotel job, keep her mentor and connections, and seek different job
positions. Currently, she is in one of the positions that a management-training student would be
guaranteed after completing the program and she did it on her own. Her story gave me hope that
if I don’t get accepted into a program it doesn’t mean I am a failure; it just means there is another
path out there for me. I still plan on applying for all the management training programs and
doing my best to get accepted, but if I don’t I know things will be okay. Following our interview,
Anne and I were able to walk around the property where we saw the breakfast area, lobby, pool
and spa deck, fire pit and seating area, and front desk. I was pleasantly surprised at the modern
and clean feel there was to the hotel. The guests are greeted with a hot tea and coffee station right
when they walk in and that was one of my favorite touches of the hotel. Overall, I was so
grateful Kim could take the time out of her day to talk to Anne and I as well as show us a little
around the hotel. It is people like Kim that inspire me to give back when I am one day in
positions like hers. The hotel industry is such a small world and the fact that people like Kim are
willing to give back to students shows it is a good industry to be going into. This assignment
pushed me out of my comfort zone by making me utilize my resources to set up a job shadow
with a manager whom I had never met before. This experience has taught me to be confident
when reaching out to different people and that not everyone is going to say yes and help you. But
it is all about never giving up and being persistent to get the job done.

Anne Lin’s Takeaway & Summary:

 On December 6th 2017, Abigail Schwartz and I went to the Hampton Inn Mission Valley
in order to sit down and talk to the Front Office Manager, Kim Lam. At first when I arrived, I
was a little bit nervous about how it was going to be to talk to her because I had never done
anything like this before. I was thinking about what should I say or which way it would be better
to do the interview, but when we met her right away she was very nice and kind to us. Kim was a
student until 2012 when she graduated from San Diego State University and she was in the same
HTM program as us. Kim actually knew what we needed to complete for this project and was
very helpful to answer all the questions that we asked to her. She also shared many different
kinds of personal experiences with us, for example, how she got though hard tasks that she faced
and how she never gave up doing the job. I can feel her enthusiasm for this industry during the
interview, “But it’s really hard to deal with people” she said, I believe she is doing well at
training employees and being a good mentor. “Do more than you can” is the advice she gave us
and I think that is really true and useful because when you work harder on helping customer,
your mentor will be happier to see that and overall it will improve your career. The
interview/shadow was not that hard but it is a very special experience for me I learned a lot from
her and now know more about what I would like to do in the future.