STM CHAPTER 6 3. Formalize learning as a process.

CAPACITATING THE SERVICE PROVIDER (The This pertains to the process of building
Power of Training and Motivation for the
learning into the job, making learning a
Provision of Effective and Efficient Service)
requirement for everyone, and
COURSE OBJECTIVES:
institutionalizing expectation.
✓ To recognize the importance of training
and development to hospitality
organizations 4. Use multiple learning approaches.
✓ To discuss the different methods used by Different employees have different learning
hospitality organizations to train and
curves. Since they will learn differently, using
develop their employees
varied learning approaches is also important.
✓ To study how hospitality organizations
measure the value and effectiveness of
their training programs
5. Seek continuous improvement.

Essentially, one must be committed to

TOPICS: continuous improvement.
✓ EMPLOYEES TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT

EMPLOYEE TRAINING
DEVELOPING A TRAINING PROGRAM
Hospitality organizations are not only
What do needs to be improved?
confronted with the challenge of training their
Training should always be preceded by a
employees to improve the skills required in the
needs assessment to check if the perceived
job; they must also teach them how to solve
organizational weaknesses or problems
inevitable problems creatively and how to
should be addressed by conducting training
interact positively with guests.
or by some other management strategy.
Berry's 5 Training Principles

1. Focus on critical skills and knowledge. Solving the Guest's Problem

A hospitality organization can determine The needs assessment also helps identify the

these critical skills through a methodical objectives of the training, as well as the

analysis of the service, delivery systems, and learning goals. Listed below are some

staff. examples of the types of training programs

offered in the hospitality industry:
2. Start strong and teach the big picture.
1. Mandatory training
It is crucial to teach the organization’s culture
EEO/diversity
among the employees to give them a way to
Orientation
make sense out of their jobs and how they do
them. Safety training
2. Skills-oriented training 6. Classroom Training Simulation

Basic skills training 7. Cross-Functional Training

8. Training at home
Computer training
9. Retraining
Crisis training
10. Audio visual Training
Cross-functional training
11. Training in special competencies
Language training 12. Computer-assisted Instruction
Retraining

Specialized skills training

EMPLOYEES DEVELOPMENT

People either shrivel or grow. Commit to

3. External training
helping people help themselves.”
Some large organizations can afford internal
- Norman Brinker, Chili’s
training department. Others rely on individual
Employee Development encompasses a
managers, high performing employees, and
combination of work experience, educational
supervisors to provide the training for both
background, and training. Training routinely
new and existing employees.
focuses on teaching people how to do the
new jobs for which they have been hired for or
4. Internal training to overcome deficiencies they may have in
In-house training departments are found in performing their current jobs. Employee
larger hospitality organizations. Every major Development, on the other hand, is generally
company has an internal training unit that focused on getting people ready for their
provides programs to its employees. future.

While Training tends to look at the present to

5. Training Costs pinpoint and correct employee deficiencies in

performing the job today, Development
Although some companies keep all trainings
anticipates the skills, competencies, and areas
as in-house to preserve organizational
of knowledge that the employee will need to
security and culture, the common
become successful tomorrow.
determinant of whether to use in-house or
outside training is cost.

TRAINING METHODS

1. Mentoring
2. Coaching
3. Apprenticeships
4. On-the-Job Training
5. Simulation
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
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
is 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, GUESTS CO-CREATE VALUE
group incentives. The most effective Unlike in the traditional manufacturing
hospitality companies also use organization where people involved in the
core production tasks are not visible, the

Nonfinancial Rewards - formal recognition people providing many hospitality services

programs, acknowledging a job well done are right out in the open where the guests can
see and even interact with them.

The guest-centric view is that the guestologist

STM CHAPTER 7
Involving The Guest: The Co-Creation of Value
OBJECTIVES:
1. To get involve in guest co-create values
2. To determine when guest participation
makes sense
3. To infer how, when, and why hospitality
organizations empower guests to help
provide their own guest experiences.
4. To explain the advantages and
disadvantages of guest involvement for the
organization and guest.
5. To know why and how some hospitality
organizations ‘fire’ their guest
INTRODUCTION:
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 co-
producing 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.”

Customers today have become active

participants in the co-creation activities of Guests as Quasi-Employees
companies, be it product or service
Hospitality organizations have realized that
development or the promotion of these
they must help manage the confusion, stress,
products or services. The more customers
and perplexity that guests can create for their
realize that a company is committed to
employees while on duty. To do this, they must
listening, accepting, and delivering their
train their employees in both job skills and the
precise requirements, the more they want to
management of guest co-production.
be involved in that company.
Another effective way to manage this
confusion is to think of guests as quasi-
employees and “manage” them
appropriately.
Schneider and Bowen’s three-step strategy for 2. Guests as Marketers
managing quasi-employees:
Everyone has asked a friend or colleague
1. Carefully and completely define the roles
about a hospitality experience.
you want guests to play. Define the
knowledge skills, and abilities required to
perform the jobs identified as desirable 3. Guests as Part of Each Other's Experience

and appropriate for guest. If you simply enjoy observing other guests, you
may view them as part of the service
2. Make sure that guests know exactly what
environment. If other guests are especially
you expect them to do and that they are
important to your enjoyment of your
physically able, mentally prepared, and
experience, you might even consider them a
sufficiently skilled to do those tasks. Show
part of the service product itself.
guest that performing that task is to their
benefit.
4. Guests as Co-producers
3. Once task performance is underway,
evaluate the guest's ability and willingness The most prominent way in which guests can

to perform well. In effect, conduct a participate, aside from simply being there, is

performance appraisal on the guest to to become active co-producers of the guest

ensure that the experience being co- experience. During parts of or the entire

produced is meeting the guest’s service experience, they can emerge as

expectation. If not, identify what needs to participants in the production and delivery

be fixed. system.

STRATEGIES FOR INVOLVING THE GUEST 5. The High Cost of Failure

1. Guests as Unpaid Consultants An unsatisfactory co-production can be a

When the hospitality organization tries to find minor annoyance to a restaurant diner, but it

out what the guests like or dislike about their can be disastrous if the cost of failure is great.

experience, the guests turn into unpaid The best hospitality organizations strive hard

consultants and act as quality control to ensure that guests succeed as co-

inspectors. Since their input regarding their producers, but the risk of failure is always

experiences will become part of the there.

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.
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 Subtle Firings
important in determining the value of his
refusal to allow unaccompanied children
participation.
under 18 to book passage in a cruise ship, a
resort hotel's unwillingness to book a
Cutting Cost, Increasing Capacity convention of ex-convicts, a sign in a gift shop
saying "No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service"
From the company's point of view, the most
distinct reason to incorporate the guest into
the guest experience is to save money. Every
Maintaining Guest Dignity
time the guest produces or co-produces a
hospitality service, the guest is providing labor The dismissal should be carried with minimal

that the organization would otherwise need harm to the guest's well-being (physical or

to hire. mental) and dignity.

Albeit the firing of a guest is a response to a

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
hospitality setting.
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.
in any

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
 Chapter 8: The Hospitality Service Delivery THE CHALLENGE OF MANAGING INFORMATION
System
Managing Information Systems
COURSE OBJECTIVES:

At the end of this chapter, the student is • Developing a system that can manage
expected to: information effectively is one of the most
• State the importance and uses of important challenges that hospitality
communication and information to
organizations is facing right now. Information
hospitality organizations.
is comprised of data about something or
• Describe the ways how information
enhances the service product, setting, and someone, while an information system is a
delivery system. network or method used to get the

• Learn about the sophisticated information information to those who need it.
systems that hospitality organizations use
today, including their advantages and
disadvantages. • As defined by Valacich and Schneider
(2010), information systems are
combinations of hardware, software, and
COMMUNICATING FOR SERVICE
telecommunications networks that people
“Communicate everything you can to your
build and use to collect, create, and
associates. The more they know, the more they
distribute useful data, typically in
care.” - Sam Walton, Walmart
organizational settings.
What went wrong? Who was at fault? In the
above-mentioned case, the manager failed to • An information system that is well-designed
alert the waiter about a possible problem with delivers the right information to the right
one of the diners since he did not inform him person at the right time, thus, supporting
about the diner’s concern. Because of this, the decision-making, control, coordination, and
waiter was caught unaware and was unable to analysis. In the hospitality context, the term
do something to make the customer’s dining right person may refer to the either the
experience better. The manager had the employee, the guest, or both. Bear in mind
information but did not communicate it. that information that is unable to provide
value to either the guest or the organization
In this day and age, knowing how to
is rendered useless.
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.
Informing Guests with information to create a "whole",
seamless experience for the guest that will
• Since service is intangible by nature, the
make him/her want to come back.
information that a hospitality organization
relays to help the guest make the intangible
tangible is a critical consideration of the Adding Quality and Value Through Information
information system. The organization should
The hospitality industry is seeing an increased
carefully determine the kind of information,
demand for a more personalized, custom-
the type of format, and the quantity of
tailored customer service. Both information and
information that they should provide so that
information technology can be utilized to:
they can create the experience the guest is
expecting. They should also take into • Personalize service, hence adding a special

account even the tiniest details and touch to the guest experience

structure all the information they have in • Improve the service itself

order to provide the guest with cues • Transform an organization or an industry

regarding the type of service and the level

of excellence they offer. Getting Information Where It Needs to Go

The challenge of information systems lies on

Realizing That Cues Communicate how to collect data, organize it into information,

• A cue is a signal for someone to say or do and then distribute that information exactly to

something (Cambridge English Dictionary). those who need it and when they need it.

In terms of consumer behavior, it is defined Hospitality organizations that have become

by as a relatively minor influence on human adept in getting information where it needs to

behavior that, acting jointly with the more go have understood that the act of providing

powerful influence of a primary drive or information itself is already considered a service

learned drive, can control when, where, to guests. More often than not, it is as relevant

and how a response will be made as the primary service itself, and a requisite for
hospitality employees. It is therefore important

• Every informational cue in the service setting to pinpoint the information needs of both the

relating to the quality and value of the guests and the employees in relation to all three

experience should be carefully studied to components/elements of the guest experience.

communicate what the organization wants

to communicate to the guest. The guest-
experience elements – product, service,
and delivery system – can be glued together
Information And Service Product • Both the managers and the empowered
employees must have access to
Typically, the information about the services
information that will help them make sound
being offered can be found within the
decisions and measure the results of their
environment rather than as part of the service
decision-making activity.
product itself. This “tangibilizing” leads
customers towards positive impressions and
favorable judgments about the value and Integrated Information System
quality of the guest experience.
• An integrated information system may be
Example: defined as a network of software programs
that combine different databases and link
• Displaying food reviews inside the restaurant
several information sets using data
• Hanging a 5-star certificate in the hotel
integration tools and models. It gives an
lobby
organization the competitive advantage to
• Publicizing a service excellence award
achieve its strategic goals using the latest
received by the establishment
technologies that cover all areas of the
organization’s activities.
Giving Employees Information They Need

• Employees are also entitled to information 1. INFORMATION AND THE SERVICE SETTING

that’s timely, accurate, and relevant for Many kinds of useful information may be
them to do their jobs efficiently and provided to the guest by the service setting and
effectively. When information is perceived its features and aspects.
to be a service product, the employee
becomes an internal customer for that
• Customer-provided information
product.
Guests need not to wait for organizations to
provide them information. Currently, many
Internal Customer
sources of information are readily available for
• For the internal customers, the service given customers that will help them assess a hospitality
is the delivery of the information needed by experience before having it.
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 information-
gathering unit acting as an internal
“hospitality service organization.”
2. INFORMATION AND THE DELIVERY SYSTEM judgment. Generally, it is particularly useful
to organizations and companies that want
Certainly, information is needed to make the
to build lasting relationships with their
service delivery system work. That system
customers.
involves both the people and the processes
through which the service and accompanying Examples:
tangible products are provided to the
• an automatic warning that signals a
customer. Study the nature of the service
manager when an inventory level of a
product so that the delivery system to be
critical product gets low
developed will be unique to that product and
the ideal information system for it can be • a computer icon that flashes on a computer
determined. screen to warn a cruise-ship engineer that a
piece of equipment is heating up or
• Know Your Customers
malfunctioning
• Deliver freshness
• Information on Service Quality
• Information to the People CALEBTECH Crewsolver
• High Tech Becomes High Touch
A Decision Support System (DSS) for Major
Airline Crew Recovery
3. ADVANCED INFORMATION SYSTEMS
By Mary Grace Whealan (Knowledge
Two systems that do more than just providing
Management – Spring 2010)
information are decision systems and expert
systems. Who Uses CrewSolver?

• Continental Airlines
• Southwest
4. DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS (DSS)
• Northwest Airlines
• A system that goes beyond getting • jetBLUE Airways
information to the right person at the right • COMAIR
time can actually help improve business • AirTran Airways
decision-making capabilities. Computers
collect a great deal of information across
What is CrewSolver?
multiple aspects of the hospitality business,
CrewSolver is part of a product suite of
resulting to a vast database of information
advanced decision support poducts that
on customers and their behaviors.
provides airlines with powerful solutions to
recover from irregular operations and manage
• A decision system is preprogrammed to
their manpower in real-time.
manage situations that do not require
As a DSS, CrewSolver... • 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.
• Is not an expert system, giving one definitive
Examples:
solution; it gives multiple (3) solutions based
• a system that automatically orders and ships
on up-to-the-minute system data. Crew
schedulers work with this information and a predetermined quantity of fresh produce

their knowledge base to make the ultimate when the inventory drops to a certain level
• the classic chess-playing program on the
scheduling decisions.
computer
• Outlines important factors that must be
considered in decision-making process and
THE HOSPITALITY ORGANIZATION AS AN
makes information (crew impact, cost,
INFORMATION SYSTEM
overall disruption) more quickly accessible.
• The organization itself can be considered as
• (Ideally) helps crew managers determine a big network of information that provides
best solution based on both financial and each staff with whatever information he/she
quality-of-life factors. needs, whenever he/she needs it, to better
serve the customers. Everyone becomes a

EXPERT SYSTEMS transmission point in the organizational

network – gathering, sending, and
• An expert system is set up to make decisions
processing information into a decision-
that require selecting between alternatives
friendly format.
when the correct decision is not clear cut. It
• The people who will design the organization
replicates the decision-making process of
as an information system must consider how
an expert who systematically gathers,
all these network participants are linked
organizes, and interprets data, then makes
together along with their information needs.
a decision that mirrors the application of his
Reengineering the organization and its
expertise.
information system around the customer's
needs is becoming a necessity in this
present-day competitive market.