Last Updated on August 13, 2024
For any business leader working in hospitality and other areas of the service industry, there’s a frequent need to train new staff members, bringing them up to speed on what’s expected from them in order to maintain excellent service standards.
But training staff is more challenging and complex than you might expect. The training you provide to your staff sets the tone for ongoing workplace dynamics and communication.
When done well, training sets employees up for success and guarantees that customers will receive high-quality service. If done poorly, training can lead to disorganization, personnel issues, and service that’s hit-or-miss.
We want to equip business leaders and managers with valuable advice and insights from an expert who has trained top-tier service staff all over the world.
Nicola Aldo Luciani is an award-winning Hospitality Business Strategist Consultant & Project Manager who is well-known for consulting in the areas of strategic business planning, leadership, staff development, and, of course, team training.
He has been working with luxury hotels and Michelin-star restaurants for more than eighteen years, across three different continents and many world cities.
Luciani joined us to discuss challenges both common and uncommon that you might be facing in the course of your staff training efforts.
Solving training and management challenges
As a consultant or a manager, you’re going to encounter challenges, many of which you didn’t expect or plan for.
Part of being a strong and dependable leader in the workplace is planning ahead while also leaving room to change and adapt when the need arises.
We asked Mr. Luciani to cover several key aspects of staff training and comment on potential techniques and solutions that you can use in the field.
First up is one of the most important: finding ways to properly motivate your staff.
Motivate your staff
If your staff think they’re heading into a typical service job, then they probably won’t feel especially motivated to provide great service.
Employees just clocking in and clocking out aren’t focused on the details of the work, so try to get everyone more involved. Show them the details of what the work will involve from day to day. And as Luciani pointed out, it can also be helpful to focus on some of the typical problems your staff will face.
“As far as motivation goes, I believe that training should engage problem-centered learning experiences. Asking your trainees to work on solutions to problems engages them more directly, and when they can solve problems effectively, they’ll feel confident in their own skills.”
Throughout the rest of this article, you’ll find that letting staff find their confidence early on can provide motivation and also develop future leaders.
Lastly, if your company offers incentives for high performance, make these incentives clear from day one. These will give your staff something to strive toward.
Communicate goals and values
A key part of training staff is clearly communicating the company or organization’s mission statement and core values.
“The mission statement explains how a company intends to win and their values are the ‘how’. These two things are key ingredients for a healthy and effective management philosophy.”
Mission statements and values are unique to each company, and you can’t make the assumption that newly hired staff will simply pick up on these through osmosis.
Each person needs to be educated on what the company stands for and what its goals are. These translate to the company’s expectations for how staff will perform. If the staff isn’t in-line with company values, then those company goals won’t be achieved.
So when it comes time to communicate, for example, the importance of customer service, let your people know that, based on the reputation and mission statement of the hotel itself, guests will have specific expectations. If those expectations aren’t met, guests will be dissatisfied, leading to further problems.
But when everyone follows their training and pulls in the same direction, guests walk away happy.
Identify talent
During the training process, especially one that involves large numbers of newly hired staff, don’t assume that everyone wants the same thing from this job. Identifying talented and ambitious staff members early on can make the training process easier for you while also setting certain individuals up for success and advancement in the future.
Luciani told a story about a time when he was consulting for a massive 2,600-room casino and hotel in the Bahamas. He found himself training forty people at once. Going through all the usual practice, roleplay, and exercises as the only trainer would be difficult and time-consuming, to say the least. It also wouldn’t allow for the kind of small-scale attention that would allow Luciani to make sure that everyone was actually ready for the grand opening.
He needed to take a new approach, and part of that approach involved hand-selected individuals with talent and experience who could help out with the training.
“By doing so, I was able to leverage my efforts and delegate, while creating ownership and developing new leaders.”
This not only made the training more efficient but also motivated these selected staff leaders to take on leadership roles early in their employment.
Anticipate staff shortages
Over the last few years, service industry jobs in the United States and abroad have had difficulty attracting applicants. This represents a real challenge for the management teams of restaurants, bars, hotels, and resorts the world over.
Luciani confirmed just how dire this situation really is.
“I’ve worked in hospitality for many years, and more than ever before, we are suffering from staff shortages.”
These establishments run on people. They need people to perform all of the vital functions, and they need people to come through the doors and spend money. With a short staff, maintaining high service standards becomes that much more difficult, putting further strain on the current team.
It’s a recipe for disaster, and according to Luciani, the managers and HR professionals working with these establishments need to think ahead.
“My advice is to be proactive rather than reactive. You need to think three moves ahead, keeping an eye on the team’s needs as well as the market!”
This is an essential bit of preparation at the logistical level. If you suddenly lose four staff members in the same month, don’t count on being able to post a job listing and immediately get dozens of qualified applicants.
The job market has shifted in a big way, and having to constantly search for, onboard, and train new staff members is an inefficient use of company time and resources.
Strategically manage large teams
Working with a small team is sort of a dream come true for many managers. With a small team, it’s easier to keep tabs on all the moving parts of everyday operations, understand how everyone’s feeling, and identify potential problem areas.
A large team, on the other hand, brings with it increased complexity. There are more balls in the air, more moving parts. When something goes wrong, it might be hard even to determine exactly where the problem lies.
Luciani said that some of the most significant challenges of managing an especially large team come from not having the right people and the right processes in place.
“The bigger the team is, the more important it is that you establish and emphasize the structure that you want to maintain. If people don’t know what they should be doing or who’s in charge, it’s going to create serious problems.”
Through training and ongoing communication with the team, you can make sure that everyone knows how to conduct themselves and how to resolve potential issues by talking with leaders in their own departments. Confusion is to be avoided at all costs.
Closing thoughts
Before we close out, Luciani had a final piece of advice to share that sums up his training philosophy.
“Whether you’re an owner or a trainer, my advice is to really focus on your team, not just during the training process. Every day, try to make others the best they can be. Take every opportunity to evaluate, coach, and build up the team.”
Training is only the first step. There are always opportunities for the team to grow and improve, and owners and managers need to be directly involved in that process.
Working with your staff from day to day will reveal their collective strengths, weaknesses, and motivations, all of which you can use to make adjustments to how your team operates.
We hope that you feel well-equipped to train new staff members and build teams that you can depend on week after week, and don’t forget that you can customize this process to fit your needs. You’re the expert on your own team, so get out there and do whatever it takes to provide the best possible service.
