Expert Tips To Motivate Your Hotel’s Front Desk Staff

It is important to keep your front desk staff properly motivated as they are the ones who will interact with the guests the most. The guests are likely to form a good or a bad opinion about your hotel based on how they are treated by the front desk.

Keep in mind that the front desk job is not an easy one. It is highly stressful and challenging work. So you need to treat your front desk with lot of care. If you are too lenient with them they may not do their work with seriousness. At the same time if you are too harsh or strict, they are likely to feel pressure and make more mistakes or may want to quit the job.

Here are some expert tips on keeping the front desk staff motivated:

1 – Train Them Nicely – Without proper and regular training, the staff may not be able to execute their responsibilities in the manner you want them to, which could result in employee-guest interactions going in the wrong direction, thus affecting your hotel’s reputation and eventually your bottom line.

Professional training can be expensive, but in the long run its benefits can far outweigh the costs. Improved employee performance, lower attrition rate and higher guest satisfaction could be some of the top benefits which can come about as a result of good training.

2 – Proper Compensation – You cannot expect employees to keep giving their best consistently in the long run if the employees are not properly compensated for their efforts. Some of the ways to compensate employees include salary increases, bonuses, incentives, promotions, performance gifts and rewards, along with showing appreciation of their work.

3 – Regular Reviews, Meetings & Feedback – Providing feedback about their performance can help the employees recognise what they are doing well and where they need to improve. The feedback and reviews about their work can be done privately in one-to-one sessions with each employee, so that they don’t feel humiliated when their mistakes are pointed out in front of others.

Some things can be discussed in team meetings as well. The important thing to remember is that when providing feedback you should always treat them with respect and dignity and not be too harsh or strict with them, otherwise it can have a detrimental effect on their morale and subsequent performance. Never humiliate or degrade any staff member, specially in public.