A hotel management trainee has to work in close association with different departments in a hotel and assist them in their daily routine operations. A trainee is required to understand the overall operations of the hotel while specializing in one or two areas. Hotel management trainees may have to work closely with front desk managers, culinary department, general managers, convention and event planner, housekeeping department, and learn from them.
The Job Role and Responsibilities
A hotel management trainee is supposed to acquire a good working knowledge of the hospitality sector with special attention to dealing with customers. The various roles and responsibilities of the individual department are:
- Front Office
- Registration of guests and assigning rooms
- Maintain an inventory of reservation, vacancies and room assignments
- Answer enquiries regarding hotel services, provide assistance and respond to guests’ complaints
- Food & Beverage
- Greeting customers, escorting them to seats, taking food and drink orders, and serving food and beverages
- Answer questions regarding the hotel services, explaining menu items and specials, and offering personal attentive treatment.
- Co-coordinating with team workers to plan events, parties etc.
- Housekeeping
- Responsible for maintaining the hygiene and appearance of the hotel
- Servicing and maintaining the guest rooms and replenishing stock as and when needed.
- Providing service items to guest rooms upon requests from the guests
- Food Production
- Preparation of simple food items like vegetable preparation, salads, cold starters etc.
- Work according to established health and safety guidelines. Kept the kitchen area clean and hygienic.
- Keep a check on stock and order for replenishments as and when necessary.
- Sales
- Selling room rights to individuals, corporate.
Competencies and Skills Required
- Front Office
- Should be able to sell hotel services to the customer
- Strong Problem solving and interpersonal skills
- Excellent communication skills
- Should be able to deal with all types of customers and work under pressure
- Food & Beverage
- Should be able to sell F&B outlet services to the customer
- Have a high service orientation
- Excellent communication skills
- Be a good team worker
- Strong interpersonal skills
- Housekeeping
- Able to do repetitive jobs with consistency and excellence
- Gives high attention to details
- Should be a good team worker
- Should be responsible, disciplined and organized
- Should be honest
- Food Production
- Should be a good team worker
- Should be creative in approach
- Can work under pressure
- Is organized and adaptable
- Sales
- Should have strong interpersonal and communication skills
- Quick decision making and negotiating skills
- Should be persuasive and result oriented
Assessment for the ‘Right’ Hotel Management Trainee
The following table illustrates how various skills and personality traits map to assessments required for various departments where a Hotel Management Trainee works:
| Profile | Competency Required | Competency Mapping to AMCAT – Hospitality |
| Front Office | Ability to Sell Problem Solving Service Orientation Ability to Handle Pressure | English: High Logical Ability: Medium Customer Orientation, Interpersonal Relations: High Sales Orientation, Self Discipline: Medium |
| Food & Beverage | Service Excellence Ability to Manage and co-ordinate Interpersonal Skills | English: High Customer Orientation, Managerial Ability: High Interpersonal Skills, Quality Orientation: Medium to High |
| Housekeeping | Consistency Service Excellence Disciplined, Organized Good Team player | English: Medium Attention to Detail: High Comfort with Repetitive Work, Quality Orientation: High Ability to handle pressure, Customer Orientation: Medium to Low |
| Food production | Creative Quality Excellence Good team player Adaptable | Openness to experience: Medium to High Creativity: High Quality Orientation: High Teamwork & co-operation, Ability to handle pressure: Medium to High |
| Sales | Ability to Sell Result Oriented Service Orientation Ability to Handle Pressure | English: High Logical, Quant: Medium to High Sales Orientation, Interpersonal Relations: High Ability to handle Pressure, Performance Focus: Medium to High |
Helpful Trivia
Globally, the hospitality industry has one motto for hiring, “Hire for attitude, train for skill ’. Since employees’ attitude plays such an important part in the service industry, the personality of the candidate becomes an important criterion for hiring. The scores of personality assessments show high ‘validity’ in predicting the success of the candidate in the Hospitality industry. The objective criteria consist of assessments in cognitive skills and personality testing. For the Front Office, F&B and Sales profile, our research shows that out of Cognitive skills, English and out of Personality traits, Interpersonal Relations and Customer Orientation show the strongest correlation to the efficiency of Hotel Management trainee. While for Housekeeping profile, Attention to Detail and Comfort with Repetitive work shows a strong correlation. Organizational efficiency can be improved by as much as 25% by using objective and criterion-validated benchmarks on standardized assessments.
