A strong hotel training program should teach employees to provide great customer service – the kind of friendly, resourceful attitude that pleases patrons and makes your hotel their favorite place to stay.

Yet a good program of hotel training should also teach focused, practical skills that your hotel workers need if something goes wrong. These “harder” skills might not be pleasant to think about, but they should be part of comprehensive training.

Fire, Emergency and Evacuation Skills

Providing a safe environment for guests is of the greatest importance. Employees should engage in training simulations and understand what to do if power fails, a fire occurs anywhere on the premises, or a guest requires emergency care. Designing training that teaches these skills is especially challenging if you are training employees who will work in more than one location, because evacuation routes, hotel power backup systems and other emergency resources will vary from one location to another.

Basic Safety Routines 

Basic safety routines are easy to overlook when designing a program of hotel training, yet they are critically important. If water is spilled on a hard floor, for example, employees should understand that the area must be marked off and the water promptly removed. Parked vehicles cannot block exits or fire lanes. And if a patron becomes ill in a room or food outlet, employees should understand procedures to close off the area to avoid the spread of disease.

Responsible Alcohol Serving Protocols 

Employees should understand correct protocols to prevent patrons from drinking too much, from driving away from your hotel if they have consumed alcohol, and from moving through your hotel alone if they have become intoxicated. To protect your hotels from legal liabilities, these skills are of paramount importance.

Security and Complaint Resolution 

Employees should know appropriate procedures to follow if guests complain of noise in adjacent guest rooms, if they become involved in physical altercations, if they feel they are in danger, and if other unpleasant situations arise. Failing to develop and train appropriate procedures can expose both employees and guests to risk.

Recognition of Potential Terrorist and Other Threats

Employees should be trained to recognize danger signs, such as the presence of unclaimed luggage or other suspicious items. They must also understand correct protocols for informing law enforcement agencies, for implementing lockdowns until threats are analyzed, and other procedures.

Recognition of Sex Trafficking, Prostitution and In-Room Sexual Attacks 

It’s not nice to think about those problems. But nice or not, it is important to remember that hotels are among the most likely locations for those problems to occur. Employees must be trained to recognize signs that they are taking place, to trust their intuition and act early, and to alert both hotel security personnel and local law enforcement agencies.