Is Hotel Duty Management the Hotel’s Emergency Service?

When I was training to be a Hotel Manager I realised that I had not had a truly awful shift in the Hotel until I was so frightened that I had to call either the Police, the Ambulance or the Fire Brigade - one of the emergency services … I worked as a Duty Manager in a busy Hotel – 12-hour shifts - sometimes you would be there longer, depending on how complicated the handover to the next shift was. One week in every three – I worked "nights".

My Duty Management Shift would start by doing my rounds, the nurse-type things you might imagine in your head: I talk to my patients, I mean my staff (sorry) and see how they're doing, check the departments. There might be need for close observations, too, where your customers, need to be kept within eyesight or – in the most extreme circumstances – at an arm's reach at all times.

Paperwork gets done too if there is time. My customer care definitely sometimes suffered – I can't care for someone if I was too busy writing about them … no two shifts were the same. They were completely unpredictable and there were often emergencies. One night, a customer held a knife to my throat. It was only a butter knife, so not all that dramatic, but you know... alarming all the same.

The reality of working in Hotels as a Duty Manager is that they are always understaffed. Sometimes, as a D.M., I was the most senior person in the whole building. Kind of like an Emergency Service? It's not just the fear of physical abuse, though. The verbal stuff is much more frequent and, often, has greater impact. I worked in an inner-city Hotel. As a result, there was a lot of trouble and I will never forget my Induction Training when the Manager handed me my clip-on Hotel Tie – it is what they used in-case somebody grabbed you around the throat – I never did enjoy working there!

Where I have worked - Duty Managers have always been running on full capacity - all of the time. But I have always loved working as a Hotel Duty Manager with every fibre of my being … we are always entrusted with such a vast range of duties and despite this, I think we give the best service available to those in our Hotels.

Becoming a Duty Manager is testing for anyone, but during some shifts, early on in our careers when we are really vulnerable, it is terrifying ... it could have a really negative effect on someone. My friends had no idea about what my work involved ... people were shocked when I told them. The level of care Duty Managers had to build into a Hotel with their raw, gritty behaviour, during times of uncertainty and trauma was not always known.

When it comes to Duty Management, like the other Emergency Services…Early Intervention is key. The Duty Manager’s main aim is to improve the quality of life for individuals who use their Hotel and they can best do this by tackling Hotel Shift Issues early, jointly and therefore more effectively. If all Hotel Workers adopted an Early Intervention approach within their own place of work within the Hotel ... it might actually reduce the demand for their own Emergency Service – their already busy Duty Management Service?

Through his electronic writing, Stephen attempts to help those without the time or often the money to attend College by providing them with Learning.

Watching these vlogs and reading these blogs will assist hospitality students and workers in the Global Hospitality Industry to train and develop using Social Media.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stephen Sawyers brings 20-years of Hotels and Hospitality Management to his book writing.

These blogs and vlogs are intended for hotel workers, supervisors and managers who are (or want to become) actively engaged in learning and development around the world.