Roles and Responsibilities of a Hotel Receptionist

This article discusses the roles and responsibilities of a hotel receptionist, including key duties, hierarchy, workplace policies, and ways to seek feedback. It also covers how to overcome communication barriers and resolve conflicts effectively. Workplace health and safety, privacy act, environmental sustainability, code of conduct, and anti-discrimination are also discussed.

HOTEL RECIPTIONST 1
Name
Course
Lecturer
Date

HOTEL RECIPTIONST 2
Key duties for a receptionist
As a receptionist at the new plaza hotel, I have the following roles to play
1. Checking in and out of all the visitors and workers in the hotel
2. Allocating accommodation rooms to al hotel guests
3. Offering Foreign currency exchange services to all our needful customers and hotel
guests in need of foreign currency
4. Receiving and adding phones in a professional and courteous way
5. Assist the hotel in some of the clerical tasks
6. Booking meeting for intending meeting holders in the hotel
7. Receive and the distribution of hotel mails
To whom am I supposed to report to
As a receptionist in new plaza hotel, my immediate boss is the front office supervisor or
manager, in case of any issue or concern, I am supposed to report to them.
Hierarchy of roles in new hotel plaza
director
general
manager
revenue
manager
front office
manager
guests
relations
senior
reciptionist
night
manager

HOTEL RECIPTIONST 3
Roles and responsibilities
Director
 Approval all plans for the hotel
 Administrative tasks
General manager
 Hiring staff
 Motivation of the employees within the hotel
 Ensures a smooth functioning of every department and budgeting
Revenue manager
 Salary and wage allocation
 Helps in budget preparation
Front office manager
 Directing and coordinating all the activities within the front office departments
 He or she acts the link between all the employees in the front office and the overall
management
 He is responsible for most of the hiring and training of the front office employee
 Evaluation of duty performance of every front office worker
Night manager
 Responsible for all managerial roles in the front office but during night shifts

HOTEL RECIPTIONST 4
Guest relation
 Responsible for the guest’s comfort and planning
Senior receptionist
 Checking in and out of all the visitors and workers in the hotel
 Allocating accommodation rooms to al hotel guests
 Offering Foreign currency exchange services to all our needful customers and hotel
guests in need of foreign currency
 Receiving and adding phones in a professional and courteous way
 Assist the hotel in some of the clerical tasks
 Booking meeting for intending meeting holders in the hotel
 Receive and the distribution of hotel mails (Irish jobs, 2016)
Workplace policy terms
As a receptionist; one of the front office employees, am entitled to certain dress code;
 I am supposed to wear only black or navy shoes during my duty performance
 When sectioned in the lifting or manual handling related tasks I am supposed to wear
only flat nonslip rubber soles shoes, although it can vary with the change of approvals in
this case
 Socks should always compliment the uniform meaning, in this case, I should never wear
compliments sock/uniform combination e.g. blue socks and black uniform
Ways of seeking feedback from colleagues on job performance in workplace and customers

HOTEL RECIPTIONST 5
1. Asking the clarifying question: to get some feedback from my workplace colleagues
concerning my job performance, I would consider asking questions and keenly listening
to their specific response and suggestion that may be helpful to me in understanding the
full scope of the feedback and ways that I need to take actions on improvement. The
customer feedback on asked questions can also be needful in this case.
2. Getting feedback directly from observations: one can learn from their own success or
failure. This is a technique that helps one change their action depending on the
observations they have or will make in the course of their observation. As a receptionist, I
can observe if my approach to customers is productive. I can be able to convince a
customer to bear and pay our accommodation bills when they have for instance a cheaper
alternative, then I am successful.
3. Use of suggestion box and teams meeting: the customer view can be expressed through
the suggestion box concerning my work and service skills. The workplace views and
feedback can be got from the teams meeting organized by the hotel management.
(Jacobson, 2014)
Planning daily tasks
As a hotel receptionist, my schedule and task can only be planned if I am aware of my shifts. I
may be allocated for the day shift or for the night shift as well. If allocated for the daytime shift,
then my schedule runs from 8 am to 4 pm, another shift can run from 44 pm to midnight and the
last one from midnight to 8 am. The tasks and duties still remain unchanged and I will just fix
them within the time frame of my shift.
Resource constraint

HOTEL RECIPTIONST 6
1. Lack of enough airtime to make follow up call
2. Lack of finances to cater for motivating factors
Responsibilities in relation to:
 Workplace health and safety: it’s my responsibility to ensure the receptionist area is
neat and clean. It’s the first impression for the new plaza hotel. Information
concerning this can be found in the organizational charter roles
 Privacy act: it’s my responsibility to ensure customer privacy is marinated. Their
whereabouts and personal details should not be exposed to the third parties without
their knowledge. This is from the privacy act.
 Environmental sustainability: all the activities of the front office and more so the
chef’s department should ensure environmental sustenance
 Code of conduct: as a worker at this hotel, I am bound to a certain code of conduct as
a play my duties. Every organization has its stipulated code of conduct.
 Anti-discrimination: I am not supposed to indulge in any manner of discrimination
since this is a public organization, therefore accommodating everyone. This terms can
be found in service delivery charter.
Example on ways of supporting employees
 Offering emotional support; sometimes colleagues may be facing challenging moments
like the loss of their loved one. I can be of emotional help and this can help them regain
energy for carrying out their tasks thus achieving our goals.
 Offer professional assistance to a new employee: when a new employee is employed, or
an intern or attaché.

HOTEL RECIPTIONST 7
 Preaching teamwork skills that promote the growth of unity, corporation and all-time
decisions that are based on the organization goals.
Examples of improving individual team member performance
 Inspiring and motivating all the employee and staff
 Hiring the right and qualified people
 Keep training of team members on new skills for success
 Streamline processes periodically
 Encouraging teamwork and commitment through a set of vision and clear mission
Common reasons for conflict in the workplace
 Jealousy
 Communication problems,
 Clashes of culture,
 Religious differences
According to (oxford university press, 2009)Loafing is spending one's time doing nothing. It
can be managed by several ways;
 Developing rules of conduct
 Establishment of individual accountability
 Encouragement of group loyalty
 Creation of terms of the contract
 Fair distribution of workload (Swaak, 2009)
Communication barriers

HOTEL RECIPTIONST 8
 Assumption: assumption cause nonuniformity in team actions. Each person assumes what
they think is right and accurate.
 Perceptions: how ones understand some phenomena differ from others. One's perception
depicts their response and thereby difference in perception may bar communication
 Cultural difference: cultural difference causes difference way of thinking and personality.
This greatly affects communication, for communication, some cultures belief eye contact
is important while others believe it's rude to maintain eye contact.
 Distrusted source: its affects communication in that there is no free flow of information in
that the receiver of the information lacks the trust on the reliability of the source of the
information. (Garner, 2017)
Ways of overcoming communication barriers according to (Andrews, 2017)
1. Listening properly: when one is speaking, for instance, a manager issuing instruction,
give your attention and listen keenly
2. Keeping an open mind: having a positive perception, “walking a mile in the shoes of the
speaker”
3. Use of correct body language, e.g. a smiling face to show appreciation

HOTEL RECIPTIONST 9
Steps and procedures for effective conflict resolution
clarify what disagreement is there
establish common goal for the two
conflicting parties
discuss on ways of meeting the common
goal
determine possible barriers to common
goal
Agree on the best way to resolve the
conflict
Acknowledge the agreed upon solution
and determine the responsibilities each
party has in the resolution.

HOTEL RECIPTIONST 10
References
Andrews, A. (2017). 4 Strategies to Overcome Communication Barriers in the Workplace.
activities, 2.
Garner, E. (2017). The Seven Barriers to Great Communications. impact factory, 12.
Irish jobs. (2016). RECEPTIONIST JOB DESCRIPTION. Irish jobs, 1-5.
Jacobson, E. (2014). Ways To Seek Feedback To Improve Your Performance In The Workplace.
Management and leadership, 1-10.
oxford university press. (2009). oxford dictionary. united kingdom: Oxford University Press.
Swaak, P. (2009). How to manage to loaf. transportLAB community, 12.