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By David Schwartz
Early last year I wrote an
article entitled “Documentation and Training — A Continual Need for Modern
Venues That Utilize Technology,” which focused on the need to make sure that
your employees are regularly trained in the technologies they use, and that
they document their jobs well. As I got to thinking about topics for this
year’s article, I began to focus on the word “training” in another light.
There’s a tremendous amount of job training required of the multitudes of
venue employees, as well as the venue partner’s employees, which include, in
many cases, concessions, facility services, guest services, security and
more. Further, there’s a growing trend in the industry to combine certain
training of the staff from different companies in order to provide a uniform
face to the venue’s guests, as well as a uniform methodology for resolving
guest issues. I then realized that this was another aspect of the need to
provide documentation of training and licensure within the venue, and that
this vital training impacts all staff working in a modern public assembly
building.
A Combined Effort
Nearly all of our venue clients in North America combine one or
more internal trainings of their staff with the staff of one or more of
their vendor partners. The most common training we see combined is the
venue’s basic guest-services training. Venue managers are stressing the need
for a common message and methodology to be employed when dealing with the
myriad of guest-related issues and, more importantly, how all venue staff
treats the guest.
A great example of this is Global Spectrum’s “How You Doin’?” program. All
staff is indoctrinated in taking the time whenever they interact with a
guest to ask, ”How You Doin’?” This is a common message delivered by anyone
from guest services, ticket takers and ticket sellers to concession workers
and operations employees — irrespective of what company they work for in the
venue.
 This
is a golden opportunity to train all employees working in the venue on the
importance of assuring a positive guest experience and being able to deal
with potentially negative issues proactively.
Similarly, training that requires certification or licensure is often
combined — but in many cases, it’s left to the venue managers and venue
vendor partners to police their own staff and to make sure their training
and licensure is up to date.
Soliciting Input
I put in a call to my friend Jill Pepper, executive director of TEAM
Coalition, to discuss this issue. The alcohol awareness training that TEAM
provides is perhaps the single most important issue we hear discussed in our
interaction with venue clientele. Pepper provided me with a very explicit
message:
“TEAM training strives to make a fan’s perception of a unified, single
entity providing the event experience a reality. To foster seamless
communication and teamwork across many different organizations all working
in the same building, the primary message of the training program is that
alcohol management should be incorporated into all job functions in the
building.
“It is everyone’s job to ensure that fans are consuming alcohol responsibly.
Accurately tracking training data for building operations staff and all
vendors, and making the information easily accessible to building
management, is a major component of TEAM’s vision.”
I then called more than a dozen department managers I know at different
venues and asked if they regularly meet with their vendor partners and
review required venue training, and how up-todate their vendor partners were
in ensuring 100% employee compliance. I further asked if they visually
review compliance within their own departments. Interestingly enough, in my
small sample group, no one said that he asked for written verification of
compliance by all of his partners and internal staff.
Since training is considered vital to the operation and safety of the venue,
the actual documentation and tracking of training certainly merits more
attention. Compliancy needs to be a regular agenda item for venue
management, as it relates to their own staff and their vendor partners’
staff. The
Importance of Compliance
After he returned from a trip that included meeting with senior
Aramark Sports and Entertainment management, one of our consulting managers
related a story to me that illustrates how critical compliance is to them.
He recalled that Aramark management was thrilled to have a comprehensive
database to track employee training and licensure. When they saw that
reports could be run regularly to check compliance, and realized that the
running of reports would be left to managers to make sure that venue staff
was in compliance, they insisted on adding two features to the system:
• If an employee did not have a current license/certificate or the skill to
work a job, the system would not be able to schedule him in that job.
• On every event employee positioning report, they wanted the expiration
date of the license/certificate printed for review by event supervisors —
just in case someone slipped through the cracks.
What simple yet powerful ideas. We made the adjustments that day.
It is incumbent upon you, as venue managers, to make sure you’re accurately
tracking your employees’ and vendor partners’ certification and licensure.
Regularly meet and review with your staff and your vendor partners’ staff to
make sure that you have documentation ensuring that all training and
licensure is current.
This will promote the overall delivery of a safe and consistent guest
experience, as well as mitigate possible risk management by documenting the
due diligence and “reasonable care” that you have all taken concerning this
very important aspect of staff training.
David Schwartz is the president
and CEO of Advanced Business Integrators Inc (ABI). He founded ABI in 1990
as an information systems, software and professional services firm.
Currently ABI systems are used in more than 100 public assembly facilities
in North America. David regularly consults, lectures and writes about
business automation and practice. He can be reached via e-mail at
david@abico.com. |
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