Key Attributes Hosts And Hostesses Of Restaurants, Lounges, And Coffee Shops Need To Succeed In Their Career

by Ethan Jones

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Hosts and hostesses of restaurants, lounges, and coffee shops welcome patrons, seat them at tables or in lounge, and help ensure quality of facilities and service.

The core tasks that hosts and hostesses are likely to carry out include:

Greet guests and seat them at tables or in waiting areas.
Provide guests with menus.
Assign patrons to tables suitable for their needs and according to rotation so that servers receive an appropriate number of seatings.
Speak with patrons to ensure satisfaction with food and service, to respond to complaints, or to make conversation.
Answer telephone calls and respond to inquiries or transfer calls.
Maintain contact with kitchen staff, management, serving staff, and customers to ensure that dining details are handled properly and customers' concerns are addressed.

In order to successfully forge ahead with their careers, analysts in a survey carried out by U.S. Department of Labor (via O*NET) have marked out the following as important attributes that hosts and hostesses would need. These attributes have been selected from characteristics and requirements strongly associated with the occupation. They are

Abilities: Enduring attributes of the individual that influence performance
Interests: Preferences for work environments. Occupational Interest Profiles (OIPs) are compatible with Holland's (1985, 1997) model of personality types and work environments. Six interest categories are used to describe the work environment of occupations: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social, Enterprising, and Conventional. An OIP consists of six numerical scores indicating how descriptive and characteristic each work environment (or interest area) is for an occupation
Knowledge: Organized sets of principles and facts applying in general domains
Skills: These include basic skills, which are developed capacities that facilitate learning or the more rapid acquisition of knowledge. Plus cross-functional skills, which are developed capacities that facilitate performance of activities that occur across jobs
Style: Personal characteristics that can affect how well someone performs a job

We have listed out attributes which were scored 80% or more in terms of importance by the analysts.

Preferring to work with others rather than alone, and being personally connected with others on the job.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 89%

Having a strong preference for enterprising work environments. Enterprising occupations frequently involve starting up and carrying out projects. These occupations can involve leading people and making many decisions. Sometimes they require risk taking and often deal with business.
Attribute Type: Interests Score: 85.71%

Being sensitive to others' needs and feelings and being understanding and helpful on the job.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 85.2%

Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
Attribute Type: Knowledge Score: 84%

Being pleasant with others on the job and displaying a good-natured, cooperative attitude.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 82.8%

Maintaining composure, keeping emotions in check, controlling anger, and avoiding aggressive behavior, even in very difficult situations.
Attribute Type: Style Score: 82%