An Employee's Value = The Value of an Employee

During the past month I have been thinking about work/employment, training, the value of one's work, and so on and so forth.  My job now may not be what I desire for a career, but compared to others it is something I chose to take as an experience to learn from and hopefully expand my worth as an employee.  You may wonder how I did that as some jobs can get monotonous and others are, well just jobs not careers because we all need money to survive.

Currently I work the night shift at a hotel, which I do not feel utilizes my full worth as an employee, but it has allowed me time to 'stop and smell the roses' so to speak.  I am able to stop and notice if not define my abilities.  I was raised to be a humble person, not to brag, and that a person gets noticed for the right reasons.  I guess you could almost compare me to a chameleon or even a remora.  I touched on this in another post before how I have a tendency to fade into the crowd, but in the professional world, especially while looking for a job, it is good to stand out.

So in the process of defining these 'talents' of mine I have changed my perspective of my current job.  Each shift I walk into the hotel with a mindset of what can I get done and how much of it can I finish.  I understand that many of the clerks at the front desk during the day are busy checking people into the hotel, organizing rooms, and probably checking certain transactions of the check ins.  I understand that much of the housekeeping staff is trying to finish cleaning in time for the people to check in.  Plainly stated like that means nothing to the average person. However, this information means a lot to me.

This patio looks great at the break of dawn with a cup of coffee.

For instance, if the hotel is fully booked today and fully booked tomorrow, but ten rooms needed extra towels for their families as do the rooms with whirlpools, this means laundry will need to be done so the housekeepers do not run out of towels for the next day's shift. What guest wants to walk into a freshly cleaned room with no towels? Not me.  So I do the laundry, I fold a couple loads, but I do not fold all of it as there is someone hired to specifically do this duty and I do not want to completely take away someone's job.  The goal here is to set the housekeeping staff up to be able to finish their job, which in turn will please our guests and not have the front desk do a follow up to deliver towels later.

In between loads of laundry, I also do some cleaning.  Yes, this may be on my professional check list, but I understand that the front desk may  not have the same opportunity to clean as I do, so I try to clean as much as needs to be cleaned so that when a guest comes in the front door there is a sense of relief or relaxation.  Business professionals or even families do not want to worry about comfort or even their health.  When I walk into a clean hotel all I want to worry about is how I am going to sleep and if there are any handsome men in the pool.  I do not want to worry about the smell, the toilet, the mud on the floor, etc.  With my cleaning I am able to offer this to people.  A fresh clean hotel for when they check in and in the morning when they check out.

Those tasks may not seem like much because it is not all I do, but the work I do on the reports it a bit more confidential to be put in this blog.  I wanted to basically touch base on the tasks above because during my shift I view the hotel as my home.  I have many rooms in my home with invited guests and want them to enjoy their stay so they come to visit again.  I make sure everyone makes it safely to their rooms to sleep for the night and come morning I try to greet everyone  and offer many of the adults coffee.  Not many people, that I know, like the morning.  It takes work to wake up and to process the brain to function.  I like to offer as much convenience as I can in the ease of that process, so that my guests leave with a smile.  This is the same opportunity I would offer someone staying at my personal home.  This is what a good host or hostess does.


So what am I there for?  I am there for professional comfort, stability, safety,  and support for my guests and the staff working behind me as I am the leadership while at the front desk.  Yes, I said 'my' because I am the person who is seen or even confronted at the control center (front desk) of the hotel.  That means I am responsible for when a guest has a complaint or when other staff needs information in correlation to that specific job.  I wished others had the same point of view not only at work, but in life that I do in the idea that 'let me help you, help me, help you.' Life would be a bit of a smoother ride and maybe the value of a person, specifically an employee in this case, would increase.  So what do I add to my resume?  To be vague 'valued employee who understands the value of other individuals.' ~yep, that's me. :D

Disclaimer: Pictures are provided by www.ihg.com.  These are actually from my workplace, but due to certain permissions needed, the identity of the hotel is not disclosed. ~ Thanks you