Premium Crew: Training For Excellence Part II

Lance Camarena, Holland America’s director of corporate training and development

Lance Camarena, director of corporate training and development for Holland America Line, has an important task ahead: ensuring that the Eurodam crew is ready for the first guests who sail in July 2008. ENB sat down with Camarena last week, and today we reveal the details of how he accomplishes this daunting task when he arrives at Eurodam just three weeks before the launch to train the new ensemble of crew members.

Through years of experience and numerous ship launches, Camarena says he found that the most effective time for training was before the ship set sail, as it gives the crew time for lectures and training activities without the added pressure of having guests on board.

“Veendam was the first newbuild where we got on board to train as part of the pre-build process, but the training experience really came to maturity with the Vista-class ships,” said Camarena. “On a newbuild, 80 percent of the crew and 95 percent of the officers are seasoned, hand-chosen, experienced people. We’re not doing the ABC kind of training with them.”

Once on board, Camarena and his team take the stateroom closest to the hotel manager’s office, empty it out and make it their on-board headquarters. “We use the opportunity of being on the ship to create new training materials and adapt materials to new situations,” said Camarena. “We’ll also trial new training initiatives.”

Camarena compares getting a new ship and its crew ready to moving into a new house or office: you still have day-to-day chores like cooking and cleaning to complete in addition to making the new place ready to move into. His challenge is to weave in training while preparing the ship.

To help him in the training process, over the years he has partnered with a seasoned hotel manager, Rene Tuinman, a veteran of numerous newbuilds. Tuinman serves as liaison between the ship and the corporate office.

“By partnering with Rene, I found I could be doubly effective,” said Camarena. “His inside perspective gives us the flexibility to work around the crew’s schedule to set up a better-organized program for training. It enables us to take training from the five-star to the 6.5-star level.”

While the training primarily is focused on the hotel side of the operation, the training department still looks across the fleet for common areas of concern. And all crew are reminded of the premium attributes that contribute to the overall Holland America Line experience. The training period on board also serves as a good time for crew to brush up on their language skills and learn about different cultures. Because HAL caters to an international clientele, crew must learn to adapt their levels of personal service and understand the preferences that different cultures enjoy.

To give the crew realistic training experiences, Camarena likes to run different areas of the ship as if guests were on board. He shuts down the crew mess areas for dinner and opens the dining room and the Lido several times for the restaurant teams to practice.

“Dining room staff serve their fellow crewmembers as if they were passengers, and the crew even dine off of the real HAL menu, giving the galley staff a chance to prepare the cuisine that guests will enjoy,” he said. “For many crewmembers, it’s the first and only time they will get to dine in the dining room. Likewise, for entertainment, the production cast runs dress rehearsals of the shows for the crew exactly as they will be for guests.”

Camarena likes to keep shipboard training fun

And Camarena always leaves time for fun and games. He likes to pump up the crew with various competitions. One of the favorites is the dining room competition where he challenges the staff to set up a series of dining room tables while working against the clock. The team with the lowest time and a perfect setup — measured to the millimeter — wins.

In addition to making the crew ready before the first guests embark, Camarena’s overall goal is to give the management teams on board the proper tools to continue training the crew after he’s moved on.

“We do a lot of training the trainers,” he said. “We work with the management teams so they can work with their crew teams to make sure we maintain our high standards.”