Hotel Front Office Management, 3rd Edition

316 CHAPTER 11: MANAGING HOSPITALITYHOSPITALITY PROFILE?Mene is vice president arrival (laundry, housekeeping, front desk), one teamPatrickof quality for The Ritz- runs the restaurant, and one team is responsible forCarlton Hotel Company, L.L.C. banqueting. This horizontal structure creates aHis organization is the winner of “leaner, linked, empowered organization.” Mr.the 1992 and 1999 Malcolm Baldrige Award. After Mene describes the managers in this type of organizationas “coaches and advisers,” while managers inhe graduated from college, Mr. Mene went to workas a management trainee at Hilton. He has also traditional organizations are more “chief techniciansworked in management positions at Hyatt, Westin and problem solvers.”International, Omni, Portman Hotel in San Francisco,and L’Ermitage Hotels. He has performed a has decreased. The new structure has resulted inMr. Mene reports that customer dissatisfactiongreat deal of research, particularly on the teachings fewer breakdowns and less need for rework. In theof Joseph Juran.past, the hotel experienced problems with incorrectMr. Mene states that in addition to the Malcolm or late honor-bar billings; guest rooms were alwaysBaldrige Award’s being a prestigious recognition of clean but were sometimes missing supplies; and atexcellence in overall performance, leadership, profitability,and competitiveness, the participation in the tance, agents were not available and calls went un-times, when guests called for information or assis-competition for the award provided great feedback answered. These problems have been dramaticallyfor the hotel. He continues by explaining that the reduced.hotel was organized vertically; it is now organized He states that quality management science is ahorizontally to concentrate more on the critical processesthat drive the company and to provide more ods of management that concentrate on selling hard,whole new branch of knowledge. Traditional meth-employee empowerment. For example, a traditional raising prices, and forcing a profit cannot identifyhotel may have 30 departments, while the Ritz- and eliminate waste. He adds that, in any hotel, 30Carlton has only four; each one is run by a horizontallyorganized team. One team focuses on the preuresand are unnecessary. He feels that for those or-percent of expenditures are the result of quality failarrivalprocess (customer contact with the sales ganizations that participate in TQM and make itoffice; making reservations; preplanning meetings, work, it is the most effective way to achieve revolutionaryconferences, or banquets), one team focuses on results.and remark, “This is ridiculous; not for me. Let the people in marketing and sales worryabout it.” In many cases, service is perceived as just another fancy concept proposed bymanagement. Management needs to address that attitude from the outset. When employeesare involved early, they are much more likely to buy into the program, since theyare already a part of it.Guest CycleThe front office manager responsible for developing an effective service managementprogram, along with other department directors, should first take a look at the employeesthey supervise. Representatives from all job categories and various shifts should be in-TLFeBOOK