Executive summary of The New Gold Standard - Customer ...

It's a matter of trust
How does RC stretch human resources and still deliver the consistent, highest-quality
experience for the guests? In one word: trust.
Staff members trust leadership to make staffing decisions that protect employee interests
over the long term. From a financial perspective, this trust is fostered, in part, by
simplifying and creating transparency around certain economic elements in the business.
By making the financial goals clear and understandable, staff in turn are entrusted to
participate in the overall success of the business.
Staff are empowered to participate in department-level discussions of how they can
individually impact the key success factors - thus building greater staff involvement in the
business by drawing a clear line-of-sight connection between each employee and the
overall success of the company.
RC developed an Employee Promise to communicate to employees what they can count on
from their employer. The Employee Promise identifies all the different processes that are in
place to serve as a commitment to staff, from career planning to empowerment
philosophy. At the core of the employee promise is a stated commitment to nurture talent
for the mutual benefit of the individual and the company.
RC systematically analyzes the trust and engagement of their employees through formal
surveys conducted by third parties.
In work environments characterized by distrust, it is common for frontline workers to say "I
will have to get my manager’s approval on this." The RC culture emphasizes service values
such as "I am empowered to create unique, memorable and personal experiences for our
guests" or "I own and immediately resolve guests problems". To further punctuate the
autonomy and trust in staff, leadership has created a vehicle that clearly permits staff to
use their own discretion in service delivery or service recovery. The approach involves
giving each employee the ability to exercise judgement in spending up to $2000 per guest
per day, if needed, either to enhance the guest experience or to afford immediate problem
resolution. The advantage of the $2000 staff empowerment guideline is that employees
don't have to delay service response by taking it up to the next level. They can take
initiative without seeking permission to enhance guest experiences.
Ultimately, by offering trust, the company will reap significant financial benefits and
increased customer loyalty.
Key take-aways
- Beyond technical skills, what processes do you have in place to study the
commitment and strengths of your prospective employees?
- How often does expediency take priority over careful selection?
- A dedication to hiring the best service professionals, no matter how long it takes,
helps RC to obtain and maintain top performers.
- How effectively do you acclimatize leaders into your organisation?
- What listening process do you have in place to re-engage new hires early in their
employment tenure?
- Leaders who focus detailed attention on the wants and needs of their staff
ultimately see that the same detailed, personalized attention is being passed on to
customers.
- Lateral service strengthens the organisation and breaks down silos. When
leadership works side by side with staff, a "we are all in this together" message is
clearly received.
- Have you defined a short list of annual key success factors for your business, to
help staff trust that you will demonstrate consistency in the initiatives you pursue?
- Do you communicate the salient drivers of success to your frontline employees and
solicit their input on how they can affect these factors?
- How does leadership take a genuine interest in the lives and ideas of all employees?
Stimmt AG | Executive summary of The New Gold Standard 4