D o N o t C o p y 9-489-104 R
亚特兰蒂斯文明E V. A U G U S T 9, 1989
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________Philip Holland prepared this ca under the supervision of Professor Charles Heckscher. HBS cas are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cas are not intended to rve as endorments, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or ineffective management.
Copyright © 1989 President and Fellows of Harvard College. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 1-800-545-7685,write Harvard Business School Publishing, Boston, MA 02163, or go to www.hbsp.harvard.edu. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, ud in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical,photocopying, recording, or otherwi—without the permission of Harvard Business School.C H A R L E S H E C K S C H E R
The Portman Hotel Company
It was November 1988, and Patrick Mene, vice president and managing director of The Portman Hotel,
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was re-evaluating the “5-Star team plan.” He, Joe Villa, director of human resources, and Spencer Scott, director of guest room rvices, had implemented the plan in December 1987, with the understanding that they would reasss it later.The 5-Star team plan had reorganized one group of employees, the personal valets (PVs). The PVs both cleaned the rooms and were like butlers for the guests. Under the plan, the PVs had been organized into teams of 5, with one team per floor. Mene had agreed to the plan becau the PVs had complained about how disorganized they were when the hotel opened in October 1987.
Now the PVs' morale was down. Many of them were not performing or had poor attendance. The guests were starting to e mistakes. And all of this was aggravated by the hotel's occupancy, which had just jumped from about half full to nearly 100% full in the last two months.
Mene wondered too if he should rethink his original human resources strategy, which he believed was so important to The Portman's success. The Portman's goal had been to achieve a new level of rvice among American luxury hotels. And to do this, he believed, required a high level of employee commitment and responsibility. But maintaining commitment was turning out to be harder than he had expected.
时的拼音怎么写The Hotel
John C. Portman, Jr., architect and developer, had been a world-famous designer of luxury hotels for 20 years. The Portman Hotel, however, was to be the first to bear his name and the first that he and his firm would not only design and develop but also manage.
The hotel was relatively small—348 rooms and 21 floors. (The rooms were on floors 5 through 21,though the fifth floor had only 10 rooms and the 21st had only 2.) Its rooms were elegant, done in quiet shades of green or pink, with natural wood furniture. The look had been described as “contemporary with Asian accents.” The bathrooms were chrome and Portugue Breccia marble,complete with a parate shower and tub, telephone and mini-television t.
At a time when industry analysts were predicting a glut of luxury hotel rooms in San Francisco,Portman proceeded undaunted. He saw his hotel as a first, as carving a niche in the luxury market
D o
N o t C o p y 489-104The Portman Hotel Company 2and ultimately tting new standards. The niche?—a revolution in guest rvice, a style of rvice Portman and his associates had become so impresd with during their stays in Hong Kong's finest hotels. Portman wanted to bring that type of
属牛的多少岁rvice to an American luxury hotel. Everything from organization to recruitment to rewards to architecture was to be done to achieve one end: “To bring Asian standards of hospitality to the U.S.”Bad on this goal Mene had written the operating plans for the hotel. From the beginning, the challenge, he said, had been to build a company providing high quality at affordable rates, and to do this quickly and against strong competition. The guests must be provided not just great rvice but an experience . The hotel aimed to “overwhelm guests by the professional, cheerful and immediate respon to every request.” There were to be “no rules” for guests: Portman employees were to give each guest a “memorable experience through rvancy,” by satisfying the guest's “intangible psychic needs.” For the guest, the Portman had to be a Home Away From Home and an Office Away From the Office. (See Exhibit 1 for a Portman advertiment.)
The group of employees most central to the Asian philosophy of rvice were the personal valets (PVs). PVs were like butlers: they were expected to provide comprehensive personal rvices for the guests. No other American hotel had anything similar: the PVs were to be a key competitive difference for the hotel.
Competitors
The Portman competed with San Francisco's finest luxury hotels. Rates (or “tariffs”) for single rooms at each hotel generally ranged from $140 to roughly $250 a night. In addition, two new luxury hotels had recently opened: the Mandarin and Nikko. The two, like the Portman, were trying to bring the Asian-style rvice to the U.S. market. The Portman's rates were slightly higher than the others': single rooms cost from $185 to $320. The budgeted goal for the average tariff was $220, which,over the cour of the year, the Portman achieved.In general, all of the hotels offered similar features to guests—24-hour food rvice, elegant rooms and dining—but not personal valets or the concept of “no rules” for guests. Most of the competitors thought that the personal valet approach would be impossible in America. I t was a labor-intensive strategy, and labor costs were three times greater in America than in Asia. Thus, typical Asian hotels could afford about three employees for every guest, whereas the normal ratio for American hotels was 1:1. The Portman needed to stay near that ratio to keep its costs competitive.
Human Resource Management: Policy and Practice
The key to the business strategy was providing unparalleled rvice. How could that be achieved?The employee handbook had the company's answer:
We know that if we want customers treated better we should treat each other better. We
want to make the Portman the most fulfilling, fun work experience that anyone on the staff has ever had. We want to be the best employer in San Francisco, to show our trust and pride in each person on our staff, and to work in ways that help each person to grow, both personally and professionally.Michael Kay, president of The Portman Hotels—and Mene's boss—put the philosophy very strongly: “We'd better have the same level of riousness and commitment to meeting employee
D o N o t C o p y The Portman Hotel Company 489-1043needs as we do to meeting guest needs. People are really our product—people who love you by nature.”
Associate Contract Every Portman employee was called an “associate” and, as an associate, signed a contract. The associate contract spelled out how the hotel would practice its human resource strategy. It covered both the associates' rights and responsibilities, making clear that the contract was binding, so that if any associate's rights had been violated, the associate could ek redress in court.
The contract included a “bill of rights.” Of the eleven listed, a few examples were, “The right to quarterly [written] performance reviews and an explanation of them; The right to know what is expect
ed of him; The right to speak his mind in a professional manner; The right to be considered for any job in the Hotel once he successfully completes the training period.”
Other rights, not in the bill of rights but listed elwhere in the contract, had to do with terms tting the duration of employment, levels of pay and training, grievance procedure, the role of niority, and policies pertaining to layoffs, terminations, discipline and general rules of conduct. For example, in discipline cas not rious enough to warrant immediate termination, associates had a right to three written warnings for similar offens before being fired. Warnings were void after three months; and after the cond warning the associate would be placed on thirty-day probation, during which the department head and a human resources reprentative had to write up a plan to help the associate improve. The three would then meet weekly to review the associate's progress. The policies were protected by an elaborate grievance procedure which could go to outside arbitration as a final step.
As human resources director Joe Villa summed up: “Between the contract and the associate's handbook and the orientation we give them, they know their rights.”
Organization
The organization of the hotel sought to maximize rvice while minimizing management overhead. Mene tried to cut out areas not esntial to top rvice, particularly in middle management, such as the usual manager of food and beverage. Kay, the company president, saw this as “extending the bottom portion of the organization triangle”; it meant putting more employees in front of the guests, rather than in management. The director of room rvices, Spencer Scott, had had over 60 personal valets reporting to him directly when the hotel first opened (though he later added a level of supervision). Kay added that they could also avoid the usual costs that come with status: for example, all Portman employees shared the same dining hall.
Without a deep hierarchy and with guest rvice so important, Mene hoped that employees would be content not to be promoted up the ladder, but to grow in their jobs, staying in them for a long time.Joe Villa, the director of human resources, called this management's “real challenge.” Everything had to be coordinated to fit this strategy. We have to reward people for staying where they are,” he said.脸色不好怎么调理
Achieving high quality and cost-effective rvice also demanded a certain philosophy of job design. Whereas jobs in most other hotels were “narrow,” Portman jobs would have to be “broad.”There would be no parate maids, no special category of workers to clean halls or to iron guest clothes. A
ssociates would have more responsibilities, would have to be able to cover for one another,and would have to be willing to perform tasks outside their official responsibilities, particularly if tho tasks had to do with a guest's request.
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N o t C o p y 489-104The Portman Hotel Company 4The key rvice groups, besides the personal valets, were entry court attendants, doormen, lobby porters, reception, room rvice, restaurant, and concierges. Upon arriving at the hotel (perhaps in one of the hotel's green Rolls Royce limousines) guests would be greeted by an entry court attendant.A porter took their bags up to their rooms. The doorman, meanwhile, brought the guest to the third floor for check-in. The receptionist or the personal valet then escorted the guest to the room, where the valet prepared a welcoming tea and showed the guest the room. (See Exhibit 2 for the hotel's organization chart.)Unions
All of the large San Francisco hotels had unions reprenting their employees. Typically 8 or 9unions reprented the different employee groups in a hotel. Both Mene and Kay argued that having a number of parate unions rigidly delimiting jobs would undermine their strategy of broadly defining jobs and promoting inclusiveness. They believed that moving people around to avoid hiring extras w
as crucial to the business. It not only helped to ensure 40 hours a week for the associates but also helped minimize overtime expens. The associates' handbook stated:In the Portman Hotel, associates have rights. In fact, our associates have a written contract
guaranteeing tho rights, and it's fully enforceable in a court of law. Nobody had to bring in a union to get it.
When the Portman opened, the unions began attempts to organize the associates. Mene had told the four unions involved that he would be willing to bargain with them, but only if one union was to reprent all employees. The unions did not agree to bargain jointly, and Mene did not agree to bargain with multiple unions. Shortly after, the hotel's 9 engineers did vote to join a local union. The rest, including the PVs, emed to prefer to stay unreprented. Some unions picketed the hotel, and organizing it remained a major objective of the local labor movement.
Recruiting
“I f you want friendly employees,” said Mene, “you have to hire friendly people—training and motivation won't achieve tho standards for you.”
Good recruiting was crucial to the Portman's strategy: the caliber of rvice depended directly on the caliber of people. The PV had to have “initiative,” with “a need to be nice to you.” Thus, said Kay,the hotel was looking for “talent,” not experience. As Villa defined it, talent was “the ability to do something almost perfectly,” as “positivity, focus, values and attention to detail.”
Becau he believed recruiting was so important, Mene hired Selection Rearch I nc. (SRI ), a recruitment and development consulting firm. SRI's approach to lection was to systematically study successful performers in a wide range of jobs and industries, looking for key success characteristics.
Bad on the characteristics it had discovered for the “hospitality” industry, SRI had designed questions to discern which applicants had tho characteristics. The questions—the focus of an hour-long interview of each applicant—probed for the applicant's “life theme,” or, the “consistent,recurring pattern of thought, feeling and behavior.” The desired themes for Portman hires included “Asrtiveness,” “Pride,” “Responsibility,” “Positivity,” and “Gestalt”: (“Associates who are high on the Gestalt theme strive for structure and completeness in their lives. Neatness and cleanliness are natural manifestations of this theme.
D o N o t C o p y The Portman Hotel Company 489-1045The hotel interviewed more than 9,000 applicants for its original 350 positions. Mene wanted the most talented people he could find, and he wanted them to know that they had been part of an extremely lective process. Tho chon were asked to make a commitment to stay in the job for at least one year.The Personal Valets
Though all Portman associates were responsible for providing exceptional rvice, perhaps most important in this respect were the PVs: theirs was the largest group, making up about 85 of the 400total; they had the most contact with guests; and no other American luxury hotel had them.
The PVs reported through five supervisors to the director of guest room rvices. The director was responsible for preparing his staff for the guests' arrivals, overeing and approving the PVs'schedules, handling the payroll, reacting to associates' and guests' problems, and ordering supplies.
The PVs ranged from 19 to 50 years old, though over 80% were under 35. The majority of them saw the job as a way to support their true interests in life, which included becoming painters, writers,entrepreneurs, among other professions. Another significant group saw this position as a ground-floor entry into an exciting new concept in the hotel business. About 20% had some college education, and another 15% had been to trade school.
The PV’s job was to greet guests at registration, show them to their rooms, explain how rvice at the Portman worked and be on call (as a group) 24 hours for the length of the guests' stay. What the PVs could do for a guest was esntially open. They might press a guest's shirt before a morning meeting; buy a book for a guest; find a good jogging route; get the concierge to order theater tickets;prepare drinks from the room's minibar; or draw the bath. As the associates' handbook said, “As long as a guest's request is moral and legal, we want you to do everything in your power to fulfill that request.” The PV was trained to anticipate a guest's needs and personality, and judge whether the guest wanted to be “best friends” or have a formal, “Yes, sir” relationship.
Aside from the butler-like tasks, the PVs also had to clean the rooms, perform minor maintenance, restock the rooms' minibars, paint, clean the hallway, and move out the room rvice tray.风景照片高清图
The typical American luxury hotel was organized very differently. The maids cleaned the rooms,someone el stocked the bar, a “houman” vacuumed and dusted the hallways, someone el put the shampoo in the bathroom—in short, it was organized by specialty. At the Portman, the PV did all the. As Mene put it, the PV had to be able to “clean toilets and still rve royalty.”
The ba pay of the valets was about the same as a maid's in comparable hotels: about $7.50 an ho
ur. It was expected, however, that they would add to this pay with lucrative tips as a result of the unusual level of rvice they provided. Spencer Scott, the director of room rvices, led them to expect as much as $200 a week in tips. Mene saw them as “independent capitalists,” with compensation heavily dependent on their performance for the guests.
At full manning, which was 70 full-time equivalent or about 90 PVs, the monthly total budget for PV salaries and benefits was about $91,000. The total monthly budget for the hotel was $1.1 million.
Mene pointed out that being a PV had other advantages over being a maid in another hotel. Each PV was responsible for 5 rooms, whereas the typical maid covered 16. All associates had the benefits of the associate contract, including long-term disability and retirement benefits. And there were unusual extras: liberal reimburments for outside cours, access to an excellent cafeteria, parties,黎族音乐
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