Four season 53, properties and 24 countries

Consistently exceptional services

High quality personalize services “maximize value of the time”

Issue:

Learning from hotel in France are applicable to apply for other locations

New strategy of overseas growth

Performance:-

Generally operate mid-size hotel and resort (instead of owning)

Performance review from 1996 t0 2K

Compounded revenue growth 22% per annum

Operating margin growth from 58.8% to 67.9%

RevPAR 32% higher than US Com ang 27% higher than European players

Management structure and team

Structure:-

General manager is overall responsible for single property, variable portion 30% of base salary

Profit 50% weightage

Service quality:- 25 % wt

People measures: - 25 % wt

Regional management is Key component

Italian in Italy, French in France

No bragging, no excuse

NO excuse tolerance, customer services prevalent at all levels

Strong Allegiance to the firm:-

Family culture, firm’s interest at the top

Four season approach to international growth:-

Diversity and Singularity:-

With essence of local culture standardize operating procedure across the globe.

Tailor made interiors to give local flavor with standardize operation of global standards

Cultural cameleon

Implementing local learnings globally

Globally Uniform standards:-

Global “service culture standards” (exhibit 4)

270 core operating standards (exhibit 5) applicable world wide

Exception permitted if they make local sense (exception of leaving coffee pot at france)

Minimum expectation

Performance evaluation through External and Internal Audit

Delivering intelligent, anticipator and enthusiastic services world wide

Just for you

Intelligent service

If employees are empathetic, anticipate guest needs to reduce distance between employee and guest

Human resource and golden rule

One should treats others as one would wish to be treated (Exb 6)

Putting all we believe in practice and nurture it

Turnover rate half of hospitality rate of 55%

Going to Paris:-

The George V;- strategic opportunity to be in Paris (imp locations)…is it first property in Europe?

Physical Renovation:-

Preserving essence and making it contemporary

Structural adaptation to American safety standards and local law, right to light?? Different corridor for food and trash

Becoming French employer

Maintaining local tax policies, employee work week (35 hr), unemployment and retirement benefit

Managing with Union culture (Canadian experience helped to deal with the context)

Coping strong anti-termination law (first counseling and strong documentation)

National and organizational culture:-

Greatest difficulty to make middle and front line manager accountable

Difficult in giving counseling and feedback

Coping up with strong tendency to refer things to the boss

Involving operational managers for resolving the issues

Saint Thomas the skeptics:-

Difficulty in molding French’s in four season’s culture

More differences

Monochromic vs polychromic

Coping French emotional way of doing the things

Copoing french “Logic of honour” (Exhibit 8)

Problem in reducing lay off (head count)

Apple and orange:-

Un Boss Franco- Francais:-

Le Calvez as General manager (go extensive experience of working at four season exp The Pierre in New York and basically a French Man.

Task force

35 people to support Le Calvez

Task force set up the norm, listen problem and communicate right information to all, squash rumors esp of cultural sensitivity,

Strong Tides:-

Le Clavez had experience of handing union of new your at the Pierre so he was choose to handle the unions issue at France

Unions are compulsory and backed by law

Le Clavez communicated and discussed 35 hors work week, retirement plan, time and attendance system.

Discusses the unions over lunch invited to site to excite them

More tricky to handled unions in France than new York

35 hours work week

Staff hired from other hotels got surprise with abiding with law

Annual Hours Available house after holiday

Hours available in america

35 hours work week 1820 1500-1600 1912

Working days 214

No of rooms : 250

Staff 620

Staff per room 2.5

Interlational standard 1.6

Stiff competition in 6 luxary hotels in paris

High guest expecatation

Average stay 4-6 days , extensive use of concierge

Running FS George V

Recruitment and Selection:-

Four season want to be best employers

Salaries were advertised

Main focus on attitudes

People with prior experience in 4 season hotels or worked in use preferred

So that they can spread the US working style information amount others.

40m such staff were selected

Anglo Sexon recognition and benefits

Launched employee of the month and employee of the year award

Initially people were skeptical, how ever it was successful

Same spirit was used in annual evaluation which was uncommon in France

Communicating no favoritism rather meritocracy, Let the work speak.

Implementing Golden Rules:-

Worker earlier haven’t thought the value of golden rules but later on they realized the value

The human resources practices are reflected in the customer satisfaction

Communication:-

TO promote communication and problem solving;-“ Direct line “ once a month meeting of general manager with all ranks of employee separately in a group of 30

Follow up for 3 consecutive months

Every morning top management used to review what went wrong, and measure take to correct it.

Once a year open door event where employees can bring their families to the hotel to break the barriers.

Proper communication with press in cultural responsive and open way

Culinary Coup d’ Etat:- (hiring cook)

Non 4 seasoned executive chef was hired form famous Persian restaurant was hired.

Phillip Legendre

Taking chef was difficulty from outside as highly skilled chef who is willing to adjust to 4 season’s system is difficult to find.

Cooking is about emotions.. one should put his heart

Cultural cocktail

French hotel with international feel and standards

Bunch of rose to give feel of international culture as Paris symbolize of fashion and style

Service Quality:-

First internal audit find few problems:-

1. Employee attitude (inability to apologize)2. No not have any thing selling3. Staff was rule and policy oriented instead of problem solving

Significant improvement in scores in second auditJuly 2002:- score 4.02 out of 5I am proud to work in four season, I would want to work here againReceived several industry awards….best hotel in europe, # 5 world’s best SPA

Ideas and Questions to Stimulate Discussion

1. Why do you think Four Seasons decided on the common standards of smiling, eye contact, and recognition of guests by using first names? What potential problems do these standards pose for certain cultures? These standards reflect Western practices and values in particular. Specifically, they reflect North American standards. North Americans value individualism and are more low power distant than most other cultures. Smiling connotes a familiarity or closeness to the person, as does using the guest’s first name. Eye contact usually communicates equality between people. These can pose problems for guests who are from high power distant and collective or high context cultures. In these cultures, distance can often be communicated by the lack of eye contact and by the use of formal titles and family names. Smiling can seem offensive in cultures that reserve the smile for friends and family members. 2. What standards and practices do you think should be standardized and which should be localized? What difference is there between the common standards referred to in #1 and those in Appendix 1 (how to handle reservations, hotel arrivals and departures, wake-up calls, etc.)? Students might generate different answers to the first question. The important thing is that they have a cultural and business rationale behind their answers. For example, if they say that employees at George V should use last names instead of first names, this is a logical answer in view of the more formal culture in France and the importance of not breaching personal “space.”

The common standards in #1 are almost all “culture free.” That is, they are things that nearly all cultures would expect, particularly in a high-class hotel. Yet certain things, such as leaving the coffee on the table for availability, were seen as a lack of service-orientation in France and so that particular practice was changed to be more “French.”

3. What kind of profile do you think Four Seasons should create with which to select their employees in France in order to adopt the global standards but maintain a sense of the local culture? Ideally, such employees would be flexible, perhaps with some experience in dealing with foreign cultures, very service- and team-oriented. For example, in Four Seasons culture, a restaurant manager might clean off a table if it needed to be done given the circumstances. Although this might be more easily tolerated in low power distant cultures, such as in Scandinavia and most Anglo cultures, it would not normally be well tolerated in a higher power distant culture like France. In essence, recruitment and selection would have to filter individuals who hold to traditional French values and are unable to adapt to a different corporate culture.

Other Ideas for Discussion 1. You could create a fictitious corporate culture (related to specific industry expectations) that

has some specific contrasts to U.S. culture or whatever culture is indigenous to yours, and ask the students which aspects of the country culture they think would be essential to keep and which aspects of the corporate culture should be maintained, and why.

1) What was good/bad about the way Four Seasons entered the French/Paris market?   Why do you say this?

Question 1What has made the Four Seasons so successful for the past 35 years?

* Delivering consistently exceptional service. * Operated, Not Owned => Organizational structure contributes to success. * Strong cultural foundation: local culture dictates hotel business culture * Golden Rule: One should treat others as one would wish to be treated. * Globally Uniform Standards: flexible in application * Standard Foundations: Exhibits #4&5 – graphics * Cultural Diversity & Singularity Quality Experience * Employee Commitment to Global Standards * Employees Deliver Intelligent and Enthusiastic Service * Learn from mistakes at The Pierre, New York * Recalibrating Employees for Service * Commitment to Local Business Ethics

Question 2In what ways does corporate culture play a role in its success?

* Commitment to quality drives outstanding customer service and satisfaction. * Happy employees means happy customers * Recruitment and selection of employees is focused on right attitude. * Standard management practice with the able to break free as necessary. * Sensitivity to cultural standards still requiring Four Seasons quality * Chart – Exhibit #8 monochronic and polychronic differences in culture.

Question 3In what ways do human resource management policies play a role in its success?

* Golden Rule is rubric human resource policy. * Don’t fire at will. Counseling for better fit. Relational mechanisms. * Attain of critical mass of calibrated employees to overcome resistance to corporate culture. * Use hotel opening task-force to drive successful end * Launch employee recognition program. Self-actualization in Maslow’s hierarchy. * Creating culturally penetrating policies to assist employees in conforming to Four Season’s quality...