Critical Incident Management Of Four Season Hotel

The Four Season's sets the bar for achieving the highest quality of service in the hospitality industry. It was founded in 1960 and still obtains the same goal: "Our objective is to be recognized as the company that manages the finest hotels, resorts, and residence clubs wherever we locate." With this is mind Four Seasons Hotels are also very particular on the employees that work for them, they need to all share the same passion to serve. The Four Seasons' firmly believes in the golden rule, "treat others, how you would like to be treated." The Four Seasons' philosophy is in offering only experiences of exceptional quality. They create properties of enduring value using superior design and finishes, and support them with a deeply instilled ethic of personal service. By doing so, allows Four Seasons to satisfy the needs and tastes of diverse customers, and to maintain its position as the world's premier luxury hospitality company. The Four Seasons' greatest asset, and the key to success, is their people. They firmly believe that each of their employees' needs to have a sense of dignity, pride, and satisfaction in what we they do. Because satisfying guests depends on the united efforts of many, Four Season's employees are most effective when they work together cooperatively in addition to respecting each other's contribution and importance.

In the hiring process human resources makes sure that the employee is trained for at least two weeks by a mentor in the department before being let onto the floor alone. Also, at training the employee is informed of "Glitch Reports "in order to enhance their learning.

More ways that the Four Season's strives to make sure that their employees at the top level, managers, are constantly learning new tactics with an implemented computer training system called E Learning. E Learning is a program currently being launched for managers to enhance their understanding at their own pace. First of all, the secret of the Four Seasons' is its exceptional reputation for guest services lies in an intensive hiring and training, according to Heather Parker, a training manager for Four Seasons. She says that the success of the company is in the hands of their employees. Moreover, according to "Where Customers are Number One", an article by Derek Paiva in the Hotels and Motels magazine, Four Seasons Hotels' employees' recruitment is based on attitude rather than previous hotel experience. In the same article Kathleen Horrigan, general manager of Four Seasons Hotels in Hawaii says," that the critical part of the formula for success for Four Seasons Hotels is in hiring people that just have wonderful hospitality skills, and then Four Seasons train them on the technical aspects by giving a chance to those who had been trying to get into the industry but lacked experience." Therefore, training at Four Seasons has to be closely watched by the training managers in order not just to keep up with high customer service but constantly learning and developing new skills of managers and employees.

The Four Season's also created a system called "Glitch Reports" which is a tool to keep track of all complaints by separating them in different categories to assist in training of employees and to know where their service is inefficient. It is also very important that all of these complaints are written down, tracked, and dispersed to managers to communicate to their employees. With these Glitch Reports, managers can differentiate if employees need more training, if a new system should be put in place, or if the employee is placed in the correct department. The system of the Glitch Report process informs managers of the incident and its type, the solution or recovery process, and just keeps track of information. Even though the report doesn't include the employee name, it is very important that the manager of that department follows-up with the guest and employee.

Also, keeping track of those incidents will help training staff to classify training gaps in process-system failure, lack of or insufficient technical skills, job fit or discipline issues in order to always come up with a better and personally suited solution for an individual employee. In other words, the three golden habits: do something extra, never say no, always offer options, and team work is key-one team, one goal, which should become a common practice for every employee who goes through detailed training at Four Seasons representing company's standards in order to provide best quality customer service.

Moreover, Four Seasons strongly believes in the empowerment of their employees and explains how to respond to glitches or critical incidents in order to help management see in the future how the employees dealt with the problem and use it as a learning experience in the future training and development of employees. According to the article "Where Customers are Number One" written by Derek Paiva found in the Hotels and Motels magazine, Kathleen Horrigan, general manager at the property in Hawaii says that "Empowerment is essential." She also continues that the company encourages their employees to do what they think is right in order to take care of guests. Even though they are restrictions, the employees are still given the right to make decisions that need to be made on the spot. Also, a current employee of the company, James Bohol, continuous that two-way chain of communication from senior executives to line staff employees contributes to keeping Hualalai's guest services top-notch. He also claims that no matter how busy the hotel may be, he is always able to approach management with anything he may feel that needs top be communicate. He emphasized how pertinent it is for him or any manager to have an "open door policy." Therefore, this strategy will help Four Seasons not only to keep their customer standards at its high level of performance, but will also put them superior in the industry.

Consequently, Isadore Sharp, Chairman and CEO of Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts, who spoke at the Rotman School on April 11 as part of the Rotman Integrative Thinking Seminar series, a focus on customer service is at the centre of the success of Four Seasons Hotels. He claims that in order to establish a single-purpose goal to be the best hotel wherever it set up, Four Seasons Hotels "set out to redefine luxury as service, and to provide a support system at Four Seasons Hotels to replace the one left behind at home or at the office." The company upgraded Five Star standards by installing the quietest plumbing, the softest towels, and Ð'- a first back in the sixties - shampoo in its bathrooms. Four Seasons then expanded the use of rooms for business with well-lit desks,