Empowerment is about doing, not make believe
“The best executive is the one who has sense enough to pick good men (and women), to do what he wants done, and self-restraint enough to keep from meddling with them while doing it” Theodore Roosevelt
Whilst there are those who parrot the “our employees are our greatest asset” without any corroboration, several companies are beginning to now understand John Case’s (senior writer at Inc. Magazine), description; that, “men and women who take responsibility and who share in the risks and rewards of the enterprise are the company’s greatest asset”. This is where empowerment can step in to play a powerful role in the new future.
Empowerment can be viewed as a dual relationship between a manager and their subordinates. Research reveals that empowerment is an important driver of organisational effectiveness, involving the delegation of responsibility (not duty), down the hierarchy, giving subordinates the responsibility of increased decision-making authority in respect to the execution of their primary work tasks.
Successful organisations understand that it is the customer who pays the bills. Front-line employees in the hotel and service industry get it. They deal with the day-to-day issues and know what customers want.
When one speaks of empowerment in the hospitality industry, the conversation invariably drifts towards citing the Ritz Carlton as an example. Yes, it is a classic model for service recovery, where each Lady and Gentleman (L & G), at all ranks, is empowered to spend up to US$ 2000 per guest, per incident to make things right. No questions asked.
All very good, nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of us might say “That’s incredible, but my hotel simply can’t afford to do the same”. True and many may well agree…but let’s dig a little deeper.
What is it that makes the Ritz Carlton approach unaffordable? The $2000 authorisation or the empowerment bestowed to its L & G’s at all ranks? Empowerments need not come with a price-tag. In the context of Ritz Carlton’s approach, the financial aspect is vastly overshadowed by the symbolic element it represents. It demonstrates how much the Ritz Carlton trusts its staff to resolve a guest issue by handing over a level of the decision-making power, while eliminating the “let me ask by boss” barrier. Interestingly, the average actual amount used as admitted by Ritz Carlton, on an incident is often much, much lower.
A culture of empowerment cannot be introduced overnight. For instance, problem resolution and service recovery are strategies best planned in advance and for all these to be successful, it requires training employees to be able to take on these new customer focused responsibilities.
Planning and sharing your organization’s strategies to handle customer problems will ensure that every predicament then becomes an opportunity to increase engagement. One important component of your strategy must include minimizing the number of employees with which a customer must interact while on the problem resolution journey.
Training employees, who are empowered, in problem solving, conflict resolutions and the art of service recovery will prepare employees to be confident when called upon to make those on the feet decisions that impact customers.
Finally, employees must be made to be fully aware of the expectations and the boundaries for decision making and be able to recognise what that means in terms of exercising their authority in any given situation.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier.
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