Ritz Carlton

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The Ritz-Carlton Mystique: Professionalism, High Expectations

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company’s excellent reputation for customer service and its low employee turnover rate compared with other organizations in the hospitality industry is renowned. Its phenomenal success can be summed up in three phrases: a comprehensive employee screening process, significant employee orientation and ongoing training, and a high level of respect and trust in staff that leads to employee empowerment. These three phrases also embody the Ritz-Carlton credo: creating a memorable experience for customers. After a bad stay at another hotel in San Francisco, Joseph A. Michelli, Ph.D., author of The Starbucks Experience, was so taken with his own Ritz-Carlton experience that he decided to write The New Gold Standard, a book about the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. He explains that the motto of the Ritz-Carlton, “ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen,” may seem dated, but connotes that there is a status that goes with service professionalism at these hotel properties. Ritz-Carlton’s 30,000employee workforce has mastered the professionalism expected by this organization, he adds. The Ritz-Carlton difference starts with employee recruitment and hiring. Every job applicant goes through a long interview process based on the Quality Selection Process (QSP), through Talent Plus (www .talentplus.com). This Process includes a series of interviews that help to establish a behavioral profile. For example, Dr. Michelli says, “The profile shows whether you’re [a job applicant] high on empathy, inquisitive, and [with] the right take on customer service. This profile can be compared to the profiles of the highest functioning people in different areas of the Ritz-Carlton, allowing HR to match applicants with existing employee profiles. When a person is hired, he or she is already held up as someone special from the outset.”

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