The Ritz Carlton Hotel Company

On October 11, 2000 The Ritz-Carlton was on the eve of opening Washington DC’s first luxury hotel in 10 years. The 300 room hotel was part of a $225 million complex owned by Millennium Partners. This would be the first hotel opened of a six hotel deal between Millennium Partners and The Ritz-Carlton. Millennium Partners owned the properties and The Ritz-Carlton was hired to operate the hotels. After only seven days of training the 400 person staff would open the doors the next morning.

James McBride, the general manager, faced pressures concerning the training approach The Ritz-Carlton had established. Millennium had two primary problems with the seven day training process. First, they felt seven days …show more content…

Each day a “Wow” story is shared. The same story is shared across all hotels. The “Wow” story illustrates a real situation where an employee went above and beyond to make a guest’s stay memorable and unique. This gives the training a memorable and emotional connection with the employees. The lineups are held 365 days a year across the 38 hotels located throughout the world. So while it may seem the hotel staff receives only a limited seven day training process, the company is actually providing thousands of hours of ongoing training per year to its employees.

Thirdly, Seven Day Countdown is the standard that brought quality control and human resources into a perfect balance. There is too much risk to damaging the company by changing their standard. Opening the hotel at a 50% occupancy rate allows staff to become more familiar, efficient, and comfortable with their responsibilities. The company focus has been on quality over quantity. Speed would come with time. Millennium saw the low occupancy rates as lost revenue, but this gradual approach allowed the company to open every section of the hotel at once rather than in phases which was the industry standard.

The fourth reason is - at the Ritz-Carlton - its employees make the difference. They believe that employees are not servants, but are instead service professionals. The company treats them as such. This is demonstrated clearly during the initial training period and sets the tone