TRAINING (Germany, Part 6)
One of the great things I experienced during the German wedding party was the performance of the hotel staff. From the moment I arrived, I was welcomed with open arms, treated as if I were an old friend (even though it was my first time at the hotel), made to feel special. My clothes were laundered and pressed and put away in my room, the barman passed on a dinner invitation (even though he had no reason to know my name), directions, currency exchange, meals, housekeeping, everything one could want was instantly and cheerfully available. I've always expected (and usually found) great service, but this was equal to the best service I've ever received. And, as I always do in such situations, I tried to understand what made the service special, how was the staff able to meet such high standards, where did the hotel find such wonderful people. I thought of several answers: culture, personality and, maybe most important, training.
There's a (fortunately) large group of people who take pride in doing the best they can, who understand that all roles in society are important, who value other people. This is the culture of service I found at the Berlin hotel. Some people would say to themselves that a job is menial, unimportant, beneath them. This group obviously says it's our job to give good service, to make guests feel welcome, and we intend to do our job no matter how hard we have to work. Moreover, they obviously believe that there's a joy in doing one's best, no matter what the job. By the way, their job is important, valued, worthy of any of us. Maybe it's easier to find this culture of service in Europe or in Germany, but I hope not. There's no reason that we can't adopt the attitude of doing the best we can no matter where in the world we find ourselves.
I also think personality has something to do with service. Whether people with winning personalities automatically gravitate toward service jobs, whether personalities change in certain settings, or whether we attribute great personalities to those who give us great service, the hotel staff all had wonderful personalities. Everyone I met was someone I wish I could know better, spend time with, have a personal relationship with. I found myself wishing I could spend more time at the hotel just to get to know the staff. That's a feeling that's always associated with great service. Some would say that quality is inborn, you either have it or you don't, but I think it's possible to create, possible to learn with training.
Training is essential to any job. In the German system, training starts early and continues and that may account for the great staff. But whenever it starts, every job includes an obligation of the employer to train, to give every employee the best chance to succeed. The obligation to train continues forever; as things change, the obligation to train continues. But there's a reciprocal obligation on the part of the employee: the obligation to accept training, to work hard to follow the employer's guidelines and to continue training as long the job continues. It's this side of the equation that is sometimes lost. Employees sometimes assume that their role in training is to accept passively, to learn the rules but not to live them, to sit back and wait for instructions. This is where the German hotel staff obviously shone: Every member of the staff was not only trying to give great service but to learn how to give even better service. Continuous inquiries as to the guests' preferences, as to further ways to please the guests, as to how different customs and nationalities might affect the definition of great service were a part of this training.
That's my most important message for this week. If you want to give great service, demand, accept and adopt training but go further: Continue your training as you work, learn by doing, think of how to bring all your training together to produce a great job. And, by the way, the same approach works in every relationship, not just our jobs.
9-2-02
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