True politeness is hard to find
As I write this I am a happy man. Not because I staked £10 each way on the 16:1 winner of the George VI steeplechase on Boxing Day. No! I am happy because Christmas is over.
The sheer volume of bonhomie during this extended festive season makes me nervous, enlarges my liver, and plays havoc with my haemorrhoids. I spent the whole of December worrying about all the thousands of things that could go wrong in our fun-packed Christmas programme.
Yet the true message of Christmas is one of hope. Hope that goodness will prevail over evil in the end. Contrary to what we see on television or read in the newspapers, I believe that the vast majority of ordinary people are good. They honestly try to follow truths taught by Jesus Christ and the many other religious teachers of all creeds who have inspired mankind over the centuries.
On 22 December I gave a small Champagne party for all the staff to thank them for their "goodness". We do not have to employ marketing managers to tell lies about our service or the prices we charge to our customers. Our only advertisement is the goodness of our staff and to sample that goodness it is necessary to visit the hotel.
London has many truly excellent hotels and a large number of them have very high quality restaurants. Competition is fierce and the establishments that will survive will be those that also provide an authentic standard of real service.
True politeness and good manners cannot be simulated. Our customers are rightly becoming suspicious of insincere expressions such as "Have a nice day" or "How may I help you?" even though they may be grammatically correct.
True service comes from the heart, not the Induction Training Manual. Good hotel workers need to be proud of their own hotel to give of their best.
I have never been impressed by BS5750 or IIP, but I do admire the importance that IIP places on rigorous, formalised staff assessment procedures.
After a series of rather amusing field trials, and having poached a few ideas from other hotels that already have successful schemes in operation, we are ready to start in January.
The career paths, targets and performance of every single member of staff will be carefully judged, recorded and acted upon in an efficient and personalised manner.
I may never achieve BS5750 or IIP but, by the time I have finished implementing those of their ideas that prove relevant to my operation, I will hopefully end up with a very manageable and very effective quality system of my own at no cost.
