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ОглавлениеTWO Managing Autonomy
Luxury service, as we have seen, depends largely on the commitment of the workers who provide it. Managers thus face a difficult task. They must convince their employees, especially those in the front of the house, to go out of their way for guests, satisfying and surprising guests in largely intangible ways. The managers I interviewed and worked with were all too aware of this dilemma. Their chief complaint was that it was too hard to find workers, especially workers who would provide highlevel service. The food and beverage director at the Luxury Garden described his greatest challenge as “without a doubt the [worker] management aspect.” The general manager at the Royal Court told me his biggest problem was finding qualified labor; he said he didn't understand why it was “so bloody difficult” to get clients’ phone messages and packages straight, because “it's not brain surgery.”
A tight local labor market exacerbated this problem. Most of my research took place in 2000, at the height of the national and local economic boom, which meant that many hotel workers had left to seek employment in other industries. Internal problems, including unpopular managers at the Luxury Garden and renovation at the Royal Court, had also prompted an exodus in each hotel. Alice, the head of human resources at the Luxury Garden, told me there had been a 34 percent turnover in 2000, which was high for the hotel. (She claimed it had been under 20 percent since 1993.) Alice named employee retention as one of her biggest challenges. Nicole, the Royal Court's human resources director, told me turnover had reached 43 percent in 1999 and was at 23 percent as of April 2000. The front desk staff, including line employees and managers, had been decimated. (When I started, almost all the front desk workers and front office managers had been at the hotel for less than two years.)1
Managers were similarly constrained by the requirements of interactive work. As we have seen, luxury service cannot be routinized because of workers’ discretion in the face of unpredictability. Coercive approaches would not work among interactive workers either, especially given the tight labor market. So what strategies did managers use to convince scarce autonomous workers to provide luxury service? In this chapter, I introduce the two hotels and compare their managerial regimes. Although managers faced many similar constraints and had similar options for regulating workers, the two hotels produced luxury service very differently. The hierarchically organized and highly regulated Luxury Garden offered professionalized service; the Royal Court provided more informal, friendly service in the context of flexible organization and lateral authority. These managerial regimes could not, in and of themselves, ensure worker cooperation and consent; rather, they provided different kinds of resources for workers in the constructions of selfhood that I explore throughout the book.
THE HOTELS
In many ways, the Luxury Garden and the Royal Court were alike. They strove to provide a comparable level of service, competed for many of the same clients, and faced similar recruitment and training difficulties. They were both fairly small (160 and 110 rooms, respectively), with worker-to-room ratios of over 1:1 (standard in luxury hotels). They had a similar organizational structure. (See appendix B for details.) Because the city's hotel industry was highly unionized, both hotels, which were nonunion, more or less adhered to the terms of the master contract that governed unionized hotels in terms of wages and disciplinary procedures (though Royal Court workers earned slightly less than unionized workers). Workers were paid hourly and scheduled on three daily eight-hour shifts. Benefits at both hotels included health care, lower room rates for workers and their friends and family, free food in an employee cafeteria, and free uniforms and uniform laundry. However, the hotels differed in their ownership and management structures, types of accommodations and service, characteristics of guests, types of workers, and their managerial regimes. Guest responses to the service were similarly positive but varied in character; reflecting contrasts in service styles, guests saw the Luxury Garden as “professional” and the Royal Court as “friendly.”Table 2 summarizes the differences between the hotels.
The Luxury Garden
The Luxury Garden was located in the city's business district, in an imposing skyscraper that also housed offices. A gold-coated doorman, positioned near carefully cultivated flowering plants, greeted guests. Inside, neatly uniformed white, Asian, and Latino workers, mostly older than thirty, stood behind the desk looking into the lobby, decorated in black granite with red and gold touches. The hotel's 160 rooms boasted a glorious view of the city; they were decorated with dark woods and Asian accents, such as bamboo and Chinese ceramics. Large bathrooms featured capacious tubs and sinks, as well as a separate shower, two kinds of bathrobes, and soft slippers. Like most luxury hotels, the Luxury Garden boasted twenty-four-hour room service, an award-winning restaurant, same-day laundry service, twice-daily maid service, packing and unpacking service on request, valet parking, and a complimentary chauffeur-driven house car in the mornings and evenings. A fruit or flower amenity awaited each new guest in the room. A business center, a fitness center, and a gift shop were located within the hotel.
TABLE 2 Characteristics of the Luxury Garden and the Royal Court
| Luxury Garden | Royal Court | |
| Corporate structure | Multinational conglomerate | Independently owned and managed |
| Service | Formal, professional Meets standards | Friendly, informal Doesn't meet all standards |
| Clients | Business (global) | Leisure and business (local) |
| Mostly men | Women and men | |
| Mostly white | Mostly white | |
| Worker demographics, front of house | White (U.S.-born), Asian, Asian American, Latino | White (U.S.-born and European) |
| Older (30s–40s) (Immigrant men at front door) | Younger (20s) (Immigrant men at front door) | |
| Worker demographics, back of house | Primarily Chinese | Chinese, Filipino, Central American |
| Remuneration/benefits | Higher | Lower |
| Managerial regime | Hierarchical professionalism | Flexible informality |
| Client responses | Positive (“professional”) | Positive (“friendly”) |
The Luxury Garden's room rates ranged from $500 to $750 for single and double occupancy rooms, and from $1,400 to $3,000 for suites. Mobil, the industry's most important ranking organization, had awarded the hotel five stars, its highest rating. Other publications, agencies, and reader polls in travel magazines had also given it extremely high ratings. The hotel employed 200 workers, of whom about 165 were nonsupervisory. It was owned by a private Asian company. Management was part of the Luxury Garden Hospitality Company (LGHC), which managed luxury properties worldwide and was expanding, especially into the United States. The LGHC was itself a subsidiary of an enormous multinational conglomerate.
Luxury Garden workers earned slightly more than workers covered by the union contract in other hotels. Front desk workers made $15 per hour, as did concierges, though concierges garnered significant additional income from tips and commissions (approximately $2,000 per month, including an average of $150 per week in tips). They also received perks such as free restaurant meals, theater tickets, and gifts from vendors such as massage therapists. Bellmen and doormen respectively earned $9 and $10 per hour, plus about $100 and $150 per day in tips. Housekeeping workers made $13-14 hourly. Telephone operators and reservationists at the Luxury Garden earned $14 per hour. (See appendix C for details.)
Service at the Luxury Garden was highly professionalized and relatively formal. Doormen, bellmen, and front office workers consistently greeted guests with “welcome to the Luxury Garden” or, when appropriate, “welcome back.” They used the guest's name frequently. Using engineered recognition, workers consistently noted and respected guest preferences and frequently anticipated their needs. They were cordial but not overly friendly or familiar, as a rule, though some had developed relationships with frequent guests. Workers generally used what managers called “proper verbiage” rather than informal talk, which preserved distance.
The professional service the hotel offered was well-suited to its business-oriented guests, who brought fat wallets and high expectations. The Luxury Garden's clientele was overwhelmingly composed of business travelers (70-90 percent, according to different managers), usually senior executives from a variety of companies, especially in the financial services industry. Approximately three-quarters of the guests were men, and at least 80 percent hailed from the United States. The rest came mainly from Asia and Europe, especially London. Although most guests were white, the hotel housed more African American and Asian or Asian American guests than the Royal Court did during my research (which may have been related to the preponderance of business travelers). Most of the business travelers paid lower corporate rates. At least 21 percent of guests were frequent, meaning they returned at least twice in a twelvemonth period, and many more were repeats. The hotel hosted few groups and no conventions.
The Royal Court
Though located on a busy downtown street, the Royal Court was unobtrusive; you could walk by it a hundred times and never know it was there. Visitors entered through glass doors under a white awning; the décor of the spacious but intimate-feeling lobby was understated but elegant, featuring marble floors, high ceilings, European-style furniture, including some antiques, and a large flower arrangement. Featured colors included peach, cream, and gold. Employees uniformed in basic black—mostly young white women—stood at the ready behind the desk. Classical music played softly in the background. The hotel's 110 rooms were being renovated; new rooms were decorated in earth tones with bright accents, large mirrors, and natural woods; sizable bathrooms featured open glass showers and soapstone sinks and counters. The available services were similar to those at the Luxury Garden, though the hotel lacked business and fitness centers and a gift shop and offered slightly fewer amenities. The laundry was on-site, however, making service faster.
The Royal Court's room rates ranged from $300 to $500 for single or double occupancy rooms and from $550 to $2,000 for suites. The hotel was ranked with four Mobil stars. (Because it lacked some services, it was ineligible for a fifth, but the general manager told me the hotel merited “4.75 stars.”) A major travel publication rated it among the top ten city hotels in the United States, and travel magazine reader polls gave it consistently high rankings. The hotel employed about 160 workers, of whom about 130 were nonsupervisory, for a worker-to-room ratio of slightly over 1:1. Since its initial opening in the 1980s as a nonunion luxury property, the hotel had had two different owners and been run by several management companies. At the time of my research, it was owned by a private Asian firm and independently managed.
Wages and tips were slightly lower than those at the Luxury Garden. The most notable difference was among the front desk workers, who also did the concierge work; they were paid thirteen dollars per hour, in contrast to fifteen, their tip/commission income was lower (probably reaching only fifty to one hundred dollars per week), and the perks associated with concierge work were fewer, because their front desk work depleted the time they could spend doing concierge tasks. Other workers in general were paid slightly less than their Luxury Garden counterparts. (See appendix C.)
Management strove for “authentic service,” encouraging workers to be friendly and relatively informal in their treatment of guests. The hotel's founder called this unpretentious service “luxury with a cheerful face.” The doormen often joked around with guests. Front desk workers spoke to guests in a casual but warm way, often eschewing formal terms of speech (“my pleasure”) for those that sounded more relaxed but authentic (“sure”). When they did not know the answer to a guest's questions, which was often, they would acknowledge their ignorance and call the guest back with the information. The hotel observed guest preferences in terms of rooms and food, and some frequent travelers had their own special requirements. However, workers did not often record the kinds of information required to surprise guests with needs anticipation, instead taking note of only complaints or problems.2
The friendly service was well-matched with the Royal Court's clientele, which was composed of at least half leisure travelers and about half women.3 Most of these travelers were not affiliated with convention or tour groups. The sales manager told me that 85-90 percent of the guests were from the United States; many of the leisure travelers lived in the area and would come to spend a weekend in the city. Most of the rest hailed from Japan, Canada, and Great Britain. At least 25 percent had stayed in the hotel before. The overwhelming majority of the guests were white; a few were Asian or Asian American, but I very rarely saw African American or Latino guests.
MANAGERIAL REPERTOIRES
Managers in both hotels drew on a similar repertoire of explicit strategies for regulating worker behavior, primarily having to do with hiring, training and standards, and the regulation of workers’ self-presentation. First, managers I interviewed frequently argued that hiring the right type of worker was key to providing luxury service.4 They consistently talked about finding the right person rather than creating him, saying specific skills could be learned if the worker's personality was appropriate for the job. Sebastian, the general manager of the Luxury Garden, said in an interview, “People don't get into the business for the money; they have to want to serve, and you can't teach this.” The Royal Court's general manager, Mr. Weiss,5 told me that he wanted workers with “a positive outlook toward the human race”; he felt the job required “80 percent personality, 20 percent skills.” The tight labor market, however, constrained this strategy of selection. In September 2000, I asked Nicole at the Royal Court what she looked for in a prospective employee. She responded, “At this point it's speak English, be available, smile, be personable.” She characterized the hotel as “desperate” for workers.
Second, managers in both hotels used a variety of means to regulate workers’ selfhood and their interactions with guests. They standardized appearance by requiring that workers adhere to particular (and gendered) norms; as in many service enterprises, these included specifications about fingernail length, jewelry, makeup, hairstyles, beards, and so on. Managers also attempted to develop standards of behavior, which were sometimes quite specific, to guide employee interactions. Training workers in regard to these standards was, at least theoretically, a major managerial concern. Finally, both hotels used mechanisms of surveillance and especially customer feedback to monitor workers, as I have mentioned in the previous chapter.6 At the Luxury Garden, not just regulation but also transformation of self was a major theme.7
Looming over managers in both hotels was the example of the Ritz-Carlton, the most prominent company in the industry to use the empowerment and corporate culture strategies common among enterprises trying to produce high-quality service interactions.8 Awarded the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1992 for its Total Quality Management (TQM) program, the Ritz-Carlton was the first hotel company and one of only a few service-industry businesses to receive this major honor, and its program has become very well-known.9
The Ritz-Carlton program includes efforts to ensure quality, create standards, and promote employee identification with the company. Each employee is given a card to carry at all times with the company's “Gold Standards”: the “credo,” the “motto,” the “three steps of service,” the “employee promise,” and the twenty “service basics.”10 These are primarily statements of company philosophy and standards of conduct, not routines.11 Uncommon in the industry, Ritz-Carlton hotels employ a “quality manager,” who produces daily “quality improvement reports,” which list the “defects” of the previous day, both “external” (guest-related) and “internal” (employee-related). Employees identify these problems and their solutions by filling out “quality action forms.” The program also features extensive on the job training, as well as philosophies of careful employee “selection,” team development, and “empowerment” (including allowing workers to spend up to two thousand dollars without managerial authorization to solve any guest problem). The hotel purports to value its employees as highly as its clients (describing workers as “internal customers”). As we will see, this program provided both an inspiration and a foil for management at the Royal Court and the Luxury Garden.
The two hotels’ use of management rhetorics and strategies, especially corporate culture, training, and self-transformation, differed in important ways. But explicit strategies are not the only ingredients of a managerial regime. In examining these regimes it is important to look at how they play out in daily life in the worksite, rather than focus primarily on the elements of corporate culture as managers define them. Corporate characteristics and managerial decisions about hiring workers and organizing work, as well as local cultures of authority—what managers do and how they actually treat workers, as opposed to what they might say in interviews—are also important facets of the environment. I thus focus on three elements: the hotels’ organization of work, especially the division of labor and worker demographics; managers’ attempts to regulate workers’ selfhood and behavior and to gain their loyalty; and the way authority relations played out in daily life.
At the Luxury Garden, a specialized division of labor, highly developed corporate culture, a clear managerial hierarchy, and consistent monitoring of worker performance led to a regime of worker accountability and professionalized service, which I call “hierarchical professionalism.” The Royal Court, in contrast, was characterized by “flexible informality.” Primarily as a result of the hotel's size and lack of corporate ties, this regime was marked by a flexible division of labor, including blurred boundaries between managers and workers; limited corporate culture and training with a corresponding emphasis on worker “authenticity”; and inconsistent managerial authority and surveillance. Instead of top-down, hierarchical organization, the Royal Court was characterized by a flexible, laterally organized process, largely regulated by workers themselves, and friendly authenticity was the hallmark of the hotel's service.12 These differences are important for consent and the normalization of unequal entitlements, because they shape the ways workers can think about themselves; they are resources for nonsubordinate constructions of self. In later chapters I show how variation in these resources affected workers’ strategies.
Table 3 summarizes the two regimes along the dimensions I will discuss in the rest of the chapter.
TABLE 3 Comparison of Managerial Regimes
| Hierarchical Professionalism | Flexible Informality | |
| Organization of work | Specialized division of labor | Flexible division of labor |
| Internal labor markets | External labor markets (limited) | |
| Higher wages | Lower wages | |
| Organizational identity | Professional | Authentic |
| Corporate culture, standards | Limited corporate culture | |
| Limited worker sociability | High worker community | |
| Authority relations | Hierarchical (managers) | Lateral (coworkers) |
| • Managers regulate workers | • Workers regulate one another | |
| • Workers accept managerial authority | • Workers challenge managers |
HIERARCHICAL PROFESSIONALISM
AT THE LUXURY GARDEN
Who Does What: Diverse Workers, Internal Labor Markets,and Specialization
The first element of the regime of hierarchical professionalism consists of the organization of work and the choice of workers. Although this dimension is not an explicit aspect of managerial rhetoric or culture, it constitutes the foundation of the regime as a whole. Interactive workers at the Luxury Garden were slightly more diverse ethnically than is usual in the industry. Workers at the front desk and concierges during my research there were Asian, Asian American, and Latino, as well as white, though I was told that usually more white people worked at the front desk. The semivisible reservationists and telephone operators were also ethnically diverse. And middle managers in the front office were white, Latino, and Asian American. In other respects, worker demographics were as we would expect from my discussion in chapter 1.
Front desk workers and concierges were all older than twenty-five, and several of them were over thirty-five (including all but one of the concierges). Most of these workers were married and many had children, which as we will see was a contrast to the Royal Court. Many of them, including all the concierges, at least one bellman, and several front desk workers, were college-educated. Most had previous experience in hotels.13
The hotel created active internal labor markets (possibly especially so, given the tight external labor market). Three of the front desk workers had started in other departments (housekeeping, telephone operator, and sales); these workers were Chinese, Latina, and Asian American, suggesting that the practice of internal promotion contributed to greater diversity at the front desk. Becky, a white concierge, had been promoted from the front desk. In the four months I was there, at least six workers and managers were reassigned to higher posts within the hotel.
The corporate nature of the enterprise also conferred advantages on workers in terms of career ladders. The existence of other properties worldwide provided potential mobility (and possible places for workers to stay on vacation at reduced rates—a perk of the job). Both Jaya, a front desk worker from the Philippines, and Fred, a bellman from China, had worked for the Luxury Garden hotels in their native countries before immigrating to the United States. The possibility of promotion not only created a clear incentive for workers but also established hierarchies among particular jobs and between managers and workers.14
The internal labor market was supported by a specialized division of labor (see appendix B). This specialization was demonstrated, first, in the arrangement of particular units or departments in the hotel. The front office (mainly the front desk) was separate from guest services (the concierge staff, the business center, and the front door), which meant primarily that the guest services workers had their own assistant managers (though both were supervised by the rooms division manager). Reservationists were part of sales,15 and telephone operators were under the supervision of the controller's office (mostly because their offices were adjoining). Security, laundry, the gift shop, and valet parking were subcontracted to outside companies.
The division of labor was also codified in a strict delineation of job tasks. Concierge workers and front desk agents did none of the same work; concierges focused on entertainment and guests’ needs outside the hotel, while front desk agents checked guests in and out and executed other administrative tasks. Front desk workers were not trained at the telephone operator station. Business center workers, organizationally separate from the front office, sent out faxes and packages for guests, logged their incoming faxes, and did their Xeroxing. Workers were only minimally cross-trained. High specialization also characterized the back of the house for both semivisible and invisible workers.16 As we will see, this separation of tasks contrasts with the organization of the Royal Court.
The spatial organization and aesthetics of work matched this division of labor at the Luxury Garden. Concierges worked next to the front desk agents, but telephone operators were located in the basement, and reservationists were upstairs in the executive offices. Room service had its own office on a floor above the restaurant kitchen. The laundry center and uniforms were in the basement, near workers’ locker rooms, and the housekeeping office was upstairs. Workers wore different uniforms depending on their position: the doormen's gold coat differed from the bellmen's outfit, and the concierges’ sober uniform contrasted with the gold and black apparel of the front desk agents. Reservationists wore suits, and telephone operators wore their own special uniform as well.
The front office managerial hierarchy was highly differentiated. François, the rooms division manager, supervised Patricia, a front office manager, who in turn oversaw several assistant managers and one supervisor. François never worked at the desk, and Patricia rarely did. Managers’ responsibilities were clearly distinguished from those of line employees, although assistant managers spent some time relieving workers for breaks and shared some of their work, especially on the evening shift. The exception to this rule was at the concierge desk, where the two assistant managers sometimes took on regular concierge tasks, though they spent most of their time in manager meetings or working on special projects.
“Who We Are”: Building Identity and Accountability
The second element of hierarchical professionalism at the Luxury Garden was a sophisticated program of standards and training, including the cultivation of a common identity and “culture.” In this effort, management used many common techniques, including encouragement of deep acting and self-transformation, explicit standards and training, and practices of reward. More than transform workers’ selves, however, these techniques served to clarify what workers were expected to do and to let them know that they would be held accountable.
CORPORATE CULTURE Probably emulating the Ritz-Carlton, Luxury Garden management at the corporate level had developed an elaborate “culture,” including a corporate philosophy, service and operational standards, and a training program. The most salient facet of this culture was a continued effort to establish a communal identity. When I interviewed Sebastian, the general manager, he frequently brought up culture as a feature of identity, calling himself “the carrier of our culture.” He referred to a new standards program as “one of the tools that make us who we are.” Managers referred to employees (and employees were supposed to refer to one another) as colleagues. Postings throughout the hotel about other properties in the chain, company news, and budget numbers attempted to create a feeling of belonging and participation in a common enterprise.
The company had a “mission statement” and “guiding principles,” which Alice told us in the orientation had been “hammered out” by the general managers of all the properties. In addition to the corporate mission statement, the hotel's local management had come up with its own credo: “Above All Else: Dignity, Excellence, Enchantment.” On several occasions I heard Alice tell the story of how managers at this property had spent months designing and implementing a new program for the hotel; this historical narrative seemed to be an integral part of the culture itself, as it often is in training sessions.17 As at the Ritz-Carlton, workers were given a card to carry with them that included the credo, the four practices for each term, and the hotel's motto, “Enchanted moments come from living our credo.”
The initial employee orientation reflected this concern with establishing a common identity and a sense of belonging in a luxury environment.18 Alice handed out special pins to be worn on each employee's uniform when she talked about “who we are” as a way to introduce the mission statement and guiding principles. Company-made videos emphasized the mission statement, workers’ commitment to service, and the luxurious elements of the Luxury Garden experience. She also emphasized the high status of guests, frequently describing the hotel's clientele as “the top 1 percent.”
Procedures for recognizing workers and creating community in the hotel were well-developed at the Luxury Garden and linked to these elements of “culture.” The primary recognition program rewarded workers for “enchanted moments” they provided to guests (nominally it also applied to workers enchanting one another, but I never saw an instance of this). When a worker went out of his way to assist a guest, he received twenty-five dollars; his photograph and a description of what he had done were posted in the workers’ area in the basement. Seven or eight of these appeared during my four months at the hotel.19 Managers posted guest letters of praise in their departments. François, the resident manager, told me in an interview that he tried to recognize workers by name “just like we do to guests” and to compliment them verbally or in writing (using special “five star cards”) for good work. The human resources department conducted an employee satisfaction survey each year and publicized the results around the hotel.
Managers created community in other ways as well. The human resources department organized community events such as a pumpkin carving at Halloween, a children's party, and a fancy holiday party in the ballroom of another local hotel. The Luxury Garden also produced a (more or less) quarterly newsletter, which announced the employees of the quarter and the year (who received cash awards) and mentioned employee and company news. Workers were encouraged to participate in committees, whose tasks included coming up with new ideas for bettering service (“to improve the ‘wow’ situation,” as Alice said in the orientation), addressing environmental issues within the hotel, and improving the food in the employee cafeteria.
However, the sense of community also carried a dimension of accountability or coercion.20 The language of many of the communications from upper management to workers often manifested two facets: one of community building and free choice, and the other of surveillance and compulsion. Typical of this attitude were the flyers posted around the back hallways of the hotel advertising a general assembly meeting; their tone promoted a fun, voluntary social activity (“Come enjoy refreshments!”), but at the bottom they stated baldly, “Attendance is mandatory.”
Alice told me in an interview that the corporate culture, which she characterized as “pretty darn strong,” served to clarify expectations and weed out those who did not “fit in.” If employees did not observe these norms, she said, they would “stick out” and “feel out of place.” This meant that workers knew they could not shirk work and that if they brought friends in as employees, they knew the friends had to be good. Thus, Luxury Garden corporate culture was in part a culture of accountability; this culture also included elaborate standards and company surveillance.
CORPORATE STANDARDS AND TRAINING The credo “Dignity, Excellence, Enchantment” codified broad standards of behavior; written in the first person, these standards also implied a certain kind of selfhood, telling the worker what kind of person to be. They included, for example: “I respect my guests’ and colleagues’ individuality.” “I show empathy.” “I listen actively.” “I keep my promises.” These are norms of personhood as well as behavior, conscripting the self in the service of the hotel's product and the guest's experience.
Training sessions at the Luxury Garden, especially the orientation, encouraged workers to use strategies of deep acting to induce real feeling for guests.21 Much like trainers at the airlines Hochschild studied, managers told workers to “act like the hotel is your house” and to “pretend the [complaining] guest is a relative, so there's still a sense of caring.” This approach promotes deferential behavior “by invoking a familiar situation in which such behavior does not imply subservience.”22 Alice also told workers to “think about the hotel as if it were your business” when trying to solve a problem.
Managers also suggested that making the guest feel better would benefit the worker herself. One video Alice showed in the orientation included a scene in which a worker relates to another worker a story (supposedly true) about a guest who arrived upset and treated the worker rudely. Although she was already having a bad day, the worker went out of her way for the guest, because she realized that he had been traveling for a long time and was tired. Afterward she felt good about having made the extra effort. At the end of the scene, her coworker comments, “So I guess by making his day, you made your day as well.” This video and other stories communicated that workers have to make allowances for people, because one never knows what has happened to them, and that the worker has the power to make someone feel better, which will benefit her psychologically too.
Training also focused on specific ways to handle guest needs and complaints, which gave workers resources as well as standards to which they would be held accountable. In the orientation, we played the “customer service pyramid game,” for example, in which workers answered questions in nine categories of customer service (“Who ya gonna call?” “Service with a smile,” “Anticipation,” and so on). Alice showed a video that emphasized the importance of meeting the guest's needs in different interactive jobs. We also had training on guest complaints, which included statistics about repeat clients, psychological interpretations of guests’ underlying desires in situations when they complained, extensive role playing of unhappy guests, and five steps to handling guest complaints (“Don't interrupt,” “Apologize first,” “Identify the problem,” “Take immediate action,” and “Follow up”). This part of the training also included an animated video entitled A Complaint Is a Gift.23
The hotel also used more specific service standards developed at the company's head office, known as Celebrated Quality Standards (CQS). Binders containing dozens of standards were kept in each department. These included very specific ways of doing tasks in each department in the hotel, such as how many minutes it should take for the guest to check in (five) or when the worker should acknowledge the approaching guest (when he is fifteen feet away). These were not routines in the strictest sense, at least for interactive workers, because the workers had discretion about when to use them. But they were a sophisticated attempt to codify as many of the hotel's practices as possible. This program was accompanied by the Celebrated Standards Training, or CST. Alice told new workers that the CQS and the CST had been developed in order to maintain the high level of service “on so many continents.”
TRAINING ON THE JOB Despite these elaborate standards, corporate culture was often more a matter of image than of practice. Training on the job was less elaborate than I had expected, given the emphasis on standards during the orientation. My own training from managers was somewhat spotty. When I first started, Antonio gave me a packet that included many of the relevant standards, but no one ever reviewed them with me. Training was inconsistent for other workers as well. Several workers told me they had simply been thrown into their jobs. Carolyn, Elena, and Patsy told me they had never been trained on the hotel's standards; Javier, a bellman who had been at the hotel for over a year, did not know that the red dot on the guest's key envelope indicated that the guest was a repeat. Max, who had helped to develop the guidelines, said, “No one ever uses them.”
However, it was also clear that many workers had been trained very well, which may have depended on what department they were in and how long they had been with the hotel (those workers who had been through the original CQS “rollout” a few years before were more familiar with the standards). Luxury Garden workers seemed to get far fewer write-ups than those at the Royal Court, where discipline was used in place of training. Also, some attention was paid to ongoing training. During my time at the Luxury Garden, in addition to a two-day “etiquette training,” concierges, bellmen, and front desk agents attended a “guest services training,” the first in what François said might become a series. Managers also attended a training after which they had to solicit feedback from workers on topics such as recognition, career goals, and optimal working conditions.
IMPLEMENTING NEW STANDARDS Corporate culture's multiple functions—promoting community and loyalty, demonstrating the impressiveness of the company, and establishing legitimate managerial authority and worker accountability—were illuminated in the “rollout” of a corporate-led initiative to modify the company's standards. The program, called Celebrated Quality Experience (CQE), was kicked off in a hotelwide meeting led by Sebastian, the general manager, about halfway through my time at the hotel. Workers gathered in a large meeting room decorated with yellow and red helium balloons and posters proclaiming the CQE. Before the meeting, workers were given numbered tickets. After calling workers to order, Sebastian said, “Those of you who know me know I like to give money away.” He drew a number and gave an envelope with fifty dollars in it to the housekeeping worker who waved the corresponding ticket as a human resources manager snapped their picture.
Sebastian used a slick PowerPoint presentation to introduce the new program. He said that the CQS was becoming the CQE, a shift from over 1,000 “standards” to 175 “experiences.” He explained that the very specific Celebrated Quality Standards had proven unwieldy, because the company's various properties had constantly requested certain kinds of exemptions, needed because of the particular circumstances of each hotel. The U.S. properties, for example, could not implement standards that required excessive amounts of labor, which was much more expensive here than in Asia. The new standards would allow flexibility while retaining consistency among all the Luxury Garden properties worldwide. Sebastian said they also permitted a greater focus on interactions with guests, were more concise, and allowed each Luxury Garden property to “express its uniqueness.” Although workers were encouraged to retain specific standards appropriate to their work areas, the shift was toward the use of general core standards rather than specific routines. This shift also demonstrates the flexibility needed to provide the “experience” characteristic of luxury service.
Sebastian detailed the process by which corporate management had arrived at these standards via the creation of a task force; like Alice's portrayal of the development of the hotel's credo, this approach centered on creating a common history and identity. He introduced the “eight mantras” of the new approach. He talked about the time line for implementing the new standards and how they would be measured by the mystery shopper company the Luxury Garden used. Finally, he talked about how management would “keep it alive” through continued training and visuals posted around the hotel. He concluded the presentation by saying that the CQE “will become a heart of our culture; it's what we do, what we're about,” and that we should “incorporate it into our daily lives.” The meeting ended with Sebastian asking simple questions recapping what he had said; workers who raised their hands and answered correctly received twenty dollars. On our way out we were each given a newly reprinted credo card that included the eight mantras.
This introduction was followed by “train the trainer” sessions, in which Alice helped workers designated as departmental trainers to understand the program and the implementation process. I attended two of these sessions (lasting one and four hours), which featured professional-looking binders filled with training materials about facilitation, learning styles, lesson plans, and evaluation. Of the more than twenty employees who participated in these two sessions, at least fifteen were managers, both high- and midlevel, demonstrating that, in fact, managers would be primarily responsible for the training (in contrast to the rhetoric about worker trainers). Most workers who had been chosen were clearly of the more professionalized and committed variety. During the training, Alice laid out a time line for the updating of manuals and training of coworkers; she also directed role plays and other activities that offered trainers possible ways of communicating the concepts of the new program to workers.
Some of what she encouraged was obviously unrealistic. Trainers who were not managers or concierges would not be able to send e-mails to the executive committee or to one another, because they did not have e-mail access. Some of the standards were also extremely difficult to implement. One standard exhorted the worker always to accompany the guest to his destination. But practicalities made that impossible; for example, workers could not take guests to the restroom, which was located far away from the desk. Alice's response to this situation was to acknowledge the problem and suggest vaguely that workers figure out creative ways to meet standards in their own departments.
In interviews, Luxury Garden managers appeared to believe that workers were socialized into a particular identity via the corporate culture and training, and certainly they tried to promulgate this sense of commitment among workers. Some workers did seem identified with the hotel and proud to work there. However, worker attitudes toward the corporate culture and standards programs were not necessarily enthusiastic. I rarely heard nonmanagerial workers refer to one another as colleagues, as they were supposed to do. On my first day there, Dirk, a white doorman in his thirties, made a disparaging joke about the hotel but then checked himself, saying that he should “seem more committed” in front of a new worker. After the CQE rollout meeting, Lupe, a front desk agent, shrugged and opined, “Es algo más que tenemos que hacer” (It's something more we have to do). Other workers made fun of the “rah rah” nature of the meeting or commented simply that it had been short. Polly, a Chinese housekeeper with limited English skills, had been asked to participate as a trainer because, as Alice had pointed out publicly during the session, she usually trained new workers in her department. When I asked her if she had understood the presentation, she said, “Some of it,” and added, “They just said ‘go to the training,’ so I go.”
Rather than only induce commitment to the hotel and its standards, these elaborate practices also served to make the worker feel as if he or she had some kind of accountability. There was a sense that workers might be held responsible and that managers were paying attention. Standards were generally clear, which made violations more noticeable. As we will see, these characteristics contrast with the more laissez-faire regime at the Royal Court.
Who's in Charge: Hierarchy and Consistency
The third facet of hierarchical professionalism at the Luxury Garden was a consistent, vertical distribution of authority in daily life. Managers supervised workers reliably, respected their investment in their work, and supported them when they had problems. But mechanisms of surveillance and accountability reinforced their authority.
In general, worker-manager relations were cordial but professional. The advanced division of labor I have described established clear boundaries between workers and managers. Line employees did not function as supervisors, and areas of managerial responsibility were clearly demarcated. The active internal labor market for managers was an incentive for them to take responsibility. Although they were friendly with workers, when managers were called on by guests or workers to exercise authority they always did so, without appearing ambivalent about it. When they had to correct or train workers, they spoke in a friendly and educational tone. They also gave workers the support they needed to perform their tasks appropriately (such as reimbursing concierges for expenses related to familiarizing themselves with new restaurants and providing adequate computer systems). Managers rarely, if ever, socialized with workers outside work.
In general, workers accepted managerial authority without comment. Conflicts between workers and managers usually revolved around scheduling rather than coercive communication or lack of availability (though concierges did criticize concierge managers).24 Rarely did workers talk about new managers changing procedures significantly for no apparent reason. Although some workers complained about a lack of recognition, managers offered more praise than their counterparts at the Royal Court.
The other face of a benevolent authority was worker monitoring, which was fairly sophisticated. Surveillance cameras were placed in several locations throughout the hotel. Though it was rare, managers occasionally disciplined workers for violations caught on camera; one bellman was written up for knocking over a lamp with the bell cart and not stopping to pick it up, for example. Workers were required to punch out for breaks, which was another form of technological surveillance. Managers told workers at the door to keep a log of the car tickets they handed out. Sebastian and François often spent an hour or so in the evening standing near the front desk; ostensibly they were there to greet guests, but they also kept an eye on the workers. Workers were aware that managers might be watching them. Lou, a young bellman, was nervous about showing me his personal Web site on the concierge computer, because he thought Patricia might come by and get angry. When Sebastian and François came within earshot, Alec refused to finish a juicy story he was telling, saying they disapproved of gossip.
Workers also knew that mystery shoppers might be in the hotel. The Luxury Garden employed at least two different mystery shopper companies to rate performance several times a year. These guest spies wrote extensive reports comprising hundreds of pages, evaluating every possible detail of their experience in the hotel, naming workers, and enumerating their mistakes. Managers posted the results of these inquiries—minus identifying characteristics of the workers—in the back of the front office. Managers also posted comment cards and letters from guests, including both positive and negative feedback.
Worker Relations
Hierarchical professionalism led to the establishment of relations among workers that were friendly but neither especially intimate nor marked by mutual authority. Workers in the same area paid attention to one another's work and interacted often, but they did not constitute an independent regime of mutual regulation like the one I describe below at the Royal Court. The division of labor at the Luxury Garden made mutual training and surveillance difficult, both because workers were separated spatially from one another and because the jobs were differentiated such that fewer people surrounding the worker were qualified to criticize him (for example, only concierges would know about a mistake another concierge had made). Managerial authority made mutual regulation among workers unnecessary.
Personal relations among workers were cordial but not especially close, and they were usually organized by department. At the end of my first week, I noted, “People haven't been that friendly to me except Alec and Max. They seem not to have much of a sense of humor, and there's something kind of insular about them.” Miyako, a part-time front desk agent, confided to me that she felt her colleagues were “cliquey.” Over time I became more comfortable with the workers in my immediate area, who did have fairly warm relations. However, they interacted only minimally with workers from other parts of the hotel. They said hello in the cafeteria but often did not know one another's names. Most workers ate lunch with other workers from their department, especially those of the same ethnicity. Upper-level managers also usually shared a table. Because most workers were older and had partners and children, they rarely socialized with one another off the clock except at hotel-sponsored events.
I discerned no overt animosity among ethnic groups or between white workers and workers of color, though there was more affinity among workers who shared a language. White workers mingled companionably with their coworkers of color at the desk and the front door, but they complained about the limited English skills of some back of house workers, who for the same reason were somewhat marginalized in public gatherings such as training sessions. I was also struck by a tendency among some Asian and Asian American workers in the front of the house to make and laugh at jokes about Asians (especially mimicking stereotypical accents) that seemed fairly racist and to welcome white workers’ participation in these jokes. Chinese and non-Chinese workers alike laughed about the “Chinese mafia table” in the cafeteria. In these ways race and ethnicity were marked, but did not seem to be a source of open conflict.
Overall, then, managerial decisions about hiring and promotion, job specialization, a well-developed corporate culture, and reliable managers helped to constitute hierarchical relations between workers and managers and fairly distant relations among workers. These elements, especially the highly elaborated standards and rhetoric of accountability, also contributed to a professional demeanor among workers and a consistent adherence to the standards of luxury service. The Royal Court, in contrast, developed a regime of lateral authority and friendly authenticity.
FLEXIBLE INFORMALITY AT THE ROYAL COURT
