Quality Control in A Service Business

HBR Article by G.M.
Hostage
Presented by Sooraj Kumar
 The service company has nothing so tangible. It counts instead on favorable
impressions made on customers as a result of services properly rendered.
 Everything depends on “quality control” of personnel
 As J. Willard Marriott, the founder of our company, has said many times:
“in the service business you can’t make happy guests with
unhappy employees.”
 Excellent recruitment and training process
 Attractive employees’ career growth path
 Minimum turnover of employees
 Appreciation and promotion of exceptional talent
 Defined SOPs for every task

 Simpson, AM Marriot, left the company to join a competitor.
 He was one of the best employees Marriot had.
 For a service organization, quality control of employee attitude and performance is
pretty much the equivalent of product quality control for a manufacturer.
 One reason for the departure of their managers was the unusual amount of
entrepreneurial ambition among people in the food and lodging business
 Another reason for good people leaving them—and thereby hurting our quality
control program—was dislike for the physical requirements of our business—the
long hours of physically demanding work, the weekend and holiday duty, and so
on.
 intense competition for good personnel in the industry
1. Individual Development
2. Management Training
3. Manpower Planning
4. Standards of Performance
5. Career Progression
6. Opinion Surveys
7. Fair Treatment
8. Profit Sharing
 This program (which we refer to as “ID”) is designed to teach new management
employees necessary skills and technical knowledge during their two- or three-
month formal training period so they can assume responsible management roles
quickly.
 involves numerous, highly detailed task sheets that break required job knowledge
down into dozens of major and minor components
 allows the individual to set his or her own pace in acquiring the skills, mixing a
series of structured on-the-job experiences with classroom seminars
 A program like ID helps a
geographically dispersed
company ensure that
requisite job skills are
being taught to new
managers in a consistent
manner and at the
accelerated pace desired
by most trainees.
 Sessions are conducted by the corporate training department
 include a variety of two- and three-day seminars, for groups of 10 to 20
 wide variety of professional management topics
 Courses are aimed at the first three levels of management, and an individual
usually attends with members of his peer group
 The manpower planning process can create an inventory of good prospects who
are trained and ready to be shifted upward to fill newly created managerial
opportunities.
 Manpower planning is carried out by successive layers of management, with the

process starting from the bottom and moving upward.
 Each line division or staff department plots three-to five-year expansion curves and
the management talent needed to accomplish the growth
 Helpful to have written, highly detailed statements of expected productivity for each
member of management.
 What is expected of the employee in his job in order for him to be rated at least a
satisfactory performer?
 Also applied to improving the performance of lower-ranked employees
 “The Marriott Bellman” booklet
 Still another booklet, “The Housekeeper,” tells precisely how a room is to be tidied and
is accompanied by a 12-minute audiovisual film to help insure that the job is done right.
 The ‘flying squad’

 This is a job advancement program designed to provide hourly employees with a
ladder of advancement up through positions of increasing skill, responsibility, and
pay—even up into management—if they have the ability and the industry to go
with their ambition.
 It was designed originally for the underprivileged, minority-group employee.
 Only those with positive attitudes, aptitudes, and a Marriott work history are
accepted
 Annual surveys of rank-and-file opinion. These surveys are our first line of defense
against the buildup of unfavorable attitudes—our “early warning system.”
 Specially trained personnel representatives go to each one of their units and

conduct a meeting of all employees. They explain about the opinion survey and
urge frank, open participation by everyone.
 Employees do not have to sign the questionnaires; in addition, they may add
anonymous comments about each statement in subsequent interviews with the
personnel representatives.
 Gives new employees a handbook that outlines the kind of conduct the company
expects and what, in turn, the company considers its obligations to the employee.
 It includes job security, promotion possibilities, disciplinary measures, safety, and a

step-by-step procedure for bringing any personal grievance to a just conclusion.
 In all parts of their operations they maintain personnel representatives who can
function as ombudsmen when the need arises.
 This program originated in the belief of Mr. and Mrs. J. Willard Marriott with the
thought that their employees were responsible for much of their company’s success
and deserved more than a paycheck and a few fringe benefits in return for their
efforts.
 All employees and managers are eligible to join our plan after three years of
service, and 80% of those who are eligible do join.
 They contribute at least 5% of their earnings to the plan, and the company makes a
distribution from profits that has, in the past, more than equaled the amount of
employee contributions.

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HBR Article by G.M.

 Everything depends on “quality control” of personnel

 Attractive employees’ career growth path

 Minimum turnover of employees

 Appreciation and promotion of exceptional talent

 Defined SOPs for every task

 include a variety of two- and three-day seminars, for groups of 10 to 20

 wide variety of professional management topics

 Manpower planning is carried out by successive layers of management, with the

 Also applied to improving the performance of lower-ranked employees

 “The Marriott Bellman” booklet

 The ‘flying squad’

 It was designed originally for the underprivileged, minority-group employee.

 Specially trained personnel representatives go to each one of their units and

 It includes job security, promotion possibilities, disciplinary measures, safety, and a

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