Embracing Change The race to be the best by Edward Chung The Membership Services Division of the Hong Kong Jockey Club wanted to raise itself from "also ran" to champion status in the hospitality industry. Implementing improvements was hard going to begin with, but the organisation was soon able to take the changes in its stride In a race, everybody wants to be number one, especially in the highly competitive world of hospitality. Widely recognised as a frontrunner in business terms - turnover was almost HK$80 billion in the last financial year - the performance of the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC) Membership Services Division in the service stakes was, however, less than championship material. In 2001, the club management therefore took the Membership Services Division (including its clubhouses, recreational facilities and country club) on a "journey to excellence". "We realised that, although we were good, we could be better," says head of hospitality services, Fritz Sommerau. "To achieve our aims, we needed to institute an overall cultural and mindset change. We needed to increase service standards and raise customer interaction to a new level. Our vision was to become the best membership club in Hong Kong and hopefully, one day, the best in Asia." The division therefore decided to institute a new philosophy and guidelines for its staff. "To achieve our aims, we clearly had to please our members and guests," says Mr Sommerau. "In turn, we would be recognised by customers and the industry as providing quality service and well-groomed and well-mannered staff. We had to give customers the feeling that they were being treated exclusively. We had to emphasise our philosophy: to achieve service excellence by professional and caring staff with drive, pride and passion." The guidelines exhorted the division's employees to: * Serve members with respect and make them feel privileged on every visit. * Consistently deliver an innovative range of quality products. * Lead by example - coaching and enhancing staff performance. * Equip staff with know-how and create a culture of exceeding customers' expectations. * Keep abreast of industry developments, including state-of-the-art technology. * Ensure the company's financial viability and invest more in improving services. * Make the division members' preferred choice for dining, recreational and leisure activities. * Be proud to belong to Asia's leading club with rewarding career opportunities. Put through their paces For services division human resources manager Jimmy Chan, who coordinates membership services, the journey involved a massive compliance exercise. "It was a process of reviewing and training staff, in particular those who had fallen below standard," he recalls. Mr Chan devised a five-point plan: data collection, the development of service standards, service excellence training, the development of in-house trainers and a certification programme. "In data collection, we aimed to benchmark ourselves against our competitors and rate our employees based on this scale." The division collected external and internal perceptions of its service standards, rating them on a scale of zero to five, with the top mark going to truly world-class organisations. "Benchmark organisations in Hong Kong scored about 2.5, whereas we only scored about two," he says. "By contrast, our employees perceived that their service merited an average score of 4.5. Clearly this was a case of staff being unable to face reality. We then conducted a 'gap analysis' to find out how [to] bridge this divide. Hopefully, within one or two years, the division itself will be viewed as a benchmark to aspire to." The club aimed to ingrain a new culture of passion in service excellence and produce new mindsets. "We achieved this by finding good change leaders [to] implement the changes to uplift and standardise service procedures in all our restaurants," says Mr Chan. "We had to identify our current service standards and map out how to exceed expectations. The true impact of this step came not from managers but from staff ... everyone involved had the opportunity to make some input." We had to identify our current service standards and map out how to exceed expectations. The true impact of this step came not from managers but from staff ... everyone involved had the opportunity to make some input.” Meanwhile, service excellence training proved to be broad ranging, occurring across eight types of food and beverage outlet, from fine dining to coffee shops. Each member of staff underwent 18 classroom training hours and a formal assessment, while managers also had to take 12 hours of coaching training. "To develop our in-house trainers, six of our best managers and team leaders (five line managers and one human resources manager) attended a three-day 'train the trainer' workshop," adds Mr Chan. "By taking total ownership of the programme, we managed to keep the training cost-effective. Upon successful completion of the workshop, these trainers became internationally certified and were therefore in a position to train other managers at the division." CROSSING THE FINISHING LINE Before Complacency - Already hugely successful at revenue generation, the Membership Services Division did not feel the need to improve its services Rose-tinted view - Staff genuinely believed that they were giving world-class service when they were palpably not Haphazard approach - Staff and managers simply muddled through without a focused training scheme After Taking the first step - Having realised that improving standards would raise the club to a new level, managers devised guiding principles Smell the coffee - Contrasting their standards with competitors' helped the division realise that changes had to be made Investing in the future - By creating its own class of qualified trainers, the division can conduct staff training programmes Taken from Career Times 25 April 2003 Your comments are welcome at [email protected]