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Member News
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CHART Semi-Annual Training Conference
Denver, Colorado
February 26 - March 1, 2005
Upcoming CHART Regional Training Forums
New York, NY
December 2, 2004
Northern California
December, 2004
Baltimore/DC
January, 2005
Minneapolis
January, 2005
Chicago
Spring, 2005
For Details as they are posted, visit www.chart.org
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Creating and Maintaining a Culture that Rocks
by Jim Knight
Hard Rock Cafe's reputation as a fun, memorable and never ordinary experience hasn't come about by accident. The chain's evocative name, popular menu, eclectic merchandise, vital connection to music, valuable instrument collection and crew renowned for their attentive guest service are all part of a concerted corporate strategy to create and maintain a strong and viable company culture. Below are eight "take-aways to create/maintain a ‘Culture that Rocks.’”
1. Train your employees in their language and style. In order to have impact on a workforce that has grown up with television and the Web, Hard Rock's training materials have been developed with less text and more photos than traditional materials. Some are illustrated in a comic-book style that is humorous and edgy.
2. Assist your staff in creating a volunteer philanthropy group. Company mottos, including “love all-serve all,” “all is one,” “take time to be kind” and “save the planet” are emphasized. One of the most successful initiatives developed by Hard Rock is a volunteer ambassador program. Established at each café, employees can choose to become involved in their communities by participating in efforts such as beach/river clean-ups, feeding the homeless, recycling drives, Earth Day events and helping coworkers “in need.”
3. Enforce standards, but give out “permission slips.” Creating a guest service culture at Hard Rock begins with asking, “How do we create 'raving fans'?” Developing a mission and vision, core values, a five-year plan, annual tactics and weekly goals all must be part of a business plan. In addition, the most successful companies have a shared mindset amongst their employees. For example, all the employees know the company's vision to create “an unparalleled service culture through the spirit of rock 'n roll: Excellence is our standard, nothing else will do; memorable experiences will be created for every guest; and always err in favor of the guests.” Managers even give out permission slips to employees so they can express behaviors that aren’t canned or fake.
4. Create as many plusses as possible to make mental shelf space. Guests arrive using the reality versus expectations scale. They leave with one of three perceptions-negative/minus, fine/okay/zero or positive/plus. We know that 68 percent of guests stop coming back because they were upset with the way they were treated. Mental shelf space is the area of memory storage from which you make decisions, the mental Rolodex. We want to create as many plusses--positive experiences-in the guests' memories as possible.
5. Treat each customer like he/she was a guest in your home, the CEO of the company or your first date. We emphasize that employees need to deliver the vision-excellence is our standard, nothing else will do; memorable experiences will be created for every guest; and always err in favor of the guest-plus one. Hard Rock has developed a list of characteristics they believe employees who deliver the vision and give the “plus one” should possess: storyteller, musician (at heart), tour guide, performer, (being) creative and spontaneous, and (being) authentic and personable.
6. Treat employees like they are volunteers. In order to create a strong employee service culture, ask yourself, “If your employees were volunteers, would you treat them differently?” Explaining that today's employees have significantly different expectations than employees 10 years ago (for instance, “they want it all,” and “they bail at the drop of a hat ... usually because of leadership”), Hard Rock has focused on these expectations when hiring and retaining employees.
7. Flawlessly execute one initiative in each area of the Employee Life Cycle. Hard Rock has analyzed each facet of the “Employee Life Cycle”-selecting, interviewing, training, developing, retaining and terminating-and developed approaches that are helping to reverse “statistics that suck.” Hard Rock has implemented changes in hiring procedures, including a more selective selection process, using structured interview guides. Other programs that Hard Rock has implemented include an initiative to recognize employees' positive performance “often and publicly,” regular evaluations and exit interviews to determine why employees leave.
8. Do what you say you will do (values + methods=culture). We're all looking for a silver bullet to create and maintain a strong company culture. In order to have profitable growth, guests must come back. We believe that employees must have a positive experience in order to help guests have a positive experience, and that includes everything from training, growth incentives, opportunities and so forth. If your values-what you say you'll do-and the methods-what you do-aren't the same, you create culture confusion. People pay attention to what you do.
This article was adapted from the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation’s Resource Center for Workforce Solutions’ coverage of Mr. Knight’s presentation at CHART’s 68th Semi-annual Hospitality Training Conference in Dallas, Texas at the beginning of August 2004. For the full coverage, please go to: http://www.nraef.org/solutions/content/0019_hardrock.asp
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