The Ostrich Option

There was barely contained anger last week in the offices of the National Retail Federation. Neil Trautwein, VP of NRF, the largest retail lobbying organization worldwide representing companies with some 24 million employees, was seething – “flabbergasted”, he said, over an unsettling article in the Wall St. Journal: Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer had stunned NRF and others by publicly endorsing mandated healthcare for employees. The company’s position was contained in a letter addressed to President Obama and delivered to White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Clearly pleased by this development, Emanuel declared mandates and cost control to be “two sides of the same coin,” phraseology that the Administration and pundits are using to describe so-called “opportunities of crisis”.

NRF’s consternation was undoubtedly further fueled by the oddly juxtaposed pair of players who co-authored Walmart’s letter to Obama: the head of the Service Employees International Union, Andy Stern, and John Podesta, who chairs a liberal think tank and ran President Obama’s transition team. The sight of Podesta, an official from President Clinton’s days, standing shoulder to shoulder with Andy Stern and Walmart, the guardian of free enterprise, must have been nauseating and more than a bit unsettling to the NRF; a “breakaway” employer of Walmart’s size, allied with forces naturally hostile to free-enterprise thinkers, has the power to change the debate on healthcare mandates, and Walmart did just that last week. The NRF had to respond.

Within hours of the WSJ article’s publication Trautwein appeared on the cable business news channel CNBC where at first he blanched, hesitating under the withering, acerbic questioning of commentator Mark Haines who labeled Trautwein – and by inference, NRF and its member companies -- “cheap” for not supporting Wal-Mart’s position. As the four-minute segment progressed, however, Trautwein regained his footing, presenting strong arguments to support the NRF’s position: the marketplace and the government should act in concert, he said, but not in the way envisioned by Walmart, the SEIU and Podesta’s think thank. NRF wants healthcare reform with the marketplace as its fulcrum. Mandates don’t work, Trautwein added; government intervention should be limited to helping to control spiraling healthcare costs and reigning in Medicaid.

NRF has been upstaged before by big retailers, just as going its own way is nothing new for Walmart; the Costco/Starbucks/Whole Foods offer to compromise on the Employee Free Choice Act must have caused a run on antacids at NRF headquarters, and Walmart’s letter to Obama was only the most recent example of how lobbyists’ sense of direction can sometimes be eclipsed by industries they represent. Hurt feelings and differences over strategy and timing aside, however, the common element uniting all of these very public players, including the SEIU’s Andy Stern who shared the stage with Walmart’s healthcare announcement, is that they are engaged in the debate.

And then there’s us. What is it about the prospect of healthcare reform that so immobilizes our industry? You can almost hear our collective mouths clamping shut in defiant passivity. But why? This issue is as important to the hospitality industry as the Employee Free Choice Act, yet few of our industry’s leaders are being engaged to spur debate. Someone like Bill Marriott, for example, whose company has offered a myriad of healthcare options to its employees for more than twenty years could command attention and shape public opinion by going on CNBC and speaking about the market approach to healthcare, a solution the recently reintroduced SHOP Act, supported by the National Restaurant Association, mimics. Is Marriott’s way a way forward? Yes, perhaps it is, at least for some employers. Requiring employees to be insured, the backbone of nearly all the Congressional alternatives under debate could be another.

Timing is everything. It’s inconvenient, to say the least, that we are still mired in recession while talk of $1 trillion healthcare reform is being foisted upon us. That’s too bad, but it’s not an answer. There’s still time to either raise our hands for one of the existing proposals or lend a voice in support of another direction. And to those of us enjoying our summer at the beach, take note: sticking our heads in the proverbial sand is not an option.

Be honest and be well.

Copyright 2008-2009 by Hospitality HR Solutions and Consilium Advisory Services LLC. See us on the Web at http://www.hospitalityhrsolutions.com/. Our newsletter featuring hospitality industry HR news, information and comment is at http://www.hospitalityhrmedia.com/.

The Problem With Honesty, Er, Transparency

This month while researching an article for Hospitality HR Update entitled “Social Networking: Boon or Bane for Hospitality Employers” I kept coming across strict guidelines for employers who are thinking of developing networking sites to facilitate better communication with all employees and Generation Y in particular.

I can handle the “importance of coming across as non-threatening”. The bit about “everyone appreciates common courtesy” sounded fine too. The admonition against trying to appear too “hip” was right up my alley: for anyone under thirty I’m assuming I fit into the demographic of “old fogey” and that’s just fine. Old is old and trying to be new when you’re old is so, well, old.

But then there was a line about the importance of being transparent. Lacking a better definition I was fairly sure that the sought after transparency was not the legalistic variety that you’d find in, say, a company’s Sarbanes-Oxley policy. Nor would it be the type of sheen delivered by an auto polish, a sparkling lacquer-like coating through which a car’s colors are enhanced and brightened, rubbed to a blinding gloss by the weekend warriors who own 1956 Chevrolets. No, not that kind of transparency.

Then it hit me. Looking again at all of the other ideas for coming up with a nifty social networking policy I could now see where it’s all heading; this new style of communicating, that is. The transparency desired by our Generation Y employees is of the “tell me the truth, and tell me why it’s the truth” department. I could just about hear a twenty-something restaurant manager politely Tweeting a co-worker in the cocktail lounge: “After they tell me the truth, I’ll make up my mind about whether it’s really the true truth. I’ll let you know.” The bar manager’s reply would be: “If it’s the truth I’ll be shocked. Or perhaps a slightly altered riff from Five Easy Pieces: ”They don’t think we can handle the truth.”

Now we see this gaping hole we’ve dug for ourselves with all this cozying up to social networking. The truth must be told about – everything. Everything that was once sacrosanct will be up for discussion. We’ll need to come clean about why employees don’t all earn the same, why seniority isn’t what it used to be. Why some managers are nice and others mean. Why HR gets stuck with explaining a lot of things that really should be explained by the boss.

So, honesty, er, transparency is to be the new norm, eh? Generation Y has served notice: tell us the whole truth, or else nothing you say will be considered important or, worse, trusted. The fancy explanations that don’t really answer employee questions will be called out, dead on arrival. The decisions made in the board room will have to be dissected and explained in ways that we aren’t accustomed to explaining, except to our bankers or external auditors. Ignoring requests? Forget it. Transparency means action and actions are the currency of the Twitter-er .

Oh, and no more saying things like, “We’ll study that and get back with you.” Get back with me now, they’ll be saying to us. “I’m off tomorrow. Just Twitter me.”

Yeah, right. I’ve got major learning to do before I can get back to you. First I have to figure out how to Twitter. Then I need to send some practice messages; you know, to see if I am speaking the Lexicon of the Millennium or falling back on my old ways.

Then there’s that bit about transparency. Ultimately that’s going to be my biggest hurdle. Being an old HR guy I am definitely not used to putting things succinctly. One former boss, often frustrated with my loquacious explanations, put his foot down more often than not: “Get to the point”, he’d say and then I'd have to truncate my thoughts or he'd boot me out of his office.

Ah, but perhaps that’s timely advice after all. Honesty, clarity and brevity. So, exactly how do I say “No” in fewer than the 140 characters Twitter allows?

Be honest and be well.

Copyright 2009 by Charles A. Conine and Hospitality HR SolutionsVisit us on the Internet at www.hospitalityhrsolutions.com View our hospitality industry HR newsletter at www.hospitalityhrmedia.com

Icon of Icons

In today’s egocentric lexicon the word “icon” is a sought after designation by wannabees of all stripes, its overuse begetting misuse. We hear the word so often that its significance has melted into a puddle of sameness and mediocrity. I mean, how many musical groups, buildings or brands of toothpaste can really be icons?

There is word now that on June 2nd the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration will bestow its inaugural “Icon of the Industry” award. The honoree: J. Willard Marriott, Jr.

The thing about true icons is that our memory of them never fades. Though I’ve spoken with Mr. Marriott only 3-4 times over a forty-year period, he is one of a handful of people who shaped my belief about positive employee relations.

When I was fifteen years old, toiling away at my first summer job, on a grill line at a Marriott Hot Shoppes snack bar on the New York State Thruway, one particularly hot day placed me at the intersection of two important events: the first, a major rush of business, brought about by the arrival at our tiny snack bar of a dozen busloads of hungry tourists headed for Montreal’s Expo’ 67; the second, an announced visit to our outpost by the new president of Marriott Corporation.

Fate intervened. As I was retrieving a soggy cardboard case of J. R. Simplot French fries from a temperamental under-counter freezer stuck on defrost, the door to the grill line swung open and Bill Marriott, accompanied by our manager, strode in. “Meet Mr. Marriott”, I remember our boss saying, just as the French fry box’s weight shifted and the contents of six, five-pound boxes of fries cascaded from the sagging bottom of the case, landing on Bill Marriott’s beautifully polished black shoes. Completely unfazed by this unplanned adornment Mr. Marriott stuck his hand in my direction, uttering the words that many other Marriott associates have heard: “Hi, I’m Bill Marriott”.

Fifteen years later, long after completing my education and while I was well into a labor relations job with Host International, the airport feeder, Marriott bought Host. During a visit to Marriott’s Bethesda, Maryland headquarters I found myself once again mano a mano with the chief executive. He had just stepped from an elevator as our paths crossed. I was wearing my nametag -- a rule for those of us from “the field” visiting Bethesda -- yet Mr. Marriott seemed not to notice. Instead he smiled, looking squarely at me. “Hi, Chuck. How have you been?” Was his legendary memory at work here? I didn’t care; I just felt honored to see him again.

At that moment I also felt the need to confess. I’d been the one who, many years earlier, had messed up his shoes. Did he remember? Laughing, Bill Marriott said, “Oh yes, but we didn’t hold it against you, did we?”

Of course, icons are not without controversy. Some feel that Marriott is just too big to be “real"; detractors portray its pro-employee stance as mere publicity to mask an anti-union animus. Nevertheless Marriott’s vaunted reputation as an employer of choice – it ranked #72 on Fortune’s 2008 100 Best Companies to Work For – remains a potent non-union weapon.

Self-effacing to his core Bill Marriott no doubt fails to give himself credit for the enormous impact his vision and values have had on others. I predict that, as he begins his remarks at the “Icon of the Industry” event, he will first thank his dad, J. Willard Marriott, Sr. and mom, Alice. He will no doubt say, as I heard him recite at company gatherings, that they deserve the credit we want to send his way; it was they, after all, who taught him the value of hard work and decency. His father also taught him attention to detail; I recall Bill saying that his dad had once interrupted an important phone call to complain to his son, the CEO, about a piece of litter he’d spotted in a hotel’s entryway.

There was yet another potent lesson a young Bill Marriott learned from his dad: always strive to improve performance. “Those who rest on their laurels,” the elder Marriott told his son, “are in danger of moving backward.”

Congratulations, Mr. Marriott. The word “icon” seems a natural synonym for your name.

Be honest and be well.

Copyright 2009 Hospitality HR Solutions
Visit us on the Internet at http://www.hospitalityhrsolutions.com/

The Ultimate Union Buster: A Personality Test?

Dr. Lewis Hollweg, head of the respected firm Batrus Hollweg International which does management behavior consulting and pre-hire testing in the hospitality industry, was recently interviewed in Nation’s Restaurant News by its editor for human resources, Dina Berta.  In the brief article, Root Out Pro-Union Staff With Smart Hiring Process[1],Hollweg references pre-hire personality profiles as a tool to predict future employee behavior.  Such tests have been in place for decades and used with increasing sophistication, mostly to keep the societal-maladjusted among us -- petty thieves, sexual deviants and harassers, egoists, tyrants and Oedipuses, representing the “cream of the crop” in organizational misfits --  from infecting an otherwise well-run company.

Citing a “wonderful” study conducted on a company in the United Kingdom Hollweg notes cheerily that after the dissected organization became unionized, there was nevertheless a happy ending of sorts, owing chiefly to the fact that the company “happened to have” on hand results of personality testing it had conducted sometime earlier.  Following the union election the company used the test results to learn “who had voted for the union and who didn’t.”  How?  Though he doesn’t say exactly Hollweg references “common denominators” that apparently paint a virtual red arm band on union supporters; they are, he says, “more likely to be unengaged, pessimistic, negative, fault finding and attribute control to other people.”  And, he adds, “they also tend to be more extroverted.” 

What’s missing from the NRN article?  For one, the tests are not foolproof.    As an HR practitioner I remember being told that test results can vary based on a variety of factors, even the test taker’s mood; is this true?   Employers should also be told of other potentially negative consequences to the use of personality profiles (e.g., if hiring rates of women and/or minorities drop once tests are administered, is that a problem?).   Also, what might result if an employer subject to the National Labor Relations Act finds itself in possession of information concerning ‘who voted for the union and who didn’t?’”  A future article might feature an employment lawyer qualified to answer these questions.   In the meantime, I confess a curiosity to know how the UK company cited by Dr. Hollweg, despite having tested its employees, was nevertheless unionized?  How did all those “negative” and “pessimistic” people get hired in the first place?    

While pre-hire testing can and should be considered for some jobs, I’m old fashioned, I guess, believing instead that a competent interviewer, whether from operations or HR, can conduct even the briefest of interviews, scan an employment application, spot missing information and other problem areas, and predict with regularity the stuff of which most applicants are made.  In this case, test results could confirm otherwise good hires, for me a better measure of their worth. 

Of course, even reasonably written, balanced and fairly scored tests come to naught if the people who lead the enterprise are not tuned in to the pulse of their workforce.  As well, accepting test results as valid without corroborating evidence such as interview results and reference checks is unwise. 

Whether it’s a union vote gone bad or a sexual harassment case we wish we’d averted, where companies continue to struggle is learning too late of an employee’s propensity to mistreat coworkers or subordinates.  Never fear, however; those drawers full of psychological profiles still have one final use -- serving as litigation exhibits to help prove what miserable people we tend to hire. 

 Be honest and be well.

Copyright 2009 by Charles A. Conine and Hospitality HR Solutions
Visit us on the Web at www.hospitalityhrsolutions.com

 

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[1] Nation’s Restaurant News, March 16, 2009, p. 18

Common Sense: What's That?

Thirty years ago, my first corporate HR assignment was in foodservice labor relations, answering “what if?” employee relations inquiries from around our branches around the nation. On one occasion, after information I’d sought in our employee handbook eluded me I complained of the book’s inadequacy to my boss, a tough and highly talented labor negotiator with a knack for getting right to the point.

“Do we need to tell employees everything?” he asked, annoyed. Who would ever require something more than a general guide to conduct? Instead of asking me these questions, he added, use your common sense. Figure it out.

One’s intuition, our so-called “gut feeling” about situations and people is really the sum of our ever-growing appreciation of what we have observed in life. Our virtual file cabinet contains a massive list of variations on how choices affected outcomes. This nifty compendium, honed over time by our triumphs, flubs and mishaps requires for maintenance an only average intellect. Perhaps that’s why our acquired knowledge of how to make our way in the world is known as our “common” sense whereas our study of, say, how to erect a 110-story office tower, requires more specialized knowledge.

Over 165 years ago the poet and philosopher Henry David Thoreau observed rather wryly that, “There is no such thing as common sense; it is common nonsense.” More recently, in The Death of Common Sense: How the Law is Suffocating America, attorney Philip Howard says that our overregulated society and bloated bureaucracies are the cause of the cobwebs in our otherwise logical minds. Surely the wizards of the Internet are at fault as well; having crafted indispensible tools such as Google® they failed to realize that many would accept blindly whatever material they located there. Even when the answers prove wildly illogical their mere existence is proof of their validity. For example, did you know that Martians really did visit New Jersey in War of the Worlds, and that Orson Welles, the radio script narrator, died during the invasion?

In the hospitality industry we have sometimes lost our way where common sense is a factor. Have you witnessed any of the training programs that have been deconstructed to the point of, well, nonsense? Methinks the hand of a defense attorney is at work here: “First, shut off the coffee spigot. Then place the lid on the coffee cup, pressing hard to ensure a good seal.” Following a celebrated case where Starbucks was sued by a customer burned by its coffee, the company headed off the common sense cliff by adding a printed warning to its cups: “Caution; this beverage is very hot.” Many good attorneys I know argue convincingly that such “dumbing down” is, while unfortunate, a necessary protection given the lack of common sense their clients’ employees exhibit.

While attorneys are understandably doing their part to protect clients, shouldn’t we shoulder more of the burden? Some employers get it, and see to it that their employees are assigned a mentoring co-worker from day one, someone who shadows the newbie and will listen for clues on any understanding the new employee lacks. Think common sense cannot be taught? My old boss had it right: “With practice,” he said,”most people will figure out how things work.” If we reward common sense thinking, that is, and don’t add to the problem with training that assumes most employees are idiots.

Clearly there are those who will not benefit from a common sense primer. Some people refuse to see the oncoming locomotive until it has run them down. A friend relayed to me a follow-up story about that Burger King employee who recently and infamously climbed naked into his restaurant’s potsink to take a bath; soon thereafter video evidence of his lark appeared on YouTube®. By the time he and his videographer were fired his prank’s audience had gone “viral”, registering over 170,000 views in a matter of days. The kicker? When the store manager called to say “bye bye” the gangly bather is said to have good-naturedly inquired whether he might receive a second chance.

Be honest and be well.


Copyright 2009 by Charles A. Conine and Hospitality HR Solutions

Visit us on the World Wide Web at http://www.hospitalityhrsolutions.com/

Fighting a Two-Headed Monster

As another month of lousy economic news pushes its ugly maw deeper into the hospitality industry HR’s been continuing to partner with other senior management, crafting strategies to minimize further staff cuts. While roundly unpleasant, this task of figuring out who stays and who goes, which programs die and which are merely placed on life support, those of us wearing the HR badge have likely learned more about adaptation and innovation in the preceding 3-6 months than we’d known in our entire careers. Don’t put away those skills just yet. In case you’ve not noticed, the monster — what this very challenging period for HR has come to represent — has grown another head.

While we’ve been working overtime to keep employees focused as more of their friends and co-workers seek employment elsewhere our government has been busy passing laws that will bite us hard if we don’t pay attention.

The 2009 amendments to the 1992 Americans With Disabilities Act expand the definition of which employees are disabled, and what they can do if you don’t treat them as disabled. Changes to the Family & Medical Leave Act also demand attention. The newly minted Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act, rolled out with great fanfare but lacking specificity, promises a torrent of litigation, in many cases for decisions made years ago. And then there’s the specter of the Employee Free Choice Act, its principal objective being to clear the path to unionization by minimizing the need for secret ballot elections; in a matter of months it could be the law of the land.

Had we only been fighting the wrenching pain of layoffs and downsizing it would still require the very best efforts HR could muster; this year, however, we have begun to witness what is predicted to be one of the most active employee-friendly legislative seasons in a very long time. Fighting this two-headed monster requires not only the summoning of Herculean fortitude; it probably means that HR will once again resort to a time-honored strategy for managing multiple problems: divide and conquer.

Be honest and be well.

Copyright 2008-2009 by Charles A. Conine and Hospitality HR Solutions

Double-Edged Sword

There I was, way back in 19 — well, way back then — fresh out of college and working in my first HR job at the venerable Hotel St. Francis on Union Square in San Francisco.

It was at this beautiful hotel where I discovered an unwavering truth, one of the tenets that have steered me through the great times and the challenging periods too.

The St. Francis not only enjoyed respect from well heeled travelers around the world, it had an army of supporters quite close to home — its employees. Beginning at the front entrance on Powell St. a tall and stately Arthur Van Allen greeted each guest alighting from a taxi. Art’s tenure: 20+ years. In the lobby bell captain George Cross, a 25-year veteran ran the bell team, many of whom had been employed at least as long as George.

Upstairs in a tiny locked room Arnold Batliner toiled, washing the hotel’s quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies so that, according to a tradition begun in 1938 ladies would not soil their gloves with unclean coins. Joy Sullivan, the general cashier, and Arnold could easily count 50 years of service between them. In housekeeping probably 25 percent of the large staff had been around at least 20 years.

Working in HR meant that I’d prepare the service award lists for our general manager Mr. Wilhelm to read off at the annual employee awards banquet, a rousing affair with hundreds of employees in attendance. The printed program told the story of literally thousands of years of service to the St. Francis. The number one entry on the list for each of the three years I was privileged to work there, was that of Marshall Fogg, whose name on the program was followed by an amazing inscription: “More than 45 Years of Service.” Marshall had serviced the St. Francis’ boilers and oiled its machinery for over twice the period of my entire life. His loyalty to one of San Francisco’s grande dames, a loyalty shared by hundreds of his co-workers, cast me in awe — and still does. Mr. Fogg carried around in his toolkit something more than loyalty, however.

What Marshall and Joy, Arnold and Arthur, George and all the others taught me in my years at the St. Francis was that mutual respect can bridge very wide gaps, closing them with a simple handshake. Mutual respect by employees and management was one of the hallmarks of the hotel. It became one of mine.

True to its management philosophy Westin Hotels somehow exported this sense of joie de vie — the joy for life — to virtually of its properties worldwide. To this day the Westin Alumni Association, a unique organization in itself, carries on its active rolls hundreds of members of its original hotel management teams (pre-Starwood), many of whom I interacted with at the three Westin properties where I worked in the 1970s, and all of whom have pledged to stay in touch. Several subscribe to our “HR Update” and many others have remained lifelong friends.

Sadly employee loyalty has been proven time and again to be a double-edged sword. It can save businesses and when cast aside, sink them. Not unsurprisingly there are very few St. Francis Hotel-like workplaces left for us to show off as models of hospitality built upon mutual respect. Those that have thrived and still maintain great employee/employer relationships are prevailing even in these tough times. In his commentary in this month’s “Hospitality Educator” column Cornell professor Bruce Tracey mentions one, Four Seasons Hotels. There are others, of course, those with often iconic leaders whose belief in mutual respect is matched only by their own joie de vie, an undeniably infectious zest for lives well lived. Bill Marriott, whom I consider one of the finest hoteliers ever, is such a person. Ruth Fertel, the deceased matriarch of Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse, was another.

If there was ever a time when employers should rethink their loyalty to their employees, we’re living it. The glitter has gone out of many so-called preferred employers, their catchy recruiting brochures giving way to the reality that, as my grandfather often said, a house built on a poor foundation stands only so long before collapsing. With layoffs and downsizing affecting nearly every hospitality organization the industry's honorable employees need reassurance that their loyalty has not been misplaced.

Be honest and be well.

Copyright 2008-2009 Charles A. Conine & Hospitality HR Solutions