Page 124 - Anne Bruce - Building A HIgh Morale Workplace (2002)

104 Building a High Morale Workplace

The writer in me said I’d better take advantage of this
moment and do a quick interview.
“You’re working awfully hard,” I said. “What makes you so

upbeat?”
Mary, the room attendant, didn’t miss a chance to answer.
“Each of these rooms is like my own business. This entire floor
is my business,” she boasted.

“Gee, you act like you own the place,” I responded.
“I do,” said Mary. What she meant was that she took owner-
ship in her work. Here was a person in a job that many would
consider undesirable. It might even be a job where enthusiasm
and a positive outlook may be hard to find at some hotels, but

not at the Four Seasons.
“There are no undesirable jobs here at the Four Seasons,”
stresses Ade Saleh, Training Manager for the tony hotel’s San
Francisco location.
Being a pot washer at this glamorous hotel is far from glam-

orous work, but it doesn’t matter, because pot washers at the
Four Seasons know how important they are to the hotel’s suc-
cess. “We don’t hesitate to tell our pot washers that they hold
one of the most important positions in the hotel,” says Saleh.
“Workers are quite aware of their value to the organization and

therefore express their pride on a daily basis. Think about it. If
our pot washers weren’t doing their jobs, we’d be out of busi-
ness. All of our employees are working here because they have
an inner desire to be hospitable in whatever position they

choose to work in at the hotel.”
It doesn’t matter if you’re a pot washer or an upper-level
manager at the Four Seasons Hotels. Every employee at every
level is treated with equal respect and trust and, as a result,
workers in what might appear to be some of the least desirable

jobs in the hotel industry are actually doing what they love to
do. How does the hotel ensure this high morale?
“It starts in recruitment,” says Saleh. No matter what the
job, every job candidate is interviewed by at least four man-

agers at the hotel. “We look for people who meet our very spe-