Page 107 - The New Gold Standard

Select—Don’t Hire
weeks ago. Now I’m going to continue to study for certifications
in cooling, plumbing, and electrical. It will take me a while be-
cause each course takes about six months, but you have to study
and prepare yourself. This has been great for me, and it makes
me so much better at serving our guests.”
While it may be a somewhat unique necessity in the hotel
industry, lateral service is strongly encouraged at Ritz-Carlton
hotels. In essence, lateral service is the expectation that all Ladies
and Gentlemen will pitch in to do what is necessary to get a job
done whether or not that task is directly linked to an individual’s
job description. This type of service occurs daily in the hotels and
can be observed in the actions of individuals such as Ed Mady,
general manager, and Christoph Moje, hotel manager, of The
Ritz-Carlton, San Francisco, and a team of staff members from
human resources, the sales office, security, and virtually every
area of the hotel. These senior hotel leaders along with house-
keepers, desk clerks, and other staff members from throughout
the hotel rush to the aid of the culinary staff and banquet servers
to plate up (that is, to place items on plates in an assembly-line
process overseen with final approval from the chef) and turn a
conference room into a dining room.
Ed comments, “This is lateral service—everyone in the hotel
making themselves available as best they can to add physical la-
bor. By quickly turning over a room from a meeting space to an
eating space, we efficiently manage costs for an important part of
our business. At this property, we don’t have the luxury of sepa-
rate large spaces for meeting and feeding.” What Ritz-Carlton
does have is a staff that has been trained on the importance of
lateral service. Ed relates, “Our people understand that they are
not just reservation specialists or engineers; they are part of a
team that keeps the hotel running. People come from their of-
fices or wherever they are in the hotel and are told that the chef
needs them to plate up at 11:45 a.m. or to be present at the
room-turn at noon. The food has been prepared shortly before-
hand because food has to come right down at service time; you

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