Page 244 - The New Gold Standard

PRINCIPLE 5: LEA VE A LASTING FOOTPRINT
hotel staff assessing us?” Other individuals suggested that any
benefits derived from such an assessment would be superficial at
best and wouldn’t justify the time or expense. Jonathan said that
the skepticism dissipated as his staff tangibly saw improvements
occurring from the involvement of Ritz-Carlton staff: “Over
time, with the right reinforcement and support, we launched a
program through which every staff member at Citibank would
go to the training program at Ritz-Carlton, witness a daily lineup,
and experience Ritz-Carlton values. Our employees saw the staff
at Ritz-Carlton speak with extraordinary passion and commit-
ment for the values of the organization that they clearly put into
practice every day. We had seasoned people with 20 or more
years with the bank who were quite cynical when we began the
program and then came away saying it was the most impressive
service training experience they’d ever had in their lives. It had a
profound effect.”
From that training, Citibank launched their own version of
a Credo Card and Citibank’s set of 15 values, in addition to their
daily huddle. Jonathan credits the huddle with getting bank staff
excited about their commitment to their customers. Jonathan
observes, “In some large organizations, the staff doesn’t tend to
get together very frequently; we found having this daily process
creates a rhythm and rapport. It’s informal, it’s fun, it’s a fabu-
lous way to start out the day, and it’s changed our employee dy-
namic. Our VOE (Voice of Employee) survey scores have gone
from the low 70s to the high 80s in the space of a year. We think
that this process has been a key ingredient to make that happen.
We are seeing the results in terms of customer scores as well. I
think the program has been a great experience, and we’ve re-
ceived tremendous value from it. We have enormous respect for
Ritz-Carlton. The organization epitomizes the power of ideas
combined with the power of passion and commitment to create
the best experience for every customer, for every employee, and
for external partners, like us.”

224