For those of us who eat out with any regularity, we’ve all had the experience, unfortunately too rarely, of being waited on by what I call a “super server.” From the moment she approaches the table we know we’re in for a treat. Sparkling with personality, she overflows with knowledge about the food, beverages, and accompaniments. She immediately sizes up our interest in engagement and calibrates her contacts accordingly. She speaks with confidence and authority, questioning us regarding our preferences and without hesitation recommending what she thinks we’ll enjoy. The best of the best can unerringly take and serve orders without benefit of pen and dup pad – an ability that never ceases to amaze me.
Such extraordinary individuals are worth their weight in gold. Not only do they serve with flair and expertise, but they sell, thereby increasing the average check, while making a distinctly favorable impression of competence and professionalism that brings diners back again and again. This is true in restaurants and just as true in private clubs where members appreciate the recognition and special touches that a super server adds to the dining experience.
Far more frequently, we’ve experienced the norm of service – undertrained, inexperienced employees who may understand the basics of service, but little more. Often lacking in knowledge, personality, and attitude, their service may meet minimum expectations but seldom inspire the diner to sample the extras – appetizers, desserts, wines, and specialty drinks – that the kitchen works so hard to create and which enhance the overall dining experience. If truth be told, these employees are doing no service to their employers and in many cases are doing outright harm by driving customers away.
The often repeated maxim for employers “to hire for personality and train for technique” encompasses a basic truth. Attitude, personality, and engagement seem to be inborn skills and are difficult to teach. While training can provide service skills and knowledge, thereby increasing a server’s confidence and maybe even engagement skills, the best service employees posses an indefinable quality that is difficult, if not impossible, to replicate.
Given the dearth of these extraordinary service employees, they should be recognized and compensated for the rare skills they possess. Too often though, their presence on an employer’s staff is viewed as simple good fortune with little or no effort made to differentiate them from the common herd. The result is that in short order they move on to greener pastures where their talents are more fully appreciated. When this happens the loss to the establishment is often more than can be appreciated at the moment. Not only has the employer lost a super server, but a money-maker, an ambassador, and an example for less accomplished co-workers.
And everything said about food servers applies as much to super service employees in retail, activities, golf, tennis, administration, and other areas of the club.
What can clubs do to attract and retain Super Service Employees? By analyzing and considering the wants and needs of super service employees, it is possible to set up programs to attract and retain them. In simplest terms it boils down to respect, status, meaningful work, and enhanced compensation. In particular I would focus on the following:
- Establishing consistent Service-Based Leadership at your club. The underlying premise of Service-Based Leadership is leaders at all levels who recognize the essential task of serving all constituents, including employees. Weak or self-serving managers will drive them away.
- Implementing employee empowerment which is a natural extension of Service-Based Leadership. Empowered employees are enlisted as partners in the club’s effort to improve the operation and provide high levels of service. Super service employees want and need this enhanced participation and contribution.
- Improving communications with employees. All employees, but especially the super service ones, want to know what is going on and how the operation and direction of the club affects them.
- Mentoring employees. Curious and intelligent, super service employees appreciate the time and effort made in giving them the big picture and a deeper understanding of the workings of the club.
- Creating “master” service positions that recognize higher skill levels and greater knowledge. The job descriptions for these positions must clearly lay out those distinguishing skills, characteristics, and duties that warrant more responsibility and higher compensation. Such master positions can then become the aspiration of new or less accomplished employees.
- Creating a clear career path of knowledge, skill development, and certification which allows other employees to set their sights on the more highly regarded and compensated master level.
- Assigning master level employees the task of teaching and training those who aspire to the higher level. Such tasking serves the super service employees’ need for participation and contribution while improving the overall skill level of other employees.
- Challenging super service employees to engage in creative project work such as taking a larger role in training, creating more effective training programs, formulating and executing member relationship management strategies, and establishing a “wow” factor program for members.
- Recognizing and rewarding super service employees. Ensuring they know they are appreciated. This not only serves their needs, but demonstrates to other employees their value, thereby motivating others to follow their example. Rewards should also be tangible, such as: higher pay based on their higher levels of performance, incentive opportunities, preference in scheduling, and educational opportunities.
- Providing benefits to all employees based on well-defined employment statuses, i.e., full time, part time, and seasonal or temporary. At a minimum benefits should include holiday pay for designated holidays, vacation time, personal/sick time, health benefits, and retirement benefits.
As an industry we can no longer view employees as a disposable asset, which is what we do when we view ongoing turnover as a cost control measure. Operating small, stand-alone hospitality organizations with multiple businesses, high levels of service, and lean management staffs covering long hours and weeks is too difficult a task to do without a stable, competent workforce. When we view labor as a disposable, easily-replaceable commodity, we condemn ourselves to high levels of turnover with its attendant training costs, turmoil, and loss of organizational continuity. High levels of turnover must be viewed as a critical organizational and leadership failure that is damaging in all ways to the club’s mission and operation.
None of these solutions is easy to implement and will certainly add costs to the club, but I believe the current employment paradigm is far more damaging to a club’s success and remains a significant “hidden” cost of operations.
Thanks and have a great day!
Ed Rehkopf
This weekly blog comments on and discusses the club industry and its challenges. From time to time, we will feature guest bloggers — those managers and industry experts who have something of interest to say to all of us. We also welcome feedback and comment upon the blog, hoping that it will become a useful sounding board for what’s on the minds of hardworking club managers throughout the country and around the world.
Club Resources International - Management Resources for Clubs!
Jim Collins says that people “want to be involved in something that just flat-out works,” but I believe it is something more. I believe that people have a great need to connect with or serve something larger than themselves. Whether it’s building a skyscraper, embarking on a campaign to eradicate hunger, working on the design of an award-winning advertising campaign, or even dressing in favorite NFL team colors and attending all the home games – people need to connect to a larger purpose or endeavor.
Most of us recognize that our business is not rocket science. The basics of what we do are well-known to any club professional. What makes our jobs so challenging is the sheer volume of things that must be attended to daily in a detail and people-intensive business. Unless a club operation is well-organized and its managers highly disciplined, it operates in a state of barely-controlled chaos interspersed with periods of downtime. The challenge for all is to transition quickly from storm to calm back to storm while remaining focused on long term goals, ongoing projects, and continual process improvement. The solution is to organize the club so that most things happen routinely and that managers at all levels be highly disciplined in approaching their duties and efforts to improve the operation.
Given these and other specific challenges that vary from club to club, it is absolutely imperative that club managers organize their operations in detail. My own list of requirements includes:
Each of these necessities, while challenging, will improve the organization and discipline of the club while fostering consistently higher levels of service. The resulting efficiency and service of a well-run club will make it easier to attract members, which improves dues and revenues and ultimately better positions the club in the marketplace.
1. Start with a plan. As with any major project, there must be a plan. Things to consider when planning include: goals, program requirements, training principles, impacted positions, priorities, budget, timelines and milestones, curricula by position, equipment and supplies, resources and materials, benchmarking, administration and documentation, annual certifications, plan and implementation review, and designated responsibilities.
Tip: Many of these topics have been covered in materials found on the CRI website, for example: 
Training resources can be found anywhere. The advent of the Internet and search engines makes it relatively easy and convenient to find training material for almost any topic or position. Some will be free and some will cost, but once department heads determine topics, they should begin searching for relevant material.
Instead of the traditional view that employees are easily replaceable elements in an organization, people who must be trained to do narrow, well-defined tasks and who must be closely watched and supervised at all times, the concept of empowerment says that today’s more educated and sometimes more sophisticated employees need and want to contribute more to their employer and workplace. Yet many clubs marginalize their employees by refusing to listen to them and by failing to let them contribute to the enterprise in any meaningful way.
GUIDING PRINCIPLES: Principles that guide the conduct of our business!
While the instructor provided ample handouts to explain and illustrate the Ritz-Carlton way, I took over fifteen pages of notes. I shall try to summarize the main elements of how they consistently provide such high level service.
First, Ritz-Carlton has a well-defined corporate 
Here’s an example: an international guest at the Ritz-Carlton, Washington DC, checked out and flew to NYC to catch an international flight. Upon arrival at JFK airport, he realized he had left his overseas flight tickets at the hotel. He called the Ritz-Carlton in a panic. The desk clerk with the OK of her supervisor and the hotel GM, took a flight to NY and personally delivered the guest’s tickets in time to catch his plane.
We have spoken frequently about the importance of 
7. Recognition is important to all of us. If we have the authority to correct, we also have the responsibility to praise. We cannot have one without the other.
The major benefit of establishing an organizational culture is that once adopted by the majority of people in an organization the culture takes on a life of its own and permeates the workplace. As normal turnover takes place, new hires quickly learn that to be accepted in their new surroundings, they must embrace the culture and make it their own. In the absence of a culture developed and disseminated by the organization’s leadership, a culture will arise on its own, usually fostered by a vocal few and often cynical and at odds with the purpose of the organization.