Lothar Quarz, general manager, The Ritz Carlton, Dubai International Financial Centre

“Empowering” your hotel staff to solve problems on their own; is the key to delivering top quality service; according to Lothar Quarz, general manager, The Ritz Carlton, Dubai International Financial Centre.

Quarz told GMs at a workshop entitled Delivering World Class Service at the Great GM Debate held last week in Dubai that all staff at The Ritz Carlton were trained to tackle challenges and problems - including any guest complaints - on their own; without requiring the back up of the GM or senior manager.

“You have to foster the mentality to be proactive,” explained Quarz. “We encourage all our employees to react to guest complaints. You have to teach people to step forward and be confident.”

Quarz explained that all employees at The Ritz Carlton were given a personal budget of $2000 to spend per complaint or incident, in any way they felt necessary to resolve the problem.

“They don’t need my permission. They have my permission. Nobody calls the GM – the employees are empowered to fix their mistakes and then you follow up afterwards.”

He said that while the money seemed like a vast amount; employees that had the responsbility for such a large amount were "cost conscious" and “very rarely” used it.

Quarz admitted it could be a challenge to train people from different backgrounds to feel such empowerement; but he explained it was part of the “philosophy of the Ritz Carlton organisation.” He said it usually took about two years of training to get employees into the mindset of thinking “you own that problem and you can solve it.”