Four Seasons Goes to Paris

Executive Summary:

The case named “Four Seasons goes to Paris” mainly indicates that how the Four Seasons Hotel chain establishes, maintains and expand its organizational culture to each its property. Four Seasons is the Canadian Hotel chain targeting to provide unique and differentiated service for both business people and travelers. Ultimate purpose of Four Seasons is to create truly personalized service and provide high quality to make their customers feel that they maximize the value of their leisure time. Beginning in Canada, now Four Seasons goes global; they operate in Asia, Middle East and Europe as well. As the manager of Four Seasons mentioned in his speech if Four Seasons is planning to expand and grow globally it cannot be one way. Four Seasons should act as Italian in Italy, French in France and their managers should be “world citizen” and cultural chameleon. On the personnel level, employees should be professional not pretentious but detail oriented and interested in people. Consequently, Human Resources of Four seasons interview their potential employees four times because they do not care about past experience so much as others do. All they need and appreciate in their prospective employees is attitude and the rest, Four Seasons management believe that can be taught. The organizational culture of Four Seasons are based on its Golden Rules; one should treat others they one wants to be treated. Actually these Golden Rules make Four Seasons more advantageous over its competitors and at the same time the management understand that each hotel is “tailor made” meaning that the standards are applied in all hotels since they are universal such as a clean room, good breakfast and unique care, however these standards are changed by employees with their own style, grace and personality. The most significant thing is that Four Seasons does not stick with rules gives its employees empowerment; if employee can do something for client that goes beyond a standard then do it.  

Solution:

In 1999 Four Seasons added Four Seasons George V Paris to its hotel chain after spending $125 million on renovation of George V Hotel which was referred as landmark. Since Four Seasons is a global company, going to Paris is not difficult, but different in terms of government laws and some cultural facts. For instance, in the  renovations phase, Four Seasons designer put windows as many as he can in design because there is a government regulation demanding that each employee should work at least, two hours near the window. Similarly, interior designer should keep in mind that there should be 2 lifts; one for garbage and another for food since government regulation demands so. Another difficulty for Four Seasons is about tax; the tax rate in France for employers is 3% higher on average compared to other European countries. And employee workweek is reduced to 35 hours. What actually Four Seasons do is that they distribute working hours into lull and peak periods; for example, one works 30 hours and 40 hours during lull and peak period, respectively. Employee unions is more different in France than in North America; in France they have exact structure to follow but in North America they are prone to be leaders and as a result dealing with them is much harder. Most significantly, in France when Four Seasons acquires George V Hotel they cannot replace the employees because they should approach the business as a going concern and you should simply keep the employees’ rights based on prior holder. Coming to the problem with cooks, since Four Seasons puts their customers on above of everything it would be better that they find some cooks that work part time for them. In the most cases, people coming to Paris they intend to taste French cuisine. What if some business person comes and wants his eggs in not French style, since he is not a traveler and has not come to discover French cuisine. In this case, the Hotel can call this part-time cook and he/she can prepare the meal the way the customer wants. Another solution can be training for existing cook in order make him universal using “world citizen” concept as they use in finding Four Seasons’ managers.