Portman Case

John Calvin Portman, Jr. was born December 4, 1924; in South Carolina. Portman is an American architect and real estate developer widely known for popularizing hotels and office buildings. Mr. Portman had been a world famous designer of luxury hotels for 20 years. The Portman Hotel was not only the first one to bear his name but also the first one he and his firm developed and managed.

The Portman was a relatively small hotel, it was composed of 21 floors, 348 elegant contemporary with Asian accents rooms. During the time the Portman Hotel project took place, analysts predicted a glut of luxury hotel in San Francisco, Mr. Portman was not concern of the competition as he saw his hotel as a revolution in the guest service industry, taking Hong Kong's finest hotels service protocol to the American Luxury hotel. Bringing Asian standards of hospitality to the US was the optimum goal.

Patrick Mene, vice president and managing director of The Portman Hotel, wrote the hotel's operating plans. Mene focused on building a company providing high quality at affordable rates in order to bypass competition. The idea of the hotel was to overwhelm guests by the professional, cheerful and immediate response to every guests request s. The Portman was to be a Home Away From Home and an Office Away From the Office.

With this in mind, the position of personal valets (PVs) was created. Personal Valets not only cleaned guests' rooms but also served as butlers. The Portman Hotel was advertised as having no recriminations to employees who moved heaven and earth to satisfy the request of guests, as a matter of fact, employees were expected to do so 24 hours a day.

In order to achieve the goal of becoming a hotel out of the ordinary, a revolution in the industry, Michael Kay, president of the Portman Hotel , believed that the employees deserved the same commitment and respect as the guests. At the Portman Hotel all associates (the way employees were referred as) signed a contact detailing how the hotel would practice its human resources. The employee contract included a Bill of Rights along with information that protected all employees to ensure fairness in all possible senses.

The organization of the hotel was meant to maximize services while minimizing management overhead. Mene cut positions in the middle management extending the bottom portion of the organization's triangle. In order to accomplish the goals, the associates' job had to be broad putting more responsibilities on them. Associates had to be willing to go above and beyond, performing tasks outside their official responsibilities.

Selection Research Inc. a recruitment and consulting firm was hired in order to find the caliber of people needed to perform the jobs. Mene believed that in order to have friendly employees, friendly people needed to be hired. They were looking for talented people instead of experienced.

The PV's