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Keeping this global enterprise running smoothly is an exquisite exercise in managing millions of minute details simultaneously—something like building an Eiffel Tower out of matchsticks, without glue. Success is measured in holding costs to a minimum while seeming to stint on nothing, and guaranteeing about the same level of service at all inns. The standards are maintained by 40 full-time investigators who make surprise calls at most inns four times a year. They check everything—swimming pool, restaurant, even the carpeting—according to a strict point system. If carpets are worn or dirty, for instance, the inspector takes off 30 points. Should the inn fail to get at least 850 points out of a possible to tal of 1,000, the manager is given a month to make things right. If a follow-up check finds no improvement, the manager is fired. In the case of a franchise, the contract is canceled, the motel can no longer call itself a Holiday Inn, and the sign and reservation system are removed. So far, more than 30 franchises have been voided.
The key to efficiency is the performance of employees, notably the innkeepers. All managers, Americans or foreigners, must attend training courses in Memphis lasting up to three weeks. Along with classes in industrial insurance and reservation policy, the training stresses the Holiday Inn attitude—a mixture of homespun verities and relentless optimism wrapped in a kind of revivalist fervor. In September these classes will move from Memphis to the Holiday Inn University in nearby Olive Branch, Miss.
The facility, complete with dormitories, classrooms and meeting halls, will be set in a landscaped 88-acre campus.
To improve productivity and prof its, the company also produces and distributes to its inns more than 35 job-training film strips with titles like Care and Control of Swimming Pools and A Race for Space. One strip, titled You Are the Star, takes waitresses through the entire process of serving a meal properly. For new waitresses, there are also written instructions: "Bathe daily and use a good deodorant, use a hair net, clean and brush your teeth (watch out for halitosis)." A film strip called Once Around teaches chambermaids to make a bed in less than three minutes by stacking linens in the order that they are used and finishing one side of the bed at a time.
Sandwich Art. Food is an important revenue source at motels, and the payoff comes in making a little seem like a lot. Building sandwiches is an art: meat slices are piled in the center and fluffed up to give the illusion of thickness. Chicken Tetrazzini is known as a "stretchy dish" because, unlike chops or steaks, portions can be reduced if necessary. At Holiday Inns, food revenue is about 50% as much as the income from rooms, and company chiefs are working to get it higher by urging innkeepers to improve their menus and advertise their restaurants more.