2000 Spirit of Excellence
Awards Winners

By Mike McDaniel

Best Safety Awareness Program, CN Tower

Safety is essential to all amusement attractions, no matter what size the facility. In addition to day-to-day safety concerns, emergencies caused by weather and other unpredictable factors can test the upper limits of a facility’s training program.

Developing a paradigm of preventive and responsive safety and conveying it to an entire staff is a challenging and necessary task for the amusement industry.

The CN Tower on the shores of Lake Ontario offers a dazzling array of spectacular views from dizzying heights, the spellbinding glass floor, motion simulator rides, interactive arcade, fantastic shopping, and restaurant fare. With so many unique high-altitude experiences comes the necessity of a comprehensive safety and security component to establish competency among seasonal staff to ensure the safest environment possible for all occupants of the Tower, including guests, employees, tenants, and contractors.

The CN Tower prides itself for staying on the cutting edge of safety technology and continually upgrades itself to improve the safety of the facility. This season’s program was no exception. In 2002, all 250 seasonal employees participated in a safety and security program, which was a major part of the basic orientation training. The structural uniqueness of the CN Tower necessitates a comprehensive safety and security program with special emphasis on security procedures, fire safety and evacuation procedures, bomb threat/suspicious packages WHMIS (workplace hazardous materials), and a crisis plan.

Employees are tested on life safety systems and procedures and WHMIS to demonstrate their comprehension and competencies, which reliably measures their mastery of critical components of the program.

Once tested for proficiencies, the employees apply safety information on a comprehensive tour of the entire facility and are directly shown the components of training in practice. Employees are involved in dynamic fire drills on a regular basis. They are reminded in their day-to-day activities that being alert to safety and security matters results in a more responsive and effective team to resolve emergencies.

Employee feedback on the safety and security training rated the program as the top major learning segment of the day, affirming the high level of organization and value placed on the program by the CN Tower. The success of such intense training bears results when an emergency does occur and the responding employees demonstrate proficiency and professionalism.

Best Employee Recognition Program Paramount’s Carowinds

It’s been heard so many times before. . . “Catch them doing something right!”

Acknowledging a job well done is perhaps the greatest motivator for service excellence. An employee who feels appreciated will continue the upward direction of peak performance because it just feels good. What begins as a personal commitment and job satisfaction translates into superior service for the guests as well as the fulfillment of the corporate vision and helping the overall bottom line.

Paramount’s Carowinds, located in Charlotte, N.C., is a theme and water park that entertains more than 1 million visitors annually. Carowinds boasts 100 action-packed acres featuring more than 100 world-class rides, shows, and attractions for all ages, including a roller coaster, water rides, the Animation Station children’s area, a campground, the Paladium Concert amphitheater, and the 13-acre Water Works waterpark.

In their Funcentive Rewards program, employees, or “Fun Technicians,” are awarded points for exceptional performance on the job. This program awards points for positive employee actions, behaviors, and accomplishments above and beyond their normal job duties. Points can be redeemed for rewards from a variety of items, personally chosen by employees, giving them the unique opportunity to customize the rewards they prefer. This helps to accommodate the values among their diverse 3,500 employees.

Depending on age, background, or personal circumstances, employees may prefer choosing tickets to local attractions, clothing items, or discounts on in-park food purchases. Employees are able track their own points online and select rewards at any time.

The park can track the issuance of rewards, identifying consistent star performers, and also monitor the awards of choice to keep the park in tune with employee preferences. The eligibility by all employees, full-time as well as seasonal, invites enthusiasm and participation by everyone.

In addition to the inherent value of the Funcentive Rewards program itself, it also significantly impacts employee retention in the future by allowing employees to carry points over from year to year. The program plans to increase reward values as time goes on to reflect potentially higher point accumulations by employees.

Surveys on guest satisfaction have showcased increases in employee friendliness, courtesy, and helpfulness. The need for corrective actions has also decreased.

Paramount’s Carowinds’s premise that timely positive reinforcement correlates to stellar performances has been well demonstrated by its Funcentive Rewards program. They have also demonstrated that recognizing their employees for a job well done is paramount to their success.

Best Orientation Program, Cedar Point

Orientation is the first contact between facilities and the new recruits they invite to join their service teams.

The quality of the orientation experience so often sets the tone for the quality of attitude and motivation that new employees will adopt on the job. It’s a great opportunity for a facility to showcase itself so that new employees know at the outset the caliber expected of them.

Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, located on a Lake Erie peninsula, is a 364-acre amusement park and resort, and is home to the world’s largest collection of rides and roller coasters. Opened in 1870, Cedar Point is the second-oldest amusement park in North America and offers rides, live stage shows, an ice extravaganza, special attractions, and themed children’s areas. The resort consists of four hotels, Soak City waterpark, an activity complex, and the bathing beach.

It has been named Best Amusement Park in the World for four consecutive years in an international survey by Amusement Today newspaper, which is quite an accomplishment for a seasonal park. With 350 year-round employees and 5,000 seasonal employees, Cedar Point has taken its 2002 orientation program to new heights by two new additions: First, the introduction of Internet e-learning for the first orientation

component of company policies; and second, a park tour guidebook for use on the job to reinforce and increase park knowledge, which will provide better guest service. Cedar Point anticipated 700 new employees online, and 2,800 in-class. What a surprising affirmation it was to find a whopping 2,089 went online, and, with some overlap, 1,598 employees attended in-class.

Cedar Point staff attested to the benefits of the e-learning. They could work at their own pace and at their convenience, prior to the season. In fact, many of the international hires from 25 different countries went online and completed the program before arriving at the park. Such high use made the Internet program very cost-effective, and the 2005 goal is for e-learning to eliminate in-class sessions altogether for the policies portion of the orientation.

The design and delivery of blended learning for new employees, with 30 percent Internet and 70 percent class and field learning, maximizes the quality of retention, as shown in mid-season survey results and evaluations. They reported better knowledge and service levels, and more incidents of employees supporting park policies. Returning employees felt the Internet program saved them time in fulfilling reorientation requirements 100 percent online, and being able to proceed directly to their job on arrival.

Cedar Point believes it has pioneered the way to more results-based training for amusement parks, reaching more employees, spending less money, having higher impact with one-on-one learning, and taking less time, allowing departments to save considerably more in employee wages than in previous years. The 2002 innovations of e-learning and the new park tour guidebook have taken Cedar Point’s orientation to a new level of excellence and effectiveness.

Best Guest Services Training Program, CN Tower
Most amusement facilities know the value of guest service training, but the challenge is to create innovative ways to impress that belief upon every employee who interacts with the visiting public. Just how deep an impression does a smile, a small courtesy, or an extra effort make on a guest? It is difficult to measure the value of these attitudes and gestures when they occur, but so easy to see the devastating consequences when they do not. Guest service training is truly a direct investment in front line people, and the more successful the program, the greater the rewards for the employees, the guests, and the company.

Defining the Toronto skyline, the CN Tower has been named a Modern Wonder of the World. Standing 1,815 feet tall, it is situated on the north shore of Lake Ontario in the heart of the entertainment district. Primarily a communication hub for radio and television transmission in the greater Toronto area, it also serves as the center of tourism in the city. Six glass front elevators whisk you 1,136 feet in the air to the observation decks in 58 seconds, where you can ride the Sky Pod elevator, another 33 stories up, to the world’s tallest man-made observatory. CN Tower features a 12,500 square foot marketplace, and arcade, Wings and Wildfire rides, and the Maple Leaf Cinema.

Beyond the general orientation, new employees participated in a second day of guest service training focusing on the wonder of service, followed by on-the-job skill training. For consistency, returning employees also attended a one-day refresher class. The in-class training used a series of presentations, exercises, and role-plays designed to illustrate the desired behaviors. On-the-job daily briefings and one-on-one coaching were part of the application of training principles beyond the initial training.

The concept of ongoing coaching is integral to the CN Tower’s on-the-job training due to its unique environment. The CN Tower is essentially two worlds—a lower level where most of the facility works, and an island in the sky, separated by more than 1,100 feet of glass, concrete, and steel. The goals and challenges of these two worlds are very different, yet at the core must be a standardized training program for the entire staff to unify the common goal of providing an exceptional and unfailing guest experience.

The goal of training is to personalize each employee’s role, and all employees are encouraged to display their personal talents in their interaction with guests. Each employee is expected to assume personal responsibility for the optimal experience of the guest, whether it is providing the personal touch to interactions with guests, displaying salesmanship, or cleaning up litter.

From the aspect of profitability, each employee is expected to be an ambassador for the CN Tower and an expert in all products and services, cross-promoting whenever possible to other departments of the Tower.

The merits of the Guest Service Training were tested and evaluated by the Mystery Shopping/Blind Audit program held monthly during peak season. These ratings provided opportunity for individual and group feedback. Employees themselves also completed evaluation forms, and guest exit surveys further gauged satisfaction levels and return visits. The formal individual appraisals conducted for regular and seasonal staff also helped the gap analysis between goals and performance and provided focus for future recruitment, training, and development programs.

Best Supervisory Training Program, Six Flags Over Georgia

Well-trained supervisors are the catalysts between a company’s management team and its front-line workers. Training programs devoted to raising the caliber of supervisory staff reap rewards exponentially. They create enthusiastic team captains whose skills and expertise reflect across departments as well as to the workers in the field who deliver guest services.

The entire Six Flags curriculum was based on Stephen Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

The program participants first divided into smaller groups and later presented their respective programs to the group at large. Each received a copy of Covey’s book, a 2002 calendar, and other give-away prizes.

The majority of class participants agreed that the course was valuable and well presented, and they considered it to be an effective tool for their respective positions. The sessions unified full-time staff during the development of the program and

created lasting cross-departmental relationships. Six Flags Over Georgia’s decision to utilize an acclaimed resource like Steven Covey is certainly a model to consider.

Six Flags over Georgia is made up of three theme parks: Six Flags Over Georgia, which is home to Superman-Ultimate Flight, Six Flags White Water, and American Adventures—created especially for families with children up to the age of 12.

Six Flags over Georgia’s supervisory training took the form of itss 2002 Leadership Training class, developed by full-time staff who identified key issues that needed to be addressed and/or reviewed with the seasonal supervisors.

Service Excellence Award Winner, Todd B. Morse, Chimney Rock

Each year IAAPA honors one individual who has made an outstanding contribution to his own company as well as the industry as a whole. There are many individuals whose vision, passion, and superb people skills can motivate excellence in everyone they meet, and this year, no one has done it better than Todd Morse of Chimney Rock, N.C.

Todd has been passionate for service excellence since he assumed the leadership of his family’s park in 1986. Since then, the park has grown from about 85,000 visitors to more than 275,000 visitors in 2001, more than three times the 1986 figure, and more than six times the sales revenues. These results prove the merits of Todd’s philosophy that employees who are honored and appreciated will in turn deliver outstanding guest service. Todd has often stated, “Many companies sacrifice certain things to make a profit. At Chimney Rock Park, we believe that great service leads to making great money.”

Inspired by his first IAAPA workshop in 1988 on customer service, Todd first collaborated to create a guest relations program, reinforced by a mystery shop program, as a way to create a long-term competitive advantage for the park. The mystery shop program has grown from 10 shops per year in 1989 to 46 per year in 2002. Over time, Todd implemented many innovative programs, which have all contributed to a culture of respect, responsibility, community, and, most of all, fun. Todd hosted such events as company-wide meetings, management retreats, bonus programs, FISH, and the recently instituted Great Game of Business, which focuses on open-book management and financial literacy. Todd’s associates, the employees, are learning to see how the importance of customer service directly influences the long-term success of the company.

The impact of Todd’s efforts on his own park is highly evident, but he has also had a significant impact on his industry. He currently presides over three associations with whom he has shared his passion for customer service and employee empowerment, introducing concepts of performance dynamics, mystery shopping, and performance programs, with plans to take employee training beyond his own park to others in the region. Not only does Todd want his own park to be world class in service excellence, but he also wants neighboring attractions to share the wealth.

Todd’s nomination for Service Excellence has been endorsed by countless colleagues, including external facilitators, internal managers, front-line employees, guests, bank executives, the Chamber of Commerce, Visitors’ Bureau, owners of nearby attractions, and State Senator Walter Dalton. Not only is Todd devoted to his team of associates at Chimney Rock Park, but he also demonstrates passionate cultural commitment and community involvement.

The IAAPA Spirit of Excellence Awards finds it especially appropriate to honor Todd B. Morse as its 2002 Service Excellence Winner in this one hundreth anniversary year of the Morse family’s stewardship of Chimney Rock Park.

—Mike McDaniel is president of MSM Global Training and Development, msmglobal@shaw.ca.