Heads Roll at Grand Targhee
January 14th, 2009Posted in Skiing in the Tetons
As the Bush Depression deepens and cost cutting pressures mount, the budget ax descended at Grand Targhee and about a dozen employees lost their jobs this week. This was not simply a trimming of a few food service, housekeeping or parking lot attendant jobs. Some of these were significant year-round management positions such as the mountain manager, the head of HR and a ski school supervisor.
Those of us outside Targhee management’s inner circle can only guess at how this money saving plan was formed, but I’ve heard that the resort’s new management has a real bottom line fixation. The dollar savings from cutting year-round salaried positions probably looked good on some spread sheet, but did that spread sheet have a column for morale?
It is no secret that employee morale at Grand Targhee has been low this year. The public doesn’t see this because Targhee hires (or did hire under the supervision of the now axed Doug Van Houke) good people who understand the resort is in the hospitality business and who greet and treat the public with lots of friendliness and courtesy. Job insecurity, reductions in work hours, and penny pinching little cuts in such things as employee food discounts have many long term employees questioning their loyalty to the resort.
Hard times force hard decisions. Too many organizations get bloated with too many managers over time, so it is entirely possible that there was legitimate fat to be cut at Targhee. I have certainly noticed an explosion of office space used in Targhee’s operations. It used to be everything was done at the resort, but now days there are Targhee offices (yes that’s plural) twelve miles away in downtown Driggs as well as at the resort. This winter, at the resort, another office was created out of a former employee lunch area. Targhee’s ill timed expansion into the Teton Valley’s cratering real estate market can explain some of this growth in overhead. I wonder how much of this side of Targhee’s payroll has been trimmed?
On a personal level I feel very sorry for the employees who have been let go. I’ve had very pleasant dealings with some of them and I feel they were tremendous assets to the resort. What makes Targhee truly special to many people are its employees. They are the face of the resort and truly are its greatest asset- after its legendary snow. The good ones make money for the resort by showing the public that they truly care for them and they want everybody to have a great time at Targhee.
I’ll miss Grant Fleming as mountain manager. Here’s one reason why. Grant was hands on. I saw him out on the mountain checking on his domain seemingly constantly. Not only did he look after the hard and cold mountain, he paid attention to the public and its welfare too. A few years ago he saw my eldest son and a buddy skiing at a speed he thought was unsafe so he pulled them over and gave them a stern talking to, with a threat that if he caught them skiing “recklessly” again, he’d pull their passes. But he also listened. He heard their explanation that they were only going fast where it was safe because they felt they were far from other skiers, and being former racers they felt well in control. A couple of weeks later Grant saw a couple of teenagers again skiing fast and he pulled them over. It was my son and his buddy again. This time Grant had watched a little more closely and saw that they were in total control, but he didn’t really want them going that fast on public trails. What did Grant do? He asked them to cool it, but he also asked them to give him a call early on a clear Saturday morning. The next sunny Saturday morning they did and he invited them to go ride the lifts with him an hour or so before the public would be out on the trails. He put on his old downhill racing skis and he and the boys went fast- really fast down the beautifully groomed and empty trails until opening time. What a thrill for the boys! What a story for them to tell their friends at school and it created a positive change of perspective toward the resort for some of their schoolmates.
That’s the human element that has made Targhee such a special place.
Making money and profit is vital for the resort. Making fans out of your customers makes that possible. I hope Targhee hasn’t mixed up its priorities by canning some very good employees people.
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