Wearing Booties

Before entering the home of his next customer, Mike, the Southern California Gas Co. serviceman, covers his shoes with surgical booties.

What does it mean?

OSHA regulations require service personnel to wear leather boots with metal toe-covers while they work. However, when providing service to some Asian customers in Orange County, servicemen were asked to remove their shoes before entering the homes, a custom observed by a variety of Asian ethnicities but an act that conflicted with company rules. SoCal Gas’ solution of covering the shoes pleased the customers and the service personnel, who felt that by wearing the booties they showed respect for their Asian clientele.

Contrast this corporate attitude with that of a Portland, Ore., hotel, whose staff offered complimentary shoeshine kits to an African American association planning a meeting for 400 at their facility. The offended organization moved its convention to more culturally sensitive lodgings, and the incident led to creation of “Minority Convention and Tourism Hospitality 101,” a seminar aimed at the city’s hospitality industry and attended by representatives from 80% of Oregon’s hotels. Subsequently, Portland has actively pursued the $32-billion African American convention, leisure, reunion and business market. According to Roy Jay, president of the Oregon Convention and Visitors Services Network, sharpening cultural sensitivity among local businesses plus aggressive ethnic minority marketing efforts have resulted in a 300% increase in convention bookings. For Portland, the shoeshine kit blunder metamorphosed into a business boom.