What’s a proven path managers can take to make changes that last? Give employees a chance to get involved in the process early and often.

Studies show employees are more willing to stick with a change for the long term if they had a hand in creating it.

If they don’t participate, you could see workers falling back into old habits before long.

And that means you could end up getting stuck finding the time and the resources to retrain them.

Here’s an excellent example of managing a change process, courtesy of one of the world’s premiere hospitality organizations.

The Ritz-Carlton New Orleans was facing an uptick in customer complaints.

The problem was that customers weren’t getting everything they were promised when they checked in. Over-promise-and-under-deliver is always a recipe for failure.

The Ritz-Carlton team was able to improve performance and reduce customer complaints by 50% after only one year and by 70% after two years.

They made these changes stick by getting staffers involved in the improvement process.

Here’s how:

Step 1: Map it out

The Ritz-Carlton team wanted to get a feel for what was causing the problem of missing supplies.

So they mapped out the entire process of preparing a room.

After they had every step of the process detailed, the team turned to staffers for help.

They asked workers which step caused them the most problems.

This led them to the root cause: Supply closets weren’t organized, so workers had trouble finding what they needed for guest rooms.

Step 2: Show what it looks like

Once they had a grasp on what they were facing, the team started looking for solutions.

One idea was to create a sample closet that could be used to show workers the most effective way to organize and stock the supply closets.

Workers had the chance to tour the sample and make suggestions about ways to improve the set up.

This kept workers involved as the fixes were being made.

Step 3: Talk it over

The team’s next step was to hold “daily line-ups” with staffers and managers.

The goal of these 15 minute sessions was to generate open discussion about how the changes were working out.

Plus, it let staffers propose improvements, in case something wasn’t working.

Step 4: Post the numbers

The Ritz-Carlton team also used daily scorecards to keep workers in the know about the impact the changes had made.

The scorecards showed data about customer complaints, which encouraged workers to stick with the plan and keep moving forward.