Hospitality Paradigm

In our recent public workshop on Managerial Effectiveness, a point came up on how it is important that management spends on upgrading equipment constantly. When reminded that upgrades take a lot out of a capex budget, the young managers still insisted that they need to keep with the times and newer hotels springing up constantly around them. One of them gave an example of how the airport transfer fleet need to be upgraded every year. But is this really practical? Can a hotel change it’s cars frequently? What about innovative ways to offer guest exciting experiences along with the pick up and ensuring that the costs are covered or minimal?

Guests arriving by air for stays at The Little Nell in Aspen, Colorado, can ask to be met at the airport by pro cyclist Scott Kasin, who provides them with a bike jersey, a water bottle and their own top-of-the-line Orbea road bike. Kasin then guides them along for an incredibly scenic transfer to the hotel—and high-altitude workout.

Dig around and you’ll find that hotels can offer a lot more than just a limo when it comes to helping you make a grand entrance—options can include helicopter, boat, motorbike…even horse-drawn carriage. In India, we have so many novel transportation options like a auto-rickshaw, a cycle rickshaw, etc… assuming the hotel is close by of course!

A chauffeur can greet Milestone Hotel guests upon arrival at London’s Heathrow Airport, take their luggage and escort them to the Heathrow Express for a 15-minute ride to Paddington station. That’s where the transfer gets unusual: At the station, they are met by a butler who escorts them to a horse-drawn carriage for a royal gallop through London’s streets to the hotel, which overlooks Kensington Palace and Hyde Park. To be treated like royalty, expect to be billed like royalty: The cost for this carriage is $1,275.

If a horse and carriage is too staid, too slow or too expensive, you can opt for a ride on the back of one of Virgin’s Limobikes for the trip from airport to city. Drivers of its fleet of Yamaha FJR 1300s can zip around London’s famous traffic jams. Passengers are fitted with protective clothing (and even a blanket on cold days) and a helmet that allows the passenger to speak with the driver and make phone calls while in transit. There’s even room for a carry-on bag. And you don’t have to fly Virgin Atlantic to get the service. The price for the ride from Heathrow to central London runs about $125.

It’s not about only spending and investing money always… sometimes one can even make money on innovative and creative options… one has to keep ahead of the competition and not necessarily the times.

Just concluded a one day program on “Enhancing Promoter Effectiveness” for ‘Promoters’ of United Spirits Limited (USL) in Bangalore… Promoters are tertiary employees who are placed in outlets to promote their brands over other brands displayed in the mall or retail outlet.

It was interesting to see how the promoters unanimously felt that the customers they engaged with and tried to convert were targets for achieving their revenue budgets. Nothing wrong in this principally as the bottom line of all business is profitability. However, what if we try another approach?… try to service the customer empathically and watch how he helps you with your revenue targets and conversions in the long run?

Doing role plays showing this principle of caring for the guest’s needs before ours, we were able to make them understand that if we become guest-centric, then the guest will help us achieve our targets, rather than if we remain totally revenue driven and oblivious to the guest / customer.

It was heartening to see that the Promoters were able to grasp this concept quickly enough and they have pledged to be more customer oriented than earlier. I am sure that they will see improvements in their conversions in the future.

Strategic Role of HR in the Hospitality Field

We conducted a workshop on 19^th/20^th Feb 2012 on “The Strategic Role of HR in Hotels” for the HR and key Line Managers of Zuri Hotels. This program was facilitated by Mr. D. R. Nagaraj an eminent trainer and assisted by Rajan Parulekar. Some of the key learning’s were as follows:

HR needs to add Value: HR needs to ask a fundamental question: why do organizations need us? In a fiercely competitive market, companies need to keep costs under control. The concept of core competency has led to outsourcing of facilities and administration functions. The day is not far off when HR may also get outsourced if it does not add value. Currently tasks like recruitment are already being handled by manpower consultants.

Traditional Approach: One of the main problems is that HR executives work on a cut & paste approach. They presume that what has worked in other countries or companies can work equally well by just adopting those practices. But they do not realize that each company has unique challenges and the one-size -fits-all solution may be an inappropriate proposition.

Difference between Talent and Competency: In order to move from a reactive to a proactive role, HR has to think creatively. If talented executives leave the organization, leading to a high attrition; it is not only because of the opportunities outside, but also because of the strengths without. An important difference between talent and competency is that talent is inborn but competency can be developed. Talented people do not need training as much as they need opportunity.

Concern for Guest: If one looks at his job as a means to one’s livelihood then he says I work to get paid. But an exceptional performance happens only from the guest’s perspective. One must think of the guest while doing a job. Think of a housewife adding salt while preparing a dish. As a mother she thinks of the children to make it tasty but also thinks of her husband to keep his BP under control. In a similar manner if the team members think of their guests while discharging their duties they can produce superlative performances.

Ever increasing demands of Customers: The changing profiles of customers like Gen Y have much more expectations than Gen X. Today’s customers are gadget savvy. Customer service is also changing. Remember the iphone? Steve Jobs wanted to have a gadget having only one button to switch it ON and OFF, and users must not be troubled with complicated menus. In a similar vein, everything should look simple in front. The customer, internal or external wants a one-stop solution for most things todays.

Importance of Mentoring: Managers are necessary but leaders are essential. They think differently and act differently. Leaders contribute in a significant way. Leaders have followers but managers have subordinates. In leadership even failure is success, achievement happens because of risk.

Mentoring is to put the other person on the right path. For mentees the Guru is one; whereas for mentors there are different mentees, each of them unique people.

If you have one acre of land, there are three approaches to cultivate it: In a traditional approach you grow paddy you get 100% returns in the short term and 0% in the long term. In a conceptual approach you grow coconuts you get 50:50 returns in the short and the long term. With a spiritual approach if you establish a school you get 0% in short term but 100% in the long term.

 HR needs to make a paradigm shift from a traditional approach of looking at the short-term to a combination of the traditional, conceptual and also the spiritual approaches so as to reap not only the short-term benefits but also the long-term advantage not only for the organization but also for the employees.

Recently we conducted a program for a 5 star hotel in New Delhi on Teamwork. The most interesting part of the program was the interaction between the participants who had never really sat together for an entire day. Speaking about their issues made them feel liberated and the feedback shared with us was very encouraging.

At times, unless we are watchful, the daily grind at work comes in the way of creating bonds and fostering positive work relationships, especially when cocooned in departments. The big picture is by-passed and employees tend to play the blame game instead of the same game!