The Importance of People

There’s no more important aspect of guest satisfaction in the hospitality industry than customer service. Without good customer service, it’s hard to build a loyal customer base. That said, and while it may sound a bit cliché, there is no more valuable asset to a hotel company than its employees.

This past summer, IHG took that notion to heart and launched “Celebrate Service Week” in conjunction with its owners’ association, IAHI. The initiative is designed to give back to IHG workers and the week was dedicated to the company’s 330,000 employees worldwide. At hotels and offices in the company’s portfolio, the week featured everything from pool parties to barbeques to grand prize drawings that even included tickets to London for the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympic Games. 

But as IHG’s president of the Americas Jim Abrahamson says, the celebration week was indicative of the bigger picture. “If you look at the heritage and history of our company it goes back more than 50 years with the Holiday Inn brand. Holiday Inn is probably the genesis of the majority of careers within our industry today. So many people came through that system—including me. So we’ve always been a people and training culture. 

“Our objective was to say, ‘This is a hallmark of what we’ve done, let’s celebrate it,’” he continues. “Let’s communicate to the world how important people are to the hospitality industry.”

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The beginning of “Celebrate Service” came about from IHG’s franchise community. “We were discussing at one of our board meetings more than a year ago the fact that it was very challenging economic times, very stressful at the property level,” recalls Mark Carrier, chairman of IAHI. “We wanted to know if there was anything we could do to let our team members know how valuable they are to us and to lift their spirits.”

“It was a tough year and while we all lamented on the tough year that banks and balance sheets took, our people took it on the chin as well,” added Abrahamson. “We started to feel like we were beginning to be on the other side of the recession and we wanted to thank our staff for their perseverance and commitment during the darkest hours.”

For IHG, “Celebrate Service” is more than a week event. Abrahamson and Carrier both say that making a commitment to employees is a natural way of life in the hospitality industry. They also say that the notion helps maintain loyalty as well as good customer service, especially in a company as large as theirs.

“We frequently say that it’s not our hotels that guests love, it’s really the people,” Abrahamson says. 

He also says the “Celebrate Service” is an ongoing sprit of the organization, not just a once a year event. “It’s kind of like Christmas. Christmas comes once a year but the spirit of it should live with us every day.”

Both Abrahamson and Carrier also point out the importance of employees to the future of   IHG and its franchises. While hotel brands seek to expand in places such as China, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America, the competition for quality employees will certainly increase.

“We’re not the only hotel company opening hotels [overseas] today, so there’s competition for the best talent,” Abrahamson says. “In addition, the cost of acquiring, developing, and training employees is quite high because of the extra work that it takes to be able to open that many hotels, especially in a dynamic market like China.”

Carrier agrees, saying that a brand’s employees are central to building a strong brand whether it’s during expansion into a new market or maintaining an edge in your current market. “To truly execute on brand values and service levels that are necessary to compete in today’s environment, we have to be very good about our people skills. Our employees throughout the entire system are a direct reflection of the brand values,” he told me. “The quality of selection, training, motivation, and encouragement are vital to guest satisfaction. It’s not just about the soap or bed scarf that you have. Having competency in terms of product is important, but if you don’t have excellent service you can’t beat the competition.”

So, IHG will continue to celebrate the service of its employees as it moves forward. And while it intends to continue to take a week out of the year to recognize the importance of its employees in a public way, Abrahamson says that the spirit of the initiative will continue each day.

“It’s intended to be a way of working,” he says, “but then to take one week a year to acknowledge it and draw attention to it and really go out and thank people.”

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