opportunities that meet basic employee requirements
but also highlights those features and characteristics
that differentiate the organization from its competitors.
Such differentiation may be based on innovative, fair and
unbiased benefit offerings across levels, combinations
of learning and growth opportunities, feeling of being
valued and cared, multiple internal career opportunities
or special mentoring and training through continuous and
proactive employee engagement and dialogue. Proactive
engagement is also very crucial as usually the attention is
diverted to the “needs” of an employee only when he/she
puts down the resignation.
The role of HR in today’s context should also be in creating
memorable lifetime work experiences and career path with
milestones for the employees with proactive engagement
approach instead of the recovery curative or mundane
approach of mere “hiring and firing”. It further helps in
building new propositions that showcase the company’s
innovative HR initiatives that create differentiation and
add value to the lives of “people” working and growing
along on the same journey across all levels.
Strategic elements like consistency in policy deployment
(no favoritism), constant Improvements (process and
procedures), process centricity, a culture of excellence,
listening & learning methods, fair and stable reward and
recognition system and innovation are crucial to improve
the employee work experience. These elements have been
lost through the years, why because traditionally some
organizations are still focused on getting the work done
from “people” and not treating them as a key strategic
resource. Some companies on other hand think that
they can “buy off” any talent by putting a handsome
“package” on the desk; it does not gain sustainable results
and may not guarantee loyalty. Nowadays it is an industry
of uplifting revenues to any costs and the true “people
purpose” has been lost, companies can make money sure
but how much they want to squeeze the lemon has a limit.
Of course, and luckily there is an increased awareness
among global organizations and individual operators who
manage, own and operate hotels and resorts with a respect
to their employees who deliver great experiences with
amazing services and still maintain a good profitability
and I firmly believe that if we have to raise the overall
employee experience at workplace, this is what we need to
do differently and think strategically while being fair to our
key resource – our people.
Following this statement, my view on creating value and
excellence is in a way of working, a way of interacting
and a way of thinking about our jobs as we work together.
My experience of working in customer service industry
and hospitality for past 14 years as well as working with
some great international hospitality brands has helped me
understand the key components of success which should
be a part of the delivery system for effective business
planning of any organization serious about employee
engagement and service excellence. I personally believe
that before employees can run they should be able to walk,
today management wants to do all these too quickly and
forget or intentionally ignore the basis of the industry –
which is our “people” who must come first. Excellence is
an attitude which needs to be nurtured and fed daily that
can lead to a good governance system and culture of the
organization.
About the author
Vaibhav Garg is currently holding the position of Cluster Director
of Talent & Culture at AccorHotels and is responsible for Mercure
and Pullman Pre-Opening Resort Projects in the Republic of
Maldives. Prior to this role he held several leadership positions
in the area of Human Resources, Hotel Operations and Quality
& Service Assurance while working in Maldives from last 6 years
with various international brands including The Taj Group of
Hotels and his association with the Tata Group of Companies
has been for over a decade in his last 14 years of professional
experience. In his hospitality career, Vaibhav has worked with
all major hotel segments i.e. Luxury, Upper Upscale, Upscale
and Budget brands of hotels in India and overseas and has
been instrumental in driving the key functions like Operational
Excellence, Hospitality Service Excellence, Strategy Development
& Execution, Business Excellence, Human Resources, and
Learning & Development with several best practices in each
of his role. Over the years, he has also been invited to present
his hospitality research papers and case studies of his work by
renowned international universities and business schools in Asia,
Europe, and the United States. Contact Vaibhav Garg on vaibhav.
[email protected]
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