PEOPLE FIRST - MONIQUE DEKKER, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT HR EAME, HYATT: "EVERYTHING STARTS WITH PEOPLE WHO CARE"
In our "People First" series, human resources leaders share insights on recruitment and retention strategies. |
|
PEOPLE FIRST - MONIQUE DEKKER, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT HR EAME, HYATT: "EVERYTHING STARTS WITH PEOPLE WHO CARE"
In our "People First" series, human resources leaders share insights on recruitment and retention strategies. |
Category: Worldwide - Careers
- Interviews and portraits
- Career - Interviews - Industry leaders
Interview made by Sonia Taourghi on 2024-09-27
 Monique Dekker, Senior Vice President Human Resources EAME, Hyatt
Photo credit © Hyatt Hotels & Resorts
Monique Dekker, Senior Vice President HR EAME for Hyatt, answers our questions about recruitment, the onboarding process, and career development and gives key advice for a successful career in luxury hospitality.
Can you tell us more about your recruitment process?
At Hyatt, we are continuously evolving our recruitment techniques, relationships, and strategy. We are working closely with our hotels to find creative solutions by applying an agile mindset. As a result, we’re testing and exploring various solutions such as implementing rapid hiring processes and providing necessary resources like access to third-party recruiting digital marketing services.
We are committed to focusing on hiring, promoting, and retaining diverse talent to increase representation of women and minorities. We will be particularly focused on ensuring our leadership better reflects the rest of the organisation and the communities in which we operate—this will require us to work to ensure equity in our own internal processes.
We will audit our hiring and promotion processes to ensure they are delivering diverse candidates in the selection process and continue to link achievement of our inclusion and diversity goals to compensation for leaders at Hyatt.
Since 2018, more than 400 Hyatt properties have hired more than 5,700 Opportunity Youth in 65 countries.
Top Hotels Hiring Opportunity Youth: Grand Hyatt Baha Mar (Bahamas), Hyatt Regency Chesapeake Bay (Maryland), Zilara Cancun (Mexico)
In 2024, we count more than 206,000 Colleagues in 78 countries.
How do you integrate new talent?
First days are very important, so we want to make sure that new colleagues feel welcomed as we would like them to welcome our guests, with care. Because everything starts with people who care.
We want to make sure, that colleagues in all brands from Alila, to Zoetry, from Park Hyatt to Hyatt Place, know and feel that they are joining Hyatt family, so we dedicate first days for Welcome to Hyatt sessions, where they get to know the company, our history, purpose and values and how to put them into practice. And, sometimes more importantly they get to know each other.
Starting in a new company could be nerve wracking, so we take extra care to help them integrate in their teams, by assigning them a buddy and organising first social events, like team lunches or after work outings.
Everyone is also given their training plan, so they know what is expected from them at different stages of their onboarding, as well as what resources they have to learn that. And we use all possible training methods, from online video-based bite size modules on how do you open a bottle of red wine, or how do you welcome a guest and escort them to their room, through observing how other, more experienced colleagues do it, or role-plays, to training on-the-job – so performing the task and getting feedback.
We want to ensure that colleagues, who start working feel well prepared, but more importantly supported by their colleagues and leaders to be their best. So they are in a safe zone to say, that they don’t know something, or that they don’t understand, ask or make mistakes and learn.
What kind of career development program do you offer your collaborators?
At Hyatt we encourage our colleagues to continuously learn and grow, both professionally and personally, in support of opening doors to discover new career opportunities and achieve their highest potential. Since 2022, Hyatt has offered more than 14,000 personal and professional development courses, an increase of 34%, and added thousands of leadership and management assets to Hyatt’s career skills library. By the end of 2023, colleagues completed more than 52,000 individual courses in priority topics to them, including DE&I and wellbeing.
Hyatt colleagues, including those at franchised hotels, have access to our professional skills development library, which offers learning resources like articles, podcasts and self-paced courses. The library also provides role-specific training programs and discounted access to eCornell's hospitality courses.
We have also developed, Hyatt’s People Playbook is a comprehensive guide for leaders, mid-level managers and rising leaders to excel at Hyatt. It offers tools, resources and best practices on topics such as hiring, performance management and leadership development.
Across Asia-Pacific and the Americas, Hyatt has piloted modern mentor-mentee programs to aid colleagues' professional growth and management career paths. Programs include virtual workshops, peer learning modules and hotel visits.
Hyatt's 2023 Global Leadership Summit convened over 1,200 global leaders, general managers and selected franchise operators to align on our strategy, grow our abilities to lead with purpose and celebrate shared achievements.
What internal mobility opportunities do you offer to your collaborators?
There are many recruitment opportunities at Hyatt. Many of our colleagues, after gaining experience in one of our hotels in France, transfer to another hotel in the group in France or abroad.
What would be your best advice to have a successful career in luxury hospitality?
I recommend having an open minded, an oriented growth mindset, a sparkle in the eyes, open for change, questioning everything in order to learn. Hungry for opportunity is always the key to joining this exciting industry.
What human qualities are you looking for in talents?
We are looking for personalities and talents that we can support and develop within our company. Hyatt offers a wide range of in-house training courses to ensure that talented individuals can develop rapidly. Candidates tempted by the Hyatt adventure must above all be passionate about their profession, eager to work in an international chain on a human scale and show empathy in their everyday lives.
Which labels did you earn as a quality workplace?
We received many awards, including for World of Care:
Forbes: 2023 America’s Best Employers for Women, 2023 World’s Best Employers, 2023 World’s Top Companies for Women
Fortune: 2023 Best Large Workplaces for Women, 2023 Great Places to Work x Fortune Best Companies to Work For (Recognised for the 10th consecutive year), 2023 World’s Most Admired Companies
Human Rights Campaign: 2023 Best Places to Work for LGBTQ+ Equality (Recognised for the 19th consecutive year, 100% rating on the Corporate Equality Index)
Newsweek: 2023 America’s Greatest Workplaces for Diversity, 2023 World’s Greatest Workplaces for Women
What are the key CSR measures you have in place?
Deeply embedded across all areas of our business and grounded in our purpose to care for people so they can be their best, World of Care brings Hyatt’s purpose to life through our actions in advancing care for the planet, people and responsible business.
This August, we launched our third annual World of Care Highlights and our fourth annual DE&I Report showcasing the properties and colleagues who are bringing World of Care progress to life. A few highlights include:
Caring for planet: Hyatt hotels across the globe continue to embrace energy efficiency and increase the use of renewable energy and expand the number of hotels purchasing renewable electricity, including Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). This includes Miraval Austin Resort & Spa (Texas), Park Hyatt Chicago (Illinois), and Hyatt Regency Hong Kong Sha Tin, one of the first hotels in Hong Kong to adopt solar energy.
Focus Areas Climate Change and Water Conservation:
- Accelerate efficiency measures and increase the use of renewable energy and gray water Waste and Circularity
- Minimise waste and increase recycling and composting Responsible Sourcing
- Increase responsible sourcing of products like coffee, seafood, animal proteins and more Thriving Destinations
- Help protect biodiversity and advance climate resilience
Caring for People: we've added over 900 managers who are people of colour within the U.S. since June 2020; over 52% of our entry-level managers are women and over 55% are people of colour.
Since June 2020, we've added 440 women into senior leadership roles across the globe.
Since launching RiseHY, our global program providing career pathways to Opportunity Youth with long-term careers in hospitality in 2018, more than 5,700 Opportunity Youth have joined Hyatt or a Hyatt hotel.
Focus Areas Diversity, Equity & Inclusion:
- Prioritise inclusion at all levels of our organisation Colleague Development
- Encourage colleagues to continuously learn and grow, both professionally and personally Wellbeing
- Support our colleagues, guests, members, customers and owners in pursuit of healthy, happy and fulfilled lives
- Human Rights: respect the fundamental rights of all people and help prevent human trafficking within and across the industry Community Engagement and Volunteerism
Strive to make communities in which Hyatt hotels operate healthy, thriving places to live, work and gather
Caring for Responsible Business: Embracing our responsibility to create fair, ethical, and transparent business practices, both within and beyond our Company and Hyatt properties.
Focus Areas Working with Other Businesses:
- Collaborate with owners, operators, suppliers and beyond, ensuring consistent value alignment Data Privacy and Security
- Manage and mitigate cyber security and privacy risks through industry-leading best practices Reporting
- Provide meaningful information related to our business
- Identify, evaluate, prioritise and control risks related to our business
|
|
