Kempinski MEA says time is right to invest in staff development
|
Kempinski MEA says time is right to invest in staff development
|
Category: Worldwide - Careers
- Career
This is a press release selected by our editorial committee and published online for free on 2010-01-07
“With business levels being a little quieter it was the perfect time to take people off the floor and into the classroom” - Karen Thorburn, Kempinski Regional Director of Training
Building a reputation as an employer of choice and reasserting its core philosophy of ‘it’s all about people’, 2009 saw heavy investment in human resource development and training by Kempinski Middle East & Africa. The company implemented training programs across all levels of staff focused on building management acumen, enhancing technical expertise and operational skills, and cross-training between departments, and intends to continue to build on staff development through 2010.
According to a global study published last year from surveys of 243 managers in the international hospitality industry (administered in cooperation with the Center for Hospitality Research at Cornell University), 64% of respondents reported human resource issues of attraction, retention, training and morale as key areas of concern, with staff attraction emerging as the most important concern for managers in the Middle East. And while industry-wide falling occupancies and layoffs have allied staff shortage fears, attracting and retaining good talent and maintaining staff morale have emerged as even bigger challenges among hospitality groups.
Ulrich T. Eckhardt, President Kempinski Middle East & Africa, has firmly stood against staff layoffs within Kempinski MEA during the downturn, focusing instead on building internal HR competencies and raising the group’s profile as a leader in staff development within the hospitality sector. “We are in an industry where companies are only as good as the people they employ. We had a very full year in terms of staff development, which is very important in these times both for issues of morale and to ensure we emerge even stronger within a rebounding industry.
The labour market is also teeming with talent at this point and we need to make sure Kempinski MEA attracts the best from that talent pool. Companies that invest in ongoing people development are very attractive to people looking to build a long and prosperous career in this industry,” said Eckhardt.
Karen Thorburn, Kempinski Regional Director of Training, and winner of the Best HR Person of the Year at the Hotelier Middle East Awards 2009, says, “We have not stopped any of our projects with the downturn, so therefore we need to develop the degree of expertise in our team members at all levels if we are to have successful openings this year. We made a concerted effort to attract talent and to be competitive in the employment market by being seen to proactively develop our people both professionally and personally. With business levels being a little quieter it was the perfect time to take people off the floor and into the classroom,” says Thorburn.
Kempinski MEA developed a full training calendar over 2009 – including a 10 day ‘Training Academy’ for 16 regional training managers over the summer conducted by Thorburn; the development and delivery of an ‘Essentials Program’ in Front Office, Revenue Management, Sales, and E-commerce; senior management enrolment in MBA courses; several specialist skills training programs, as well as a successful Employee Satisfaction Survey exercise piloted at Kempinski Hotel Ajman.
“We started with management trainees, with the President presenting at various hospitality colleges, and through to our senior managers with an MBA program,” says Thorburn. “During the 10-day Training Academy I delivered a 6-day program - Certificate IV Training and Assessment – which covered the training environment, development and delivery of programs, assessment tools for on and off the job training. We had workshops on new programs we have developed to meet our needs in people management, games and activities. The Training Academy enabled participants to gain a formal qualification and developed a strong network within the regional training team,” added Thorburn.
Kempinski also employed specialists who travelled the region delivering skills’ training programs on making the perfect cup of tea and coffee, and the best bread. These sessions were run in Kempinski properties worldwide. “In this region we have implemented these travelling expert concepts in Tanzania, Djibouti and the UAE finishing with the iconic Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi. In the next few weeks we will implement new concepts in these hotels and finish the implementation process in Jordan and Egypt, when we open the Kempinski Nile Hotel in Cairo this year,” said Thorburn.
The pilot of the Employee Satisfaction Survey at Kempinski Hotel Ajman in the latter half of 2009 further reasserted the company’s strong focus on people. The survey was conducted on September 26 under the theme ‘It’s all about people’. All employees were invited to participate in the survey, which was held in conjunction with a full schedule of fun activities throughout the day – a buffet lunch, cooking classes, massages, access to the beach for employees and their families, prize competitions, bowling, camel rides, hotel tours and much more.
“The whole idea was to make our people feel special. Our internal tag line at the moment is "from good to best." We need the teams’ feedback to do this and we value their feedback. By making everyone feel good and an important part of the hotel, by making them feel secure and wanted, they are more likely to tell us what they really think is needed. The challenge was getting as many people to participate in one day, to do it as part of a memorable day. It had been a tough year, we needed to have some fun doing this and thank our people for their feedback. We had a big buzz when the final results came through and we were the first in the region with 99% completion rate on the Employee Satisfaction Survey,” said Thorburn.
Kempinski has also piloted an E-learning program in English and several management programs. “The feedback has been fantastic and we are planning to launch these program in early 2010,” says Thorburn. Kempinski has also developed a skills-enhancement program for Housekeeping specifically aimed at career progression of supervisors and assistant housekeepers, to be launched later this month.
“The hospitality industry is long hours and very hands on and there are many things one just does not have the time to learn on the job, such as staff costing, developing budgets, business plans, marketing principles and leadership/ management skills. Providing staff structured pathways to imbibe this information helps them move ahead in their careers, and helps us as a company progress in levels of service expertise and competitiveness within the industry,” concludes Thorburn.
|
|
