How we Change in Hotels

Many of us make an effort to change some part of our lives whilst we have been working in Hotels. We have decided to change department, seek a promotion, to get a qualification or develop ourselves. We have wanted to change the way we do things in our Department or who does what?

Changes like these don’t occur overnight. They take time and effort. And they tend to be more successful if we treat them like projects which involves several stages.

The Stages of Change model (many people write about) describes the different stages we go through when we want to change something in our everyday lives.

Stage 1 - Don't Want Change You’re in the Stage 1 if you’ve heard plenty of times (from your Hotel Manager, your family and friends, or maybe your work colleagues) that you should make a change — but you’re not seriously considering doing anything about it anytime soon. It may seem like too much work, or just plain not right for you at the moment.

If anyone says to us when we’re in this stage ‘you should be thinking about changing that’, we’re likely to dismiss it, because we don’t really see it as a problem.

Stage 2 - Thinking about Change You’re in Stage 2 if you’re no longer opposed to making a change in your life or your work, but you’re still not committed. We’re now beginning to think about our behaviour. Whilst not actively searching for information about change, when you happen to find it, you take a look. We’re beginning to see that maybe there is a problem that’s affecting us that we could change? 

Stage 3 - Preparing for Change You’re in the Stage 3 if we’ve realised that something needs to change, and we’re ready to make changes – but maybe we don’t know exactly how? You’re actively gathering information, maybe even speaking to somebody about changing — and feel nearly ready to take your first steps. You’re feeling motivated to learn the skills that will help you be successful in making this change. We might start to read up on the issue or ask advice from friends or our Manager, maybe go onto some websites for more information.

Stage 4 - Making a Change You’re in the Stage 4 if we now know what we want to change, we’ve researched how we can change it, and we’re got a plan to put into action. We understand, having read about the issue or discussed it with others that the changes we’re looking for won’t happen overnight, but that over time, things will improve as long as we stick to our plan. You’re implementing your action plan. Perhaps you have switched departments, started using the new processes or got through your first few days or weeks on a college course. Congratulations - now you just have to keep going ....

Stage 5 - Maintenance You’re in the Stage 5 if for at least the past six months, you’ve been diligent and consistent in performing the actions you committed to as part of your desired behaviour to change. They now seem fairly routine. The aim of the whole Stage of Change model is help us get to a position where we can maintain the maintenance stage and sustain our new, changed life. But for many people, this is the hardest part, even harder than making the initial changes. This is about trying to ensure we don’t just slip back into our old behaviours. 

We must remember that as humans, we’re all subject to temptation, and that even if we revert to our old ways, we must not feel bad about ourselves!

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My posts are intended for hotel workers, supervisors and managers around the world, who are (or want to become) actively engaged in learning and development.