How Kindness shapes our We Care culture

How Kindness shapes our We Care culture

In occasion of Random Act of Kindness Day on 17th February 2022, we wanted to encourage our people at The Dorchester to purposefully “choose kindness” and think of what are the things that we could collectively do, or say, to brighten the day of those around us. ?

After initially seeing the day marked on the calendar, and thinking of how we could celebrate the day with our team, we started to think of the meaning behind the celebration itself and why it is so important for us to recognise. In fact, the reason why we really wanted to shed some light on this day, is that kindness plays a crucial part in our We Care culture – and while we decided to celebrate it today, it remains relevant to us every day.

What is kindness and how does it benefit us??

Different people can have different perceptions as to what kindness is - but whether we associate it with being generous, thoughtful, empathetic or perhaps helpful - the foundation of all of these things is, in fact, feeling a sense of care towards someone else. Kindness goes way beyond just “being nice”, it involves intentionally doing something for the good of others - even if that means putting other people’s feelings and needs before your own.

The wonderful thing about kindness though, is that doing selfless good deeds does not mean not getting anything in return. And that’s why we campaign for kindness. First of all, we know that being kind is good for us as individuals, as there are many benefits of carrying out acts of kindness - like reducing stress, improving emotional well-being and self-esteem. However, what’s really important to us, is that kindness is good for the community as a whole, as being kind often starts a chain reaction that benefits us all. Have you have ever seen one of those “kindness chain” videos - where someone does a selfless act of kindness towards another person, and that person will carry on doing something kind for somebody else, and so on? Well, all we ever need is somebody to start that chain. Sharing acts of kindness with one another also helps to build connections and strengthen already existing ones, which results in an enhanced sense of belonging within a community, or a team - which is also paramount in our organisation, Dorchester Collection.

How kindness fits in our We Care Culture

Here at The Dorchester, we strive to build an environment where everyone belongs and feels encouraged and motivated to act with kindness on a daily basis. We always ask our team that when they come to work, whatever they do, they do it in line with our five values (and pillars) – passion, respect, personality, creativity and working together. And what’s really interesting, is that the best way to live all these values is through kindness itself.

We know though, that in order to create an environment where all people proactively live by these values, we need to be able to lead by example. Despite the hardships we found ourselves in (like most other hospitality businesses) in the past years, we have been working extremely hard to show kindness towards our people and create an environment where they feel cared for. As a people-centric organisation, we always strive to look after our employees in all aspects of their life - from their financial circumstances, to their physical and mental well-being and their individuality.

Our commitment to zero-redundancies during the past years of lock-down, and to keeping all our employees on full pay, has primarily shown how much importance we place on our people and talent, and how much we value them. To this day, with a fully operating team but still navigating uncertain times, we are working on enhancing our employee benefits including access to more financial support, well-being platforms and mental health support amongst other generous benefits. And as we said, because we understand how diverse and unique our workforce is, we very much focus on valuing and celebrating all of our people and their individuality. For the past years we have been working on our diverse work environment where each individual can feel included and feel like they belong to. And while this is certainly an area that requires continuous work and self-education, we – together with our just recently re-launched D&I committee, Belonging – are committed to creating a diverse culture with representation and inclusivity.

We believe that the principle of kindness embedded in our We Care culture helped us to build a relationship of trust with our people, while also ensuring that our name is positively recognised outside of our organisation. In the past years we have been experiencing some of the highest levels of employee engagement that the company has seen and loyalty has grown as a result. While externally, we have been voted one of the top 30 best places to work in hospitality in 2021, and awarded London Healthy Workplace.

Making kindness the norm.

While Random Act of Kindness Day reminds us that we do have the power and tools to go out there and make a positive impact by doing something as little as helping someone carry their bags, or offering our seat on the tube; behind this day, is the idea that it is (also) up to us to make the world outside a better place by “spreading the light” we want to see.

As much as we deem kindness to be at the core of our We Care culture, sometimes it can be easy to forget how important it is, especially when we’re busy in the process of our everyday lives. That’s why it is so important for us to celebrate this day, to remind us and our team that each act of kindness matters, and we can all get the “chain of kindness” started. Only by doing so we can keeping building relationships with each other and strengthen our connections. Our aim is to continue to build a culture where our people are always encouraged to embrace kindness, and make every day Random Act of Kindness Day.