The power of empowerment

Yes, yes, yes... We hear it all the time. Every company in the world claim that they empower their people. Having worked in hospitality for over 15 years and for two of the major players in that field across four continents, I can assure you that it isn't the case for our industry. We are thought to conform_to the status quo, to the opinions and behaviours of others and very often to policies and procedures written by people that have not been in the thick of it for quite some time and are totally disconnected. By the time we reach high level positions, it has been so hammered into us that we perpetuate it in our businesses. Hotel companies consciously or unconsciously urge staff members to check a good chunk of their real selves at the staff entrance. Staff members and organisations both pay a price: decreased engagement, productivity and innovation.

Of course, not all conformity is bad but in order to be successful and evolve, hotel companies need to find a balance between adherence to the formal and informal rules that provide necessary structure and the freedom that helps employees do their best work. the pendulum has swung too far in the direction of conformity. For an Industry that should be so fun and dynamic, companies have created so much red tape, that it now moves as fast as a three-legged behemoth.

Luckily, in the past year, I made the decision to move to a smaller company. A company willing to disrupt the industry and do things differently. A company with a blank canvas and no red tape owned by a visionary entrepreneur. Someone who lets you be yourself, doesn't interfere on how things are done and most importantly constantly challenges the status quo.

For decades the principles of scientific management has prevailed. Leaders have been heavily focused on designing efficient processes and getting staff members to follow them. Now they need to think about when conformity hurts their business and allow, even promote constructive nonconformity: behaviour that deviates from organisational norms, others' actions, or common expectations, to the benefit of the business.

I recently caught up for dinner with a friend I worked with in my previous employment who asked me what would I have done differently for that company looking back. My response was brief and only said "the way we hire staff and the freedom and empowerment we give them". To elaborate further, In the past year we promoted nonconformity, encouraging deviant behaviour in our employees. Nonconformity promoted innovation and improved performance. These are a few of the things we did differently:

1- Hire the right people: That sounds so simplistic but it really isn't... Only a few months back, I told my team that we were done advertising jobs on recruitment platforms. That from now on, we would be proactive and go after the people WE want for our organisation rather than being reactive and receiving (most of the time) poor resumes. By the time you invest in the ad, create it, read through all the CV's, set up interviews, interview process, etc, you have wasted a fair amount of time, money and resources. We all hit our LinkedIn and started "poaching" (sorry Sydney hotels). Started going out as a team to cool places, observed staff, enjoyed a few cocktails and meals along the way and proactively asked the people we liked to join us. We spent as much money and time as we would have in the "normal" recruiting process but got much better quality people and enjoyed some great team bonding sessions over a few drinks. Definitely a win-win!

2- Let your staff members be authentic: One of our "signature" thing at Ovolo is the uniforms. We don't really have them. Instead, we send all our new staff members to a personal shopper for the day and they get to pick what they want to wear at work. Choose something they want, feel comfortable wearing and that fits them properly. Something they are proud to be seen in. If our staff have piercings, tattoos, earlobe rings or whatever they normally wear with pride, we want them to show it off. Diversity in the workplace is amazing and it creates a magical buzz. Most hotel companies have very regulated uniforms policies. Most of the time cheap and ugly and most of the time doesn't fit you properly. Even worse, the chances of that uniform having belonged to somebody else prior to you inheriting it are very high.

3- Let them know why and what but let them figure the how: We work in hospitality. Arguably the easiest industry to get a job in. The "What" is not rocket science. It really is very straight forward. The "How" is what makes the difference. It is what makes us stand out from others and what make it or break it. One of the rule we have is that we challenge how we do things constantly and demand the same from our staff. If anything we do can be improved on, staff members have the freedom to change it there and then. We don't have written speeches to answer phones or interact with our guests. There is nothing worse than frustrating old policies that do no longer stack up. Policies and procedures play an important role in shaping performance over time but they often get stuck and unchanged, decreasing the engagement and narrowing our abilities to innovate and create.

Let your staff solve their own problems: From the start, I wanted to create a very linear and flat structure and get rid of the prevalent hierarchy that exists in hotels. For example, all staff members have the same powers to fix any issues or make a call on compensation when required. I have cringed on a couple of occasions but it works wonders.

4- Encourage employees to bring out their best: We all possess our own strengths that we use naturally in our lives. And we all have a drive to do what we do best and be recognised accordingly. A leader's task is to encourage staff members to identify and bring out their strengths in their own job. We have hired people this year that we didn't need but took them on regardless because they were the right fit for us and tailored jobs to their strengths. rather than trying to change a staff member to fit its job description, change the job description to fit the staff members' strengths. Design their job accordingly or at least consider giving them freedom to choose responsibilities within their own roles.

5- Create challenges (the good kind): It is easy for any of us to get bored and fall back on routine when our jobs involve no variety or challenges. And staff members who find their tasks boring lack motivation to perform well and creatively whereas work that is challenging enhances their engagement. Maximise variety. This makes it less likely that your employees will go on autopilot and more likely that they will come up with innovative ways to improve what they do. For example, our breakfast buffets are ever changing. The sole responsibility of the breakfast team. the chefs are always challenged to ?create new dishes, The bartenders to create cocktails, the front desk staff to come up with quirky, personalised, tailor made amenities for our guests. The housekeeping team who leave fun notes on pillows or mirrors. The conference and events team who was assigned the task to create a totally different experience to what other hotels are doing in that space and created something amazing. It is important to always inject novelty into work. Novelty is powerful and when something new happens at work, we pay attention, engage and tend to remember it. We are less likely to take our work for granted when it continues to generate strong feelings. Novelty is way more satisfying than stability. Offering our staff such experiences is an essential way to promote nonconformity.

6- Foster broader perspectives: We often focus so narrowly on our own point of view that we have trouble understanding others'. And as we assume high level positions, our ego focus becomes stronger. To be successful this year, I have had to check that ego at the staff entrance and "walk the walk" of what I had set out to achieve. I had to let go of any "power trip". Trust the people around to do something great. Encourage everyone to challenge everything, including my own beliefs and perspectives.

7- Have fun and make your team the hero: Last but not least, the fun we had this year has been unparalleled. I had never experienced that much fun in a work place before. We work hard but we party harder. We organise a good few social events, we go out as a team quite often and we experience what other hotels, bars and restaurants are doing together. We have made a very unconventional place to work and wouldn't have it any other way. It truly reflects the brand that we are. We do our best to treat and praise our staff members as well as we possibly can and show real care towards them. They on the other hand have re-paid us ten fold.

Now, did we manage to nail all of the above, nope... But we gave it a good old go and will continue to do so until we get as close as we can. The proof is however in the pudding. Our two hotels in Sydney have this year reached the #1 and #2 spots on TripAdvisor. Achieve a TrustYou score of 94 and overall guests satisfaction of 95% and drove our NPS in the high 80's. This year we took home the TAA upscale Hotel of the year award in Australia, the HM Design Hotel of the year award and a few weeks ago in Geneva, at the International Luxury Hotels Awards, we took home the Luxury Heritage Hotel award, the Luxury Design Award and the coveted Luxury Boutique Hotel of the year award. More importantly, this year, a good few of our staff won personal recognition on a national scale which made us VERY proud. To top it off, our financial results have soared for 2017 and we now lead our very tough CompSet in both ADR and RevPar.

I wholeheartedly believe that all of the above create amazingly positive results in the work place. I know that if organisations trust their team to deliver and empower them to do so, they will realise that their staff have the drive and capabilities to create amazing experiences that will deliver great outcomes.