How do you tempt staff to join an independent hotel?
Rowell: The real advantage is that you can foster a more entrepreneurial spirit when you give people the freedom to do things, so they might know what their job is and they might be trained well but they might not think as outside of the box as someone who has a little bit more flexibility in their roles and is promoted if they do a good job. The people that have left the chain or the brand scenario have seen the management style here and seen the ability for them to develop themselves as the attractive thing.
Fares: That’s something usually very hard to find, to work for understanding owners who work with a company that gives you the full freedom in decision making. In many places I’ve worked it’s always challenging to get your full freedom and I can tell you that with TNI I’ve got my full freedom. With my management team and my staff, we don’t work for TNI, we work as if we are the owners — we all work as a family, we work together, we care for each other.
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One thing we have done regarding the service charge: if you go to international hotels, it’s always the big boss that gets the big bonus, the rest get peanuts. Here the service charge is being given equally — from stewarding to GM we all get the same figure. That’s something others don’t do. The service charge on the bill is split equally whereas in other hotels it’s given proportionally. From a staff perspective, when an employee who only earns a AED 900 monthly salary gets the same as a GM in terms of service charge, it means a lot to them. And when the hotel was half-closed, still the staff got their bonus for the year. Who would do that in a different property? I believe working in this group is excellent and it gives us the opportunity to grow even more. I always say, we have owned this hotel for the past four years and 14 days, this is how long I’ve been here. I’m dedicated to the hotel, all I think about is the hotel and I believe this property will succeed.
You’ve now celebrated the official relaunch on November 18, what next?
Rowell: We’re very much focused on pushing forward into 2012, we’re very bullish on the short, medium and long term of the hotel and the area around it here so we’re focusing on operations now. We’ve just come out of development, so now it’s 100% focus on getting the operating efficiency back to where it was and employing staff, retaining the right staff and eventually making profit. We’re bullish over the next 12 months despite the upcoming supply.
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