Evangelos Karakoulias won a Hilton CEO Light & Warmth Award. Evangelos Karakoulias won a Hilton CEO Light & Warmth Award.

Hilton Abu Dhabi’s environment, health, safety & hygiene manager Evangelos Karakoulias was one of only 10 employees globally to win a 2012 Hilton Worldwide CEO Light & Warmth Award. Louise Oakley finds out why

What is your career background?
I completed my Bachelor’s Degree in Tourism Management in Greece and started work in my family business. I have worked in the hotel industry for 12 years now, specialising in F&B across a number of markets.

I joined Hilton Abu Dhabi in July 2011 as a restaurant manager managing the Jazz Bar & Dining. In addition, I became involved in a number of different activities in the hotel, such as the SALT (service and loyalty tracking) Committee focusing on improving guest satisfaction.

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I also enjoyed training staff and I became a member of the hotel’s Blue Energy Committee, organising different community events. I was appointed environment, health, safety and hygiene manager in 2012.

What are the biggest health and safety challenges to overcome?
The aim of every hotel is that guests arrive and depart comfortably and safely. My role is to effectively ensure that incident rates are low and the simplest and most effective way is to carry out a risk assessment of every single area or activity that takes place in the hotel.

What health and safety initiatives have you implemented over the past year?
One of the main health and safety initiatives I have implemented this year is the incident reporting track.

I have established an innovative and simple incident tracking form which complies with the local legal requirements, the corporate health and safety requirements and is fully tailored to our hotel’s operations.

What strategies do you take to protect the environment at the hotel?
We have organised several beach and desert cleaning activities and I introduced the recycling campaign. We reduced our general waste by recycling more than 200 tons of waste for 2012.

We enhanced our recycling awareness by organising training sessions and arranging events such as recycling staff uniforms and recycled arts contest. We are an active member of Hilton Worldwide global LightStay™ programme, the proprietary sustainability measurement system by Hilton Worldwide dedicated to improving hotel performance and profitability while decreasing the company’s overall impact on the environment.

What is the Hilton CEO Light & Warmth Award?
The 2012 CEO Light & Warmth Award is established to recognise exceptional team members who embody Hilton Worldwide’s values of ‘hospitality, integrity, leadership, teamwork, ownership and now’.

There are thousands of entries each year and I feel honoured and humbled to be one of only 10 winners across the world personally chosen for this award by the company president. I was nominated by our HR director Michaela Bussler because of my constant quest to improve guest service at the hotel.

What are your goals for 2013?
My goals for 2013 are to achieve a zero incident culture in the hotel, increase more awareness among team members regarding health and safety and prepare myself for the next step in my career.

What’s your career ambition?
I want to develop more and become a general manager in a five-star hotel property.

My Best & Worst
- My best meal is the Greek cheese pie made by my 95-year-old grandmother.
- My best holiday was my recent visit to Singapore and Bali. Both destinations wowed me and I would love to go back.
- My best hotel stay so far was in Conrad Bali. The resort was beautiful, the service excellent and the food was incredibly tasty.
- My best piece of advice is a quote from South African golfer Gary Player: “The harder your work, the luckier you get”.
- My worst meal was chicken liver at a friend’s house for dinner. It looked like meat and smelt of fish — I think they kept the chicken liver stored with the fish in the fridge.
- My worst career nightmare would be working alone in an environment where you do not deal with any people, guests and colleagues.