Bani Haddad, Luigi Romaniello, Rupprecht Queitsch and Stephan Schupbach preview this year's Hotelier GM Debate.
Creating a happy work culture
Hoteliers are finding competition in all categories cropping up across the country, attracting their established, multi-skilled workforce. With the panel concurring that concerns over pay scales are less of an issue than in previous years, Queitsch indicated the significance of training staff: “They see their value rise and they understand the potential of this continuous development.”
To encourage retention and sustain morale among the team, Romaniello proposed that GMs should take responsibility for developing a positive culture: “You can foster very strong connections among your co-workers. We select people who want to associate with the brand and who want to grow themselves.”
In addition to training and culture, the group believes that fostering empowerment and meaning is critical to achieving staff job satisfaction. “One of our GMs in Ajman curbed turnover in an unbelievable way. He introduced CSR and charity projects and engaged the staff in them.
They wanted to be contributing to these meaningful projects and they wanted to be able to include them on their CVs,” said Haddad.
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Building a business mindset
Identifying the skills required for a great GM is fairly simple in concept, but much more difficult to achieve in practice. Schupbach states that: “The reality now is that a GM must treat a hotel as his or her own business. It means asset management and proactively planning for better use of space all the time.” In addition, he acknowledged that GMs must be “more creative, while still considering brand and image.”
Romaniello contributed the idea that seemingly undervalued attributes are actually signs of great leadership: “If a GM has passion, it makes all the difference in the world. Being visible and present empowers and motivates the staff.”
Queitsch agreed: “A great leader has passion and can identify with the product they have, and is able to get their staff on board.”
Schupbach concluded that of course, great leadership can only be achieved from the hotel floor, not the office and can positively impact not just staff but also the bottom line: “Surveys have shown that a GM’s interaction with their guests, regardless of what channel it is in, has the biggest impact on guest loyalty and on the amount of customers coming back,” so this should never be undervalued.
These issues and more besides will be tackled via a series of panel sessions, case studies and workshops at this year’s Great GM Debate, themed for the first time around ‘Hospitality Leaders, Innovators and Game Changers’.
More than 200 general managers from across the emirates will contribute to the discourse, so save the dates in your diary for the biggest hotel event of the year.
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