New Forest Collection – our journey to change

Hospitality a viable career? – It is our people who will determine

By Joanna Llewellyn – Head of People and Development

Way back in November 2019, it became very clear to us that the challenges facing the hospitality industry required priority focus and considered action if our business was to remain viable.

The issues we faced were not alien to our competitors – difficulties attracting the best talent and reducing turnover within a tight labour market was (and is) regularly debated by industry experts.

We had to stop debating and start fully focussing on our biggest asset OUR PEOPLE.

Purposeful leadership and management along with a positive culture is well recognised as being a vital component for high performing businesses.  We proactively decided to take this path.

One of our strengths is our venues proximity to one another which gave us the opportunity to come together as a community to get answers.  We worked with our people to understand our current and desired culture and ultimately our purpose.

The first revelation was that our people were fire-fighting!  Our hardworking and dedicated individuals had become experts at working under pressure and pulling out all the stops when the chips were down. This of course meant they were struggling to remain motivated and positive.  This really resonated – we needed to turn this around, drive the passion and commitment from our core teams so our people could see the vital part they play in the company’s success.

Positive culture change and realising our purpose became a priority.  We continued to collaborate to gain valuable insights that would enable us take this journey.

Just as we finished information gathering, the pandemic hit!

At this point we chose to use this as a proactive opportunity to really dig deep and bring our commitment to life.  A development team began translating the project (virtually) to implement what our teams had told us to build a strong people purpose, vision and values.  Their input is the heart of this.

We understood very early on that for change to truly be successful, it needed to come from the top.  We stripped every inch back and looked at our policies and procedures – were they in line with our new values: BRAVE, OPEN, TEAM, NURTURE and would it enable our desired culture to come to life?

Despite teams either on furlough or away from the business we started to use a new employee engagement platform, to regularly communicate with our people.  We shared what we were doing behind the scenes and encouraged our teams to share what they were up to during lockdown.

Their wellbeing quickly rose to the top of our agenda, it was vital to consider that most people working within our industry are not used to having large amounts of spare time, hospitality is well known for its fast pace and often pressured working environment, so we understood the impact of lockdown would be huge.   We promoted our Employee Assistance Programme and it became a priority for our managers to regularly check in with our teams over the phone.  As the weeks turned into months it became increasingly important that our people understood that we cared about them, they were our priority and an integral part of the companies future.

As the summer arrived and we re-opened our focus needed to be on team and guest safety and this is how we chose to live our values throughout the busy summer months.  The pandemic was by no means over and with the need to recover from the long months of no trading we had to focus on business survival.  We were open about this need to all our people and we found our teams stepped up willingly to support us in providing the best experience under really challenging circumstances.

As we found ourselves in lockdown 3.0 equipping our leadership teams with the learning and resources to take care of our people through our values became our next priority.  We approached this again with virtual workshops, training sessions and presentations for our development team.  It was never about putting out glossy marketing promoting our purpose, it is bought to life through behaviours and genuine belief.

At this juncture we know we are still half way up the mountain and embedding it into every touch point.  We understand there is still much work to do and that we will continue to need commitment, grit and determination to fulfil our promise to our people.  This is no mean feat as we prepare once more to guide our business through the most challenging circumstances.   Our industry is built on providing genuine hospitality and enriching experiences it is what we are good at and thrive on – we have learnt that by focusing the lens on our people the possibilities are endless.

And here we now stand with what can only be described as a recruitment frenzy for the hospitality sector.  How are we going to encourage people to return or attract people to the industry is top of the agenda.  We have needed to reflect further on how we have managed our people during the last year and focus on how to encourage people to join our team.

Hospitality leaders need to be realistic on the difficulties team members face both personally and professionally.  They also need to understand what people want and need from their employment – we are seeing team members talking with their feet and not seeing the industry as a viable or desirable career.

At a result of our ‘investment’ we believe we understand this.  It is at the front and centre of our dedication to change and making a positive impact on the industry as a whole. Ultimately, we love what we do – our people told us why they came to work, it was simply ‘all about giving the guest magical and meaningful experiences’.  They also told us they love the forest environment and its restorative benefits for work and play.   This information coupled with what they needed to thrive and work is ‘GOLD DUST’ and our guide to take our business forward.

We must demonstrate that we genuinely care about the lives of our team and be realistic about the challenges we face in realising real change.  For us one of the key components to this is communication – we are not afraid to be honest.  We are not giving false promises to candidates and painting a picture of a perfect working environment – we are telling them about our journey and our vision for the future and inviting them to join us on our continued voyage.

If we can work together to foster a more humane approach to managing the work lives of our people, the corner stone of our businesses, then we have a chance of re-opening the industry with an almighty bang, set to give our guests truly enriching experiences and it will be our people who will determine the end to this story.