The Arabian generosity as an everyday HR practice

For the past few weeks, we’ve been discussing here in great length what “bringing centuries-old Arabian traditions of welcoming and generosity to today’s world” means to us, at Amsa Hospitality.

In my last two posts, I explained first what it implies in terms of building and interior design, followed by everything related to service standards.

On the other hand, we should never forget that a hotel is more than a beautiful building and superb themes and designs. A hotel is first and foremost about people. People as guests and people to attend to these guests. This is the reason why, by the way, I never understood how come so many hotels and hospitality groups promote their properties showing empty buildings, while our industry should be first and foremost represented by a genuine smile.

But that’s a discussion for another day. Or is it?

At Amsa Hospitality, we are proud of our carefully developed to the last detail buildings, interior design, and innovative service standards. We are prouder of those men and women who bring it all to life.

This is the reason why our colleagues are our number one concern, before décor and standards.

The way we look at it is simple, but efficient: Everyone in a hotel is as important as their colleague, regardless of their position: The General Manager is the conductor who ensures that all work in the right direction, and helps everyone whenever needed because they are the most experienced of all. On the other hand, the Room Attendant, the Steward or the Pool Boy, for instance, are as important as they are attending to guests (directly or indirectly), and the quality of their work has the highest immediate impact on guests’ satisfaction:

• Would guests be satisfied if they see dust on their room furniture or hair in the sink?

• Would they be satisfied if their plate or glass are not well cleaned?

• Would they be satisfied if they find hair and other debris floating in the pool?

Of course not! In their own right, within their own level of responsibility, the Room Attendant is as important as the General Manager.

At Amsa Hospitality, we recognize it, and our Human Resources policies reflect it.

We organize our people management following three clear paths:

• Their work environment

• Their work interpersonal relationships

• Their career development

To start with, what do we mean by work environment? I believe it is clear by now that Amsa Hospitality deals with the best interior architects, decorators, and artists to propose to guests the best possible environment for the best possible feeling.

Why should this beautifully inspired Arabian style décor stop at the back-office door? It shouldn’t: Before any element of décor or carefully crafted scent, it is through the way our colleagues relate to guests that the latter enjoy this unique Arabian tradition of welcoming and generosity. For these colleagues to be able to live and share a culture which is not necessarily theirs, they need to be constantly surrounded by the best of the Arab civilization has to offer.

We know that employees only areas must be wide and robust enough to support Room-service trolleys crossing the path of food delivery, colleagues starting or ending their shifts, while engineers carry ladders and banqueting waiters bring the décor, tables, chairs, and AV equipment for the next big meeting… all of that and more at the same time! Yet, we ask Arab artists to decorate these walls in a way that can be easily reproduced from one hotel to the next, thus bringing a true sense of belonging and proudness to all of our colleagues: The Housekeeping area is designed by one artist, while another one decorated the F&B zone, and so on for Engineering or Administration… Amsa Hospitality is one of the very few hotels groups in the world that can proudly states that its employees work among art pieces.

Needless to say that all these décor elements respect HACCP principles and rules to its tiniest aspects.

We want all our colleagues, regardless of their position, to feel good, to feel that they belong to Amsa Hospitality great vision, that the success of the company is their success.

Working among pieces of Arabian art, front and back office, is one thing. It makes you feel good and proud. But that’s not enough. What good is it if you hate your colleague with whom you need to work side by side with, or if your supervisor or manager scares you? We also need to pay attention to interpersonal relationships.

As it is at Amsa Hospitality’ head office, the hotels’ Human Resources Departments are trained to address any possible interpersonal conflict – between colleagues of the same rank or coming from managerial issues.

We implement tools and practices allowing us to monitor employees’ satisfaction almost daily: We took the now traditional employees satisfaction survey and brought it to an altogether higher level.

We want all our colleagues, regardless of their position, to feel and be happy to come to work every day – the only way to ensure constant guests full satisfaction.

It therefore means that we are not only assessing our colleagues technical skills, but also their interpersonal competences and necessary improvements. The ‘together’ motto that starts systematically all of Amsa Hospitality core Values must be as important to each hotels’ employees as it is to our head office colleagues.

To that end, we provide regular interpersonal skills training courses to all teams, adapted to each position and rank. You work better, you can better concentrate on your duties and possible future career when you are happy at work.

Beyond interpersonal training courses, supervisors and managers are trained to constantly assessing their team members skills and level to better them: A minimum of three corporate training courses per year, provided by Amsa Hospitality Academy’ certified trainers, are given to all employees. These courses aim at ensuring the same level of quality between our properties. In addition to that, supervisors and / or managers provide a minimum of two hours training per week focusing on each colleague weaknesses to help them build a strong hospitality career, while ensuring full guests satisfaction.

Building a strong hospitality career is also important to ensure our colleagues well-being. As mentioned before, Amsa Hospitality hotels’ Human Resources Departments, managers and supervisors constantly assess their teams’ competencies. This allows us to always improve guests satisfaction, but also to propose to those of our colleagues who may be interested to build a career with Amsa Hospitality first, and then within our industry: As revealed by countless studies, we recognize that the youngest generations (Y and Z) are not inclined to spend all their careers with the same company. Nevertheless, Amsa Hospitality must be acknowledged as the hotel group that cares and does the most to assist those who wish to build a career through a well-defined path, adapted to each individual personal life vision and aspirations.

Amsa Hospitality vision of “bringing the Arabian centuries-old traditions of welcoming and generosity to today’s world” means a lot more than it seems at first: It is a comprehensive project that entails all aspects of what a hospitality group should be about – from specific interior design elements to service standards and extensive human resources management.

At the end of the day, Amsa Hospitality is true to its Arabian roots of welcoming and generosity: We care. We care for our traditions, we care for those working hard to make Amsa Hospitality a success story, we care for our guests.