Sunjae Sharma, area director, Hyatt Hotels in Western India and general manager Grand Hyatt Mumbai, on bringing to life Hyatt’s global purpose. BY SHAFQUAT ALI
Soda bottle. Yes, that’s what Sunjae Sharma, area director, Hyatt Hotels in Western India and general manager Grand Hyatt Mumbai, drew inspiration from when he set out to lead a unique pilot project at Grand Hyatt Mumbai. Part of Hyatt’s global transformational journey towards becoming a caring and purpose-driven organisation, it was a momentous task that aimed to bring to life care in its many forms and facets with a series of unique and revolutionary associate well-being and engagement initiatives.
Building on the thoughts, further to the global leaders’ vision, this pilot project required Sharma and his core management team at Grand Hyatt Mumbai to re-evaluate the way they approached colleagues, guests and all other stakeholders. And it was heralded by a series of overarching strategies that challenged the status quo mind-set and aligned actions to support Hyatt’s higher purpose i.e. care or quite simply “We care for people so they can be their best.”
“I gave this example of soda bottle and water to my team when we took on this historic task — our hotel was one of the few hotels around the world to be part of the pilot project — and started this initiative because we all know this industry is not a very easy industry,” explains Sharma. “We were clear in our mind that it’s not the what, it’s the how that makes the difference. In other words, it’s not what we wanted to do, it’s how we wanted to do it is that was going to differentiate us at Hyatt hotels at the end of the day.”
He adds: “Using the water and the soda bottle example, we discussed with the core management team at the hotel that if we can keep people like this — the effervescence which the soda bottle has, energised, always bubbly — then we are on the right track. By creating and keeping associates in that kind of environment we can ensure that they give every guest they come in contact with the distinctive caring Hyatt guest experience.”
“See, if our associates are not energised or, in other words, not like a soda bottle and the soda water in the soda bottle you see is flat then what you, as guests, are likely to see and experience is a mechanical drill… ‘Please come, we’ll take the check-in, what is your name, are you saying for two nights?’” Sharma continues. “We are in an industry that is all about an experience, interaction… it’s about a relationship which you form. As momentary as it may be, this unique experience that you deliver can convert into something much bigger — and that will only happen if an associate is enjoying what he or she is doing.”
In a nutshell, according to Sharma and his team, broadly this was the thinking behind the pilot project that was initiated at Grand Hyatt, sowing the seeds to revitalise the Hyatt brand around the world. “Well, it was not as easy as it seems,” Sharma is quick to add, “because we first had to find out how do we make people more comfortable, how do we give them more peace of mind? But we are proud to say that we have succeeded in doing all that we set out to do and today we have taken the next step and started introducing learnings from the pilot projects globally. It is now a journey and way of life.”
So, what has Sharma’s team at Grand Hyatt Mumbai done to keep the fizz going into the associates, elevate the guest experience and become a role model for Hyatt hotels?
It is no rocket science that associates are always doing things for people who are coming into the hotel but to reach a higher purpose, the team was quick to realise that they needed to do something more for associates. And doing so required them to go beyond the call of duty to ensure that the families of associates also got an equal share of what they did at the hotel. Accordingly, they started putting their thoughts into action.
To cut to the chase, they came up with various ways to make associates spend more time with their families and, among others, floated the historic idea of introducing two days off in a week for everybody. By all accounts, Grand Hyatt Mumbai is the only hotel in India to introduce the concept of eight monthly offs for each of the associates on payroll when the common hospitality industry practice in India is of six mandatory offs in a month!
While eight days off was a great idea, executing it had its fair share of challenges. More so as Hyatt mostly manages hotels in India. “We spoke to our associates, what they required, how it benefited them, spoke to all the unions, to the management, the owners, we spoke to everybody,” explains Shobhit Sawhney, hotel manager, Grand Hyatt Mumbai. But, perhaps, the biggest task was to convince the owners/developers that this would not increase cost nor would they have to hire more staff or, for that matter, worry about drop in productivity as a result of the move to five-day week.
The team had done their homework and they showed the owners/developers that despite adding another day’s weekly off, there was no impact on the staff output or performance as the associates were happy to go that extra mile and even double up as and when required because they could spend more time with their families and strike a great work-life balance.
“Keeping this vision in mind, we worked on the ambitious and historic project to find the ways and means of implementing eight weekly offs in a month for all our associates,” adds Sawhney. “The journey was very insightful as we also gathered invaluable feedback using extremely efficient tools such as empathy interviews and Hyatt Thinking but, in the end, we were elated to announce the successful introduction of eight weekly offs which also means a five-day working culture at Grand Hyatt Mumbai with effect from July this year.”
The logic behind introducing the five-day week culture at Grand Hyatt Mumbai was straightforward. “In India, this is the largest Hyatt property,” informs Sharma, going on to add, “so if we could do this here without affecting the bottom line or staff productivity and efficiency, we could be a source of inspiration for other Hyatt hotels in India to embrace the same.”
While there is no doubt that the biggest and most historic initiative was the introduction of a five-day week, it was not the only one. “To be truly meaningful, care starts before associates even come to the hotel… in fact, care starts at home,” explains Sharma. “In other words, if you care for your people/peers, they will care better for whom they get in touch with. It’s about people being happy and I wanted to spread happiness.”
Sharma and team then went a step further and started thinking beyond eight days week and looked at what he could do to see that, after striking the right work-life balance, the associate came to the hotel raring to go.
In addition, associates across all levels of hierarchy from hotel public areas who have direct interaction with guests were unleashed to take on-the-spot decisions to create an experience for guests without requiring any manager’s approval. This may be a random act like presenting a flower bouquet, a box of chocolate, making a small dessert complimentary, etc., but these acts will no doubt add to the guest delight and experience.
“We take pride in being a hotel of no noes,” adds Sharma. “As opposed to associates seeking permission to say a ‘yes’, our associates need to seek permission from their line managers to say ‘no’.”
Even though initiatives are bold, the obvious question is how did the team manage to still keep a lid on the cost and make these moves without supplementing staff strength? To achieve what the team wanted to achieve, they had to remodel a few processes so they decided to take out from the cup what was not required.
“What happened was that those things that used to take up time unnecessarily were removed from the list,” explains Sharma. “Once we simplified processes, we were easily able to achieve the output in one day what earlier required two days! To make life better, we stopped doing things that were not required. So, we decided to remove things which were not actually letting us provide a caring experience not only to our guests but to our associates as well.
“So, we started evaluating whether our processes were so lengthy that they are taking more time with administration work rather than spending time with the guest or they are not letting people do what can be their best. That’s how we started looking at everything — all procedures — with a microscope and went into each division, each department and started seeing what was not making sense. So, we said okay how can this be eliminated or something better can be introduced, which will actually help in caring rather than being an impediment in the process or in the way of caring for our people. We then listed down all those things — and it ran into reams and reams of paper and then we started crossing them — saying why do we need this? Do we really need this? We live in a trustful atmosphere, let’s trust each other. For instance, do we need to write an email every time? The answer was no, we don’t need to; we can just call. We looked at all these processes, procedures and started cancelling out.”
Result? A lot of unnecessary paperwork across all departments was removed and procedures across the board were simplified.
But that was not all. There were other major initiatives as well to bring fun back to work, including non-mandated fun — celebrating people every month. “The concept is that fun is never ending part of our work culture and we wish to keep our associates engaged throughout the year with fun activities every month which encourages team building and individual talent performances,” explains Roopesh Rajan, area director, human resources, Hyatt Hotels, West India.
He adds: “Earlier, we used to have this whole thing once year called ‘Celebrating our people’ but then, throughout the year, there used to be just those three days where you were actually doing things. So, we thought why were we forcing people on those three days only to do it? Why was celebration not a part of daily life? Hence, we decided to introduce this whole concept of non-mandated fun. Now, fun is something that is continuous and consistent and fun at work is one of our core values in Hyatt.”
The array of fun activities and events now range from cultural fests, family days, carnivals, talent hunts, sports, food festivals and more, in addition to the existing engagement activities in place. This was a significant change and hugely enhanced the associate morale, helping inculcate the sense of family/ belonging amongst them.
In addition, the following steps were also taken:
A ‘Game Zone’ that was accessible 24×7 for associates to relax in a comfortable and colourful environment was introduced. Elements like music, beanbags and couch are present here. Newspaper and magazines are there for interested readers and associates can engage with each other over a game of chess, carrom, scrabble, dartboard, computer games, etc.
The associates’ restaurant, Mirch Masala, has become a venue for culinary celebration every month where a themed food festival is celebrated with especially curated menu, ambience music, and fun seating arrangement.
The existing grooming guidelines were made available with new options while still maintaining service standards. For example, new shades were approved for nail paints for female associates.
New joiners in the organisation were welcomed by the leadership committee members of the hotel over a breakfast/lunch session rather than an introduction session at training rooms. This acted as a moment to break the ice and help generate confidence in new associate’s mind about approaching leadership committee members freely for any help.
In the corridors of the associate entrance of hotel, a wall is decorated with an artwork to welcome colleagues with a sense of grandeur. The objective of the artwork is to create a unique arrival experience ‘for our colleagues, by our colleagues’. On a monthly basis, each division unleashes its creativity on canvas.
Apart from the scheduled tea/coffee breaks in the day for the associates, hot refreshments are available now throughout the day with enhanced selection of masala tea, ginger tea, green tea, etc.
Associates from hotel lobby public areas like F&B service, bell desk, and security team have been made part of a new initiative to support with guest check-in apart from the existing front desk associates. They have been trained accordingly to support front desk staff during busy periods.
In an enhancement to track the preferences of guests #InAHyattWorld, the GEM (Guest Experience Management) tool has been introduced to record guest preferences across Hyatt hotels globally, allowing associates to create a memorable experience for regular guests before their arrival or during their stay.
Given that Sharma and his team have possibly looked into everything to take care of the associates, there is little doubt that associates will, in turn, take better care of guests.
