Boosting Morale with Fun: The Impact of Wellness Wednesdays at Cameo Beverly Hills

Khadi:
My name is Khadi. I'm here at the Cameo as the sales and catering administrator. And I help and assist all the managers, sales managers, and directors in sales just sell and on the administrative side.

Saida:
Hi, my name is Saida, I'm working here about one year. I started as a guest service agent and then recently got a promotion and now I'm an accountant one, so I'm dealing with accounts payable, accounts receivable, all the invoices, which is very, very interesting for me and something new.

Amy:
My name is Amy Salvago. I'm the director of Human Resources here at Cameo Beverly Hills.

Jared:
Hello, my name is Jared. I work at Cameo as a guest service experience planner, aka concierge. I'll do things like set up guest rooms to curate their experience and it's been very fun.

Josiah:
I love it. You might have to come back to that. I feel like there's a lot of balloons behind him. This is just another day in the office.

Jared:
It is just another day. Just like we have a whole bunch of weddings, we'll have a whole bunch of people asking if we can decorate rooms for special occasions. This one in particular is a one-year anniversary and he actually came here last year to do a date thing, so he liked that experience and I'm glad I can continue that for him.

Josiah:
Awesome. Well, I'm excited to hear all about this. Amy, what's so fun for me is I feel like I tuned into LinkedIn, and I see some of the posts that you create around Wellness Wednesday. Tell us a little bit about what Wellness Wednesday is here at this hotel?

Amy:
Wellness Wednesday is really just a chance each week for us all to get together and create some endorphins basically, whether it be through physical activity or by playing a game and laughing, and getting those kinds of endorphins, but just 15, 20 minutes out of the day to get together, catch up on our personal lives, and just have some fun.

Josiah:
I feel like having fun is important because I feel like in any line of work there's some fun parts and there's also some parts that are stressful or could [inaudible 00:02:48] adjustment. Reconnecting with that with each other I feel like is an important piece of it, but what are some of the programs that you've run here so far?

Amy:
Sure. So this week we just went on a walk around the block, which has become a favorite of everybody's. And actually, I think for the rest of the month, maybe the rest of the year, we're just going to do walks around the block because the weather's pulling off and it's really nice just to be in the neighborhood chat, get some fresh air, certainly some vitamin D is great.

Amy:
We also do things like life-size bowling, which has been really fun. So we got inflatable bowling pins and bowling balls and just throw them. We do bingo, which is a lot of fun because when we do games like that, we have prizes that everybody gets really excited about. It's usually like Starbucks Cards or something like that, so that's a lot of fun. We do jump rope as well and sometimes incorporate treats. We'll have ice cream out there for people. Hula-Hoop is another fun one.

Khadi:
Yeah, we did badminton.

Amy:
Badminton. That's really fun as well. Yeah, love that.

Khadi:
We know them all.

Josiah:
I'd love to hear from what is this felt like as you do your day and then you have these breaks? What is moments once they feel like?

Khadi:
Well, it allows us to a little bit break from our routine and get with the people that we don't often see during the day, or we don't have the opportunity to speak with. When we work with them, we don't work with them, so it's like a very nice moment that you can reconnect with your colleagues and have some activities going and the different activities that we do. It allows us to a little bit of laughter, a little bit of physical activities, so it's very nice to just be able to get out of your office and see people and chat with them.

Josiah:
I love it.

Saida:
Yeah, it's like a little getaway from the work environment to chat with our colleagues since everyone is from the different departments. Then restore our energy, have some fun and get back to work.

Jared:
Yeah. It can definitely be a reset working at the front desk, like customer interfacing throughout the day. Not to say that it can get tedious, but it can be draining. And then Wellness Wednesday comes around, it's like, "Okay, let's take a walk around the block." It's just, "Okay, I needed that reset now I feel like I can get through the rest of the day." And they didn't actually mention, but we've also played dodgeball, which was really fun.

Amy:
Oh, yes.

Khadi:
Oh my God.

Amy:
Yeah. That's a good stress reliever.

Jared:
Yeah, it's very good stress reliever. And very competitive too.

Josiah:
Very competitive. Do you all play on property here?

Jared:
Yeah, so we have a ballroom on the 12th floor open space. So you can really let loose. It's very nice.

Josiah:
Well, you touched on something that's interesting to me because when we're providing hospitality and providing service, it is a giving out of ourselves. So you felt like you got to keep that battery full somehow?

Jared:
Yes, exactly. And that definitely refuels me every time. After we'll do a Wellness Wednesday, she'll give us a little popsicle and it's just like, "I like this little treat."

Saida:
I like ice cream.

Josiah:
Tell me a little bit more about how you thought about reconnecting with your colleagues and with others can do this.

Saida:
It's really enjoyable since we are in the office environment working in dancers. And whenever it's a Wellness day, we really enjoy it. It's on Wednesdays and also Wednesday, our pink day, so we need to wear something pink, which is also cool every time we need to change showing up. So our colleagues from different departments, so we aren't able to see all of them during a work.

Saida:
However, the Wednesday days on wellness day, this is the time we can reconnect with them. Some news, chitchat, have fun together, enjoy with our... Every time it's a different thing on a wellness day. For example, I have enjoyable musical chairs because I want it, so it was super fun when we were listening to music, dancing around, making some jokes and-

Josiah:
I love it. [inaudible 00:06:52]-

Saida:
... the best teams here 'cause we're all competitive at this team.

Josiah:
Have you got to know things about your colleagues? I think you don't pick up just in day-to-day work when you're doing some of these activities?

Khadi:
Yeah. Well, it's not often that we talk about things that we do on our personal life and things that we do for fun, so well, just for example, this last month, it was Halloween, so we discussed about our costumes and, "I got ideas from Wellness Wednesdays for my own costumes." So it's like it's beneficial in many ways.

Josiah:
What was the costume?

Saida:
Oh my God.

Josiah:
I was just curious.

Saida:
I was going to be Goldilocks and then my boyfriend was going to be the bear, one of the bears, but he had to leave for another country, so I was the bear. And it was a Barbie theme, so I was bearbie.

Josiah:
That's very [inaudible 00:07:49].

Saida:
You'll never see any bearbie.

Jared:
Hospitality to me is giving out of the goodness of your heart without necessarily expecting anything back. I do it for the reactions that people give me, not to say, "I'm looking for a thank you, I'm looking for a good job." But it definitely does feel good knowing that you've made somebody's experience better.

Josiah:
Yeah. It fills you up. [inaudible 00:08:19]. It's cool to hear about how the program of Wellness Wednesday because [inaudible 00:08:24] providers, we do have to talk ourselves up, but there's also some of that getting that energy back, people observing too, and so that's where... I think it's really fun business to be in.

Jared:
And to add Wellness Wednesdays shout-outs to Amy, it definitely keeps our imagination going, which helps I feel like no matter what aspect of life that you're dealing with.