Creating a Culture of Welcome: How We Engaged Employees to Delight Guests - Edward Mady

Josiah: One of the things I've been fascinated to explore on this show is what it takes to welcome people well, because the first moments of interacting with a guest often set the tone for the rest of their time with you. But as a hospitality leader, you need to think about more than just orchestrating a welcome. You need to think about how you can create an internal culture that enables this in a consistent but personal way. I couldn't think of someone better to teach us about this than our guest today, Edward Mady. He is the author of Honing the Human Edge and the leader of iconic properties such as the Beverly Hills Hotel. I really appreciated the chance to hear his insight on not only providing welcome to guests, but to associates and the practical things he did to enable that. So without further ado, let's get into it.

[intro]

Josiah: You've led some of the most iconic hotels in the world that are renowned for the welcome that guests experience. What's the culture behind that? How do you create a culture that enables that?

Edward: So there's a, there's always a few ingredients, but a culture is a quiet voice in the room. And if we understand that this is how we do things around here, what keeps the standards high when nobody's watching? And so how do you do that? It's all in the selection process right out of the gate. And you have to be able to pick the right people. You have to put them through some formalized bootcamp for the lack of another word. If he worked 2080 hours a year, every company should spend 10% of their time, 208 hours a year of training, education, learning, getting everyone to understand what are the minimum standards that you want to be able to operate in. You know, the beautiful thing and what's hard to follow is that the strongest cultures are often the softest forces. Because when Horace was doing his thing of creating the Ritz-Carlton brand way back when, he created a philosophy that we use for Baldrige. And so, you know, the best cultures turn standards into instincts. And the moment that you have people using their instincts to personalize and customize the experience, but it's not only just for the customer, it's also for themselves. So my golden rule, 14 words, and the 14 words are remember me, recognize me, anticipate my needs, give me what I want on time. So an example story I always enjoy talking about, what is February 14th? And you ask everyone, what is February 14th? Well, that's Valentine's Day. And so he says, okay, so what happens when you decide to give your significant other a point of recognition on February 15th? He didn't remember, he didn't recognize, he didn't anticipate, and he didn't do it on time. So you're sleeping on the sofa. Either way, when you can remember, recognize, anticipate on time are the foundational aspects of creating a good culture. So whether you're doing a personal side or whether someone's checking in, you need to remember. So let's talk to the sleep experience versus making a room. So what is it that happens when the room attendant knows to turn down the left side of the bed? A lot of hotels probably turn down the bed where the phone is, on that side of the bed. But I don't like to sleep on that side of the bed. I want to sleep on the left side of the bed. So you put the water on the left side of the bed, you put the slippers, you put the chocolate, you turn down that left side. But it's not only Francesca, the room attendant, that did it on an obscure Wednesday that the guest checked in. It's also done on, when Francesca's off and another room attendant, we know how to create a sleep experience, not just making up the room and cleaning it and so forth. So, I mean, that experience comes in a variety of ways, and that's all part of the culture. And if you're going through your rivals and you're going through the different aspects of understanding what are your customer requirements and creating that customization, and then you're always on top of, culture drives all that. So go back half a step, selection, education, training, and learning. You put them through the daily lineups on a daily basis of understanding what do we need to know today, who's arriving and so forth, who's departing. And then you certify people. You put them through a process of having them experience this little thing called pride. Are you proud of where you're working? And so when people start talking about five-star, five-diamond standards, well, those, okay, are awards that you receive from different agencies, but you want to create a culture that what happens, and I've heard this on more than one occasion, I've taken the culture from my work and I've taken it home to have my family understand that we want to create a culture with our family of how do we best treat each other? And what are the things that we shouldn't do? What are the things that we should do? Oh, by the way, this is what I learned at work today. So culture is one of those quiet voices. I think I put in the book that culture is a social tacit order of an organization. And so when you really want to get the culture right, everything else becomes easier because you don't have to remember anything. You're just like, you know, it doesn't cost anything to be nice. It doesn't cost anything for you to understand that culture isn't just what your team learns, it's what your customer experiences. And those are the experiences that you want to remember me, recognize me, anticipate my needs, give me what I want on time. You know, it doesn't matter whether it's retail, whether it's hospital, it doesn't, you know, any industry. It's that human connection. That is extremely important. And if you can create a human connection and you get the purpose, and I'll close with this, purpose is about elevating your significance. And how do you elevate everyone's significance? But here's the key. How do you get everybody in the whole hotel to do that? Every day, seven days a week. But you're not going to have every day as a perfect day. So, you know, there's 365 days in the year. Hey, even if you score 90% off that 365, you've done a pretty good job.

Josiah: That's great, Ed. I wonder if we could spend just a few moments talking about something that I find extraordinary about your leadership, and that is showing hospitality to your associates, to your team members, because the culture that you have described has many inputs. You've touched on some of them. I feel one of them is the way that you show hospitality to them. And I think it's something that every hospitality leader can look at. I wonder specifically, if you can share the story of when you took over leadership for the Beverly Hills Hotel, and what you noticed about the employer, the associate experience there, because my understanding is you saw some things that you said, this needs to change in terms of how we're showing hospitality to our team members.

Edward: Well, that's, it's a cool, it's a cool subject because that property is over, um, what's it born in 1912. So it's 113 years. I was the seven 16th or 17th general manager for the history of the hotel. So you're clearly a custodian. When you walk the red carpet, you might as well duplicate the whole experience of that arrival at the employee entrance. And that's what I did. I created the red carpet at the employee entrance. A little bit more than that. We created the quarter century club. Quarter century club are the employees that have been there for 25 years or more. I've done that in a couple of properties. But at the employee entrance, we also put plaques, picked their pictures, their years of service when they started. We would have welcome to work experiences where we would have coffee early in the morning and donuts and soda and so forth in the afternoon shift. We would have the exec committee welcome them to work. So it was the whole process of making sure that you did the welcome to work. program, but you wanted to create the same arrival process at the employee entrances you would have for the guest. Type in some music, and then you would do this quarterly. And then at the certain point of the year, you would have a quarter century club event, and you would give the employees, like the men we used to outfit with jackets, so different than masters at the golf tournament, where they give you a green jacket, you would give a jacket with a crest on the pocket in the front, and the ladies would have an opportunity to select a jewelry of some sort that, you know, clearly with a predetermined price, make no mistake, you know, let's never confuse kindness as weakness. And you want to be kind to your people. Okay. And it's as easy as anything to look at that quarter century club, the pride that you create, and then people that have been there. And I want to say that 30 At one point, I think it was about 25% of the team was there for more than 25 years.

Josiah: That's extraordinary. And especially in a world where so many in hospitality are struggling with turnover. This is how you create a culture where people feel engaged, they feel meaning, they can show up and provide the best sort of hospitality. And the numbers back it up. I can include a link to the Harvard Business Review article on this topic. But my understanding is that By doing things like this, the numbers reflected it. So employee engagement rose by 12%, you know, kind of as a result of some of these changes. And so there's, there's so many business benefits for operating this way. It's not only the right thing to do, but it's the business benefits as a result.

Edward: Yeah. The business benefits. And just to add on to that, it doesn't matter what hotel I've taken over or supported in consulting and so forth. I would always audit everything. Everything. Audit the guest experience with a silent stay, you look at the balance sheet, you look at the employee experience, you look at everything and anything. You have a baseline. When someone says you're doing a lousy job compared to what? When somebody says you're doing a good job compared to what? And then you establish that bar that you want to go to. And everybody always has a bar that they want to do better, but they don't know what better is until you explain to them where they're starting from. And so always starts with culture. If I were to divide the book into a few categories, I would go culture, customer, strategy, leadership team. Phases of change of orientation, disorientation, resolution and continuity, and then at the same time, crises. So when you wrap everything together in any business model, it doesn't matter whether it's hotels or any retail, hospitals, healthcare, you know, it just doesn't matter. You have to start off with what is your culture? And if you ask somebody, what is the culture of your place of business? And they go, hmm, let me think about that. Or some, you say, what is the culture at home? And, um, you know, you start to look at various things. You know, I'm, I'm on the board for Joe Torre safe at home foundation and both domestic abuse and so on. It's something very near and dear. And Joe has been a great friend and he also endorsed a honing the human edge. So it's a interesting thing when you start looking at culture, which is the driver and you welcome that employee at the back door as a general manager, or you're at the front lines. of dealing with that crisis. You're looking at people that are on your team. You're no different than they are. You're just there to support and have presence.