Building a Workplace People Love: Inside Pacifica Hotels’ Playbook for Reducing Turnover - Scott Roby, Pacifica Hotels

Josiah: If you're curious about what it takes to build a workplace culture that people love working in, you're going to love this episode. It's very timely given the recent data on how turnover and hospitality continues to climb. Our guest today, Scott Roby, president at Pacifica Hotels, believes the answer to creating a place that people want to work lies in really understanding and valuing your team members. Today, Scott takes us inside the playbook of how they're doing this at Pacifica Hotels, sharing how thoughtful experiences, careful communication, and empathetic leadership can transform workplace culture, dramatically reduce turnover, and ultimately elevate hotel business performance. Let's get into it. 

[intro]

Scott: It starts with how we take care of our team members, right? And we've got to show the example of what we expect. So if I take you back to our retreat in March, which we did up in Lake Arrowhead, kind of a very unique setting. It was kind of a camp feeling. We call it Camp Pacifica. But we had done this game before we went and we did it about a month out. It was just a series of seven questions. We just want to get to know you. What's your favorite candy bar? What's your favorite adult beverage? What's a guilty pleasure? What's a bucket list item? Just a couple little tidbits. And we didn't say why we were asking. We were just soliciting the information. So we collected all of that, right? And then we got that back to all of the people leaders in the company who had people that were attending this retreat. And we said, we'd like you to write a handwritten note of appreciation and pick one of these things that are on their list and drop it in their backpack so that when they check in and they get their name tag and they get their merch bag, there's something from their leader that shows that they were specifically thought of and that it was personalized. Because what we want to do is we want to show them how to do that. And we want them to carry that back to the hotel and figure out how can we do that for our guests. So that's maybe a take on what I think a lot of people in hospitality do great. It's like, oh, we want to provide personalized experiences. We want to make that one-on-one connection. But we were really trying to be purposeful in how we did that and how we showed it.

Josiah: I love that you went there with your answer because there's something that's been on my mind a lot recently. I'd love your perspective on, and that is around how do we not only attract people into the business? It's been a perennial problem of recruiting into hospitality, but how do we keep people engaged and feeling like they're valued? Because I was looking at one of the latest jobs reports from the labor statistics that just came out a few weeks ago. Quits in hospitality are twice the national average. And I think it's like 84% of total new job openings were in the world of hospitality. So it's interesting. It's like everybody in hospitality seems to be hiring, but people are quitting, which makes me just ask the question, how do we turn that around? I'm curious from your perspective, either in the work you're doing now or just more generally, how do we address this issue of high turnover and how are you thinking about making Pacifica a great place to work?

Scott: Yeah. So we actually are just fresh off of learning that we were named by the Orange County Business Journal one of the best places to work here in Orange County. So we're super excited about that honor. And it's a repeat from last year.

Josiah: Congrats.

Scott: Thank you. So it's super important to us and look, at an operating company, management company level, we have a few things to differentiate ourselves, right? We have our people, we have our platform, our technology and our processes of how we use it. Everybody's managing hotels. How do we do it differently? And so the key for us is how do we attract and retain, to your point, the highest and best caliber talent? Because we're only going to be as good as our people. And so we do things like what I talked about with the retreat and the game and personal connections and really having people be part of the process of, hey, we're trying to solve this problem. How can we pull our GM council together and take our highest performing general managers with a variety of perspectives to say, this is the problem we're trying to solve. Or why don't you tell us what problem you want us to focus on and we'll put our heads together and talk about it. So I think really engaging people in the process and helping them understand that they're not here to just go to work, do this specific job according to their job description, but how can they make the company better? And how can they make this a more exciting and engaging spot for guests to come, for team members to come? But it all starts with, we've got to take great care of our team members and that word gets out. And then people are attracted because they're like, I want to be part of that.

Josiah: I love it. I didn't want this conversation to be too duplicative of the last one we had, but I have to say, Scott, what you're sharing around story and just communication has stuck with me since that conversation. And I'm curious if I'm just thinking about what you just shared right now, to what extent does communication and the way you communicate empower and underscore everything that you just said? How do you think about story in this context?

Scott: Yeah, I mean, I think I go to Simon Sinek's start with why, right? We have a lot of change here at Pacifica this year. It has been frankly more change than I expected. And it's maybe even been a little faster than I expected, but that causes concern, uncertainty. And it's interesting, I've been using the word stabilization, right? Because to me coming in, I sort of said, look, 2025 is our year of stabilization. We're going to get the people in the right seats on the bus. We're going to make sure our technology stack is clean and right. We're going to make sure our processes are good. We're just going to do some general housekeeping and make sure that we're on the right track. And so I viewed that as stability. And as I was looking myself in the mirror as months went by, I started to realize what might be stability for me or the path to stability actually was probably the opposite for those people that have been here. And I got on an all company call about a month ago and I just owned it. I said, look, I've been talking a lot about stability and stabilization, but I want to honor what you probably have been feeling, which is this feels anything but stable. You have witnessed a lot of change. You've witnessed senior leaders exiting the organization. You've witnessed new senior leaders coming into the organization. You've witnessed technology going away. You've witnessed partnerships going away that maybe weren't suiting us. There's been a ton of change. And I just want to honor that and tell you that it is all for the betterment of the company, and we are going the right direction. Have faith, have patience, we will continue to communicate openly. But I just want to pause here and honor the fact that I've been using this word that might not be resonating with you. So it's taking opportunities like that to just be authentic and assess everything that you're doing. And when you realize, hey, maybe I was saying the wrong thing, just owning it and telling a story around that and connecting it to how are people feeling.

Josiah: I like that. I mean, you're a very strategic guy, Scott, and I think hearing the empathetic way that you balance that, I think things like starting with why and talking about the right people in the right seats on the bus and stuff like that make sense from a strategic perspective, but there's emotions associated with these kind of changes and so recognizing, I think what you didn't say, but is behind that is a lot of listening to people and then communicating that is amazing. So interesting to me, what I've observed about your leadership, Scott, you ask really good questions and I'm curious if you have any other favorite questions that you have found insightful in not only your journey at Pacifica or ones that you tend to ask team members that you find give you a real insight into how they're thinking and feeling and opportunities that might exist in the organization.

Scott: Yeah, I mean, look, the simplest one is that I ask two questions a lot. What's bugging you? What's getting in your way? And the stuff that comes up is just so simple. Like, oh, when we put in mileage into the system, we have to take this extra step and do a manual process. It's like, okay, well, go to the person responsible. Why do we do that? I don't know. That's the way we've done it. And so you look at those things. It's like, okay, people maybe are waiting to be asked. And so it's like, hey, if my job as the leader in the organization is to enable you to reach your full potential, part of that is giving you challenges that stretch your thinking and stretch your perspective, but it's also removing hurdles. And so we've got to ask questions on what's getting in your way. What can I do to remove a hurdle? So that's one question. And then the other one is just super simple, which is what can I do to help you? What do you need from me? And so at the end of every single one-on-one, that's the question I ask, what can I do to support you?

Josiah: I love those.