Day in The Life Experience

At IHG, I was lucky enough to go back and enjoy a full day experience at being at the heart of the hotel business.  This initiative was designed in-house by the Winning Culture team to provide a mix of experiences that help to demonstrate how our hotels operate both from a guest experience and from a hotel colleague perspective. 

I happened to be at one of Singapore's leading hotel - Holiday Inn Orchard City Centre on December 08, 2015. This hotel is part of the wider portfolio of hotels at Harilela Hotels and completed 30 years in August this year. The group was lead by the visionary, late Dr Hari Harilela. 

My role was to be a Business Development Manager for a day. Very nostalgic as one point in time from 20012-2005, I was indeed the Business Development Manager for this hotel and sourcing business in India for this and rest of the Harilela Hotels portfolio.

The day started by getting a quick deep dive on the Holiday Inn brand from the HR team. It was good to understand on how an employee is onboarded on the brand at the property level. And then was the hotel tour. 

This was followed by the most exciting - "Morning Meeting". Back in my hotel days, this used to be an exciting start to the day. And while the styles and formats have evolved, the excitement is still there. The hotel had some great results to share for  the previous night but personally what I liked was the immense focus on the Guest Experience at the hotel. Jagdeep Thukral has eye to detail and spends a quick fire 20-30 minutes discussing what matters most in a hotel - The Guest and Guest Experience. While numbers are important, his focus is always on what needs to be done to get things right for the guest. So what's discussed is guest feedback, guest complaints, VIP Arrivals, Rooms Blocked, etc. Jagdeep feels that anything beyond this duration will start impacting the productive time of the entire ExCom. If there are any particular cases that needs to be discussed eg. a HR case, he prefers to take them offline with the HR Manager rather then having this discussed in the morning meeting.

Jagdeep follows up this morning meeting by a flash 15 minute recap meeting in the evening at 5 pm. The ExCom takes notes based on the morning meeting, research on the cases and come back with the resolutions by evening. Very simple and very effectively happens at this hotel. And there are times when the things can not be sorted out within the day and for these cases, the plan of action is proposed and time lines are set.

So when do they discuss hardcore numbers. Well there is a Revenue Meeting and a Revenue Room meeting where in the deepdive happens, trends are discussed, action points are made, tactical promotions are discussed and more importantly long term strategic plans are made. And this covers Rooms, F&B and any other Revenue Function that can make an impact to the bottom line.

Post the Morning Meeting, I was able to spend some time with Sharon Ang who is been with the company for last 29 years and has driven the hotel to Being #1. It was interesting to revisit in pictures on how the sales teams have celebrated Christmas in the last decade, visiting client offices, singing carols, distributing goodies!! Such great creativeness and fun!!

Lunch was at Tandoor and it's always a gastronomical delight to be here. But the food can be heavy, so always good to balance the meal (And I had to go for a big run in the evening to burn those calories!!)

We were on the road post lunch and did a sales call to get on the ground experience. Did some research on the internet to get some insights on the company, on what they do and how their past Q3 results have been. Always handy to strike a conversation. It was good to meet the client, understand their needs, their expectations and most importantly their outlook for the next year in Singapore market.

Back at hotel, I spent some time with the Quality & Continuous Improvement Manager and it was good to understand on how the hotel prepares itself for the Brand Audits. How they work towards the mystery audits, the plan of action for the areas that require attention. 

I recapped the day with the GM, sharing some insights over the day's experience.

I got an opportunity to thank some of the members of the team who are doing a great job at the hotel bringing to life Great Hotels Guest Love!!

A day well spent!!

Thanks to the HR Team at IHG!!