The Gallivant Hotel: creating a happy workplace

One standout example of a hotel that is creating a place where people truly, genuinely want to work, is The Gallivant hotel on the south coast of England in a place called Camber. This is a privately owned 40-room boutique hotel created by Harry Cragoe. Harry's mission statement is to "build the happiest team in hospitality".

In Harry's words, "I believe the happiest hospitality experiences are created and delivered by the warmth and sincerity of a team of people that genuinely enjoy making people happy. Whilst lovely bedrooms and bathrooms and an amazing plate of food are super important, I think they are genuinely secondary to the humanistic experience delivered by the individual. To stand any chance of achieving this, I realized pretty quickly that we needed a happy team because without a happy team, how can you create genuinely happy guests? We needed a deep-seated culture that was focused on fostering this from within". Harry wrote a wellness charter for the hotel, which is on the hotel's website, and he employs a Head of Wellness and Community. Remember this is a small hotel with just 40 rooms. During COVID, Harry believed that access to health advice, access to a gym, free wellness classes on site, subsidized smartwatches, healthy food, healthy cooking classes, days-off for birthdays, etc, were a necessity and not a luxury. He also set up an "inspiration fund", whereby if somebody has a bucket list item, something they've always wanted to do but have put off because they don't have the money, Harry will help fund it.

Harry also understands that people want to be recognized for what they do and to feel validated. They don't want to feel like they are just a cog in a big machine. At The Gallivant, every member of staff has their photo on the wall in the lobby of the hotel and on the website. This not only makes it easy for guests to create a relationship with staff, but also every time a guest-name checks an employee, that employee receives 10 pounds. Some staff are taking home an extra 200-300 pounds per month as a result. Harry acknowledges that his wage bill is over 1 million pounds, which for a 40 room hotel is seriously significant. He also points out, however, that a happy staff equals happy guests and the hotel's Trip Advisor's scores and other ratings certainly back this up. Harry also says that his business has not been adversely impacted by Brexit. Most of his staff come from the local area and they remain with the hotel far beyond the industry norm, which has the added benefit of saving him significant replacement costs when someone leaves. A lot of what Harry is doing at The Gallivant, is made possible because it is his hotel. He owns it, and he can decide how and where to spend his money. That said, a lot of bigger more institutional hotels can learn a lot from examples like Harry's on how to build and engender a culture that makes it easier to hire people and to keep them in the business. The challenges of attracting and retaining staff in the hotel industry are by no means unique to the UK. I travel and speak daily to hoteliers all over the world, and whether it is Singapore, Paris, or New York, the same issues are felt all the more acutely since COVID. In the UK, however, speak to any hotel general manager, and they will tell you that Brexit has made a tough situation even worse. Trying to find and train staff is the biggest headache for hoteliers, and it is noticeable in the service delivery. It doesn't matter if it's a Four Seasons or a Starbucks, service is subpar everywhere. Beyond the simple matter of having enough people to do the work, Brexit could well turn out to have other residual cultural impacts which may reveal themselves in the years to come. For example, over the last 20 years, London's restaurant scene has developed into one of the most vibrant food scenes in the world. Much of this is down to the influx of chefs and wait staff from other countries who brought their knowledge, culture, and hospitality ethic to the UK. Now they're no longer coming. We'll see if London loses its foodie status over time. In the meantime, industry bodies are busy lobbying government to fund more skills initiatives, more apprenticeship schemes as a means to attract more young British people into hotels, and also for a waiver to the visa situation in order to allow European workers back in. Other sectors such as healthcare are also struggling. But no immediate solution appears to be forthcoming from government.