Hotel Elms Christchurch has been in business since the 1980’s, to have a track record that long in the hotel sector you have to ensure you offer a quality experience to your guests, consistently. The business offers accommodation, but also conference rooms and caters to a range of guests, from leisure travelers, to corporate and inbound groups and with plenty of competition in the market, they need to keep delivering the product and service their guests have grown to expect.
We spoke to Anothony Moore, who oversees the business and their 45 staff as General Manager and asked him about what makes them tick and keep their employees at the top of their game.
We asked how he can maintain the reputation and standards that their repeat guests expect, his response was simple “If your people are happy, and they enjoy being here and looking after the guests it’s 60% of the equation. The product is the remainder” With some of their people having worked there for a long time, “including our house keeper since the day it opened” it comes down to employees feeling valued.
Anthony is always looking for ways to attract, retain good people. He reflected “When I met Steven and discovered the HealthNow product, I thought it would be relevant to the entire Hotel industry in general. If the product is good and it works well, why wouldn’t you want to keep your staff healthy and happy?”
“If they don’t feel happy and comfortable coming to work, and feel valued then it’s difficult to make the rest of it work”
“If they don’t feel happy and comfortable coming to work, and feel valued then it’s difficult to make the rest of it work”. Any of our team could get a job elsewhere, so we have to ensure they want to be here”
“Pay is an important factor, and we remunerate our people at the higher end of industry benchmarks, but it’s necessary for us to ensure we recruit and retain the right people. Before HealthNow we would see some people coming to work sick, and staying away for longer. Things like teeth, whilst covered by ACC there is still a surcharge that isn’t funded”. Anthony wanted to help their people with those sorts of situations and have started with a simple $10 per week contribution per person for their team.
Anthony takes the view that health and wellness needs are fairly broad and he has ensured his team have access to a wide range of providers and sectors on their cards, although he does limit things like beauty therapies, as they are a stretch to their mantra of health and wellness and the impact those sorts of treatments have on the business is less tangible. “The ability to choose the sectors the contributions can be spent in is very powerful”.
“I found the onboarding really easy”
He has also found the process of onboarding straightforward, “I found the onboarding really easy” says Anthony, even some early questions from his team around the KYC (know your customer process which takes 2 minutes on an employees mobile phone) were easily resolved internally and the rollout has been a straightforward process.
Thank you Anthony and the whole Hotel Elms Christchurch team for your support and energy. We look forward to working with you to make HealthNow a game changer for your business.
