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Into the HR strategies of Westin Hitec City’s ‘ALL-WOMEN Operated Hotel’
Aradhya points out that as their business is in the public domain, they have been very mindful that the performance evaluation is done directly by the people walking into the hotel. "We cannot compromise on the quality and the parameters of any job roles. Everything has been done bit by bit from hiring to training people to the level of what the job role requires. One needs to have much more patience to fill up the workforce, when you are working on a mission like this," she says.
The Westin Hyderabad Hitec City launched by Chalet Hotels (a part of K Raheja Group) in partnership with Marriott International has a distinctive identity. This 168-key property is managed and operated by an all- women team, making it the first of its kind not only within the city but also within the brand's portfolio across South Asia. Started in June 2023, Westin Hitec has a staff strength of 110 employees as of February 2024. By offering an empowering platform for women, Chalet Hotels aims to challenge traditional norms and foster inclusivity in the hospitality sector. The firm's vision is to create an environment where talented women can excel, break barriers, and take up leadership positions traditionally dominated by men.
The thought process
Urvi Aradhya, Chief Human Resources Officer, K Raheja Corp, says, "It's the collective discussions of the management that we should be experimenting with an all-women-operated hotel. We had always envisaged that we needed to do something different, new, and more inclusive. Everyone worked towards it and focused on how we could do it, rather than looking at the reasons why we could not do it." The thought process behind this strategy is built bit-by-bit by assessing the market and the ecosystem. "Running a hotel is a vast operation that involves marketing, front office work, operations, etc. We wanted to do this because we felt there was a need to capitalise on women's strengths and we did this without compromising on the merits of selected candidates. We focused on the available skills in the market and invested in grooming the talent in their respective domains to take over this project," Aradhya says.
"This is the first time in our hotel portfolio that we have done this experiment. The feedback that we get from our customers is phenomenal and we are planning to continue this as an all-women- operated hotel in the future as well," she adds.
Talent hiring and challenges
Aradhya points out that as their business is in the public domain, they have been very mindful that the performance evaluation is done directly by the people walking into the hotel. "We cannot compromise on the quality and the parameters of any job roles. Everything has been done bit-by-bit from hiring to training people to the level of what the job role requires. One needs to have much more patience to fill up the workforce, when you are working on a mission like this. It will require a lot of effort and perseverance from the talent acquisition and the learning and development teams. The merit aspect of the candidates cannot be diluted at any cost," she says.
Commenting on how challenging it was to fill the women-talent in certain job roles, Aradhya says, "While seeing a lot of women in the hotel lobby, people would think getting women's talent into the hotel business is never a big problem. However, hotel operations are very complex. There are a lot of hardcore engineering roles like chiller operators and several roles in security functions where it's not very easy to get the right kind of people. Even finding women chefs is also challenging due to their talent availability compared to their male counterparts. Historically in personal life, women have been cooking at home, but when it comes to professional spaces, the chefs are mostly men."
The talent acquisition team went out for multiple channels and references. The organisation was also open to hiring women from non- hotel backgrounds as it was sure that going for the traditional hiring method never works for an intervention like this. It's a combination of 66 per cent freshers and 34 per cent lateral hires of talent additions in this quarter.
How different is an all-women-run hotel compared to others?
According to Aradhya, the major differentiating factor is the customer experience. "The hotel industry is about customers and the kind of value proposition and the customer experience we are giving to people who are walking into the hotel. We have been tracking the customer responses from the branch's inception. And the feedback that we get from here is overwhelmingly positive," she says.
Aradhya says that women's softer intrinsic quality gives them an edge in the hotel industry. "It could be because they have been traditionally groomed that way. Women inherently come with a little more eye for detail, and more passionate about the customer experience part of it. They have a little slight edge over men in this. Also, at times when customers are not happy with something (maybe for personal reasons), women know how to handle the situation better and put the person at ease," she explains.
"Rather than making a very generalised customer experience, they curate a very personalised approach and literally connect very well with all age groups and cater to the unique needs of every customer whether it's a family or a business group. For instance, if some customers are coming with little kids, women immediately identify what would probably excite the kids and send something for them. Even in the case of special occasions, they're much more proactive," Aradhya says.
Will motherhood impact the company's business goals?
Many management journals often put forward that motherhood,marriage, and its assumed responsibilities somehow impact a woman's career down the line leading to a broken rung situation. Talking about whether this could impact a fully-women-run business, Aradhya says, "The people practices at organisations should be supportive of the life changes that women have to go through. A person's careers long drawn.It shouldn't be defined as if it's just one year when a woman has to carry her baby."
"One-year maternity break in a long career span of 30 years cannot break anyone's career. It's a mindset change that we need and the reality needs to be overlooked. If the company can extend flexibility for women for one year with supportive policies and curated people practices, it can retain the women's talent in the organisation," she says.
Source: Economics Times