A Kaslo-area resort has gained kudos lately, thanks to excellent training initiatives instituted by the new general manager.
Megan Rokeby-Thomas worked in restaurants all through high school and college, then parlayed her education in accounting into owning and managing a bar and small hotel in Nelson for two years, selling it in early in 2001. Having decided that—although accounting was her background—she needed the "people aspect" in her life, she applied to be Director of Sales and Marketing at Ainsworth Hotsprings Resort (AHSR).
Megan started with AHSR in April of 2001 and is now the general manager. She believes in training through motivation, and the use of intensive workshops focused on specific departments and their tasks.
Winning awards for excellence
Under her direction, AHSR won the Excellence in Housekeeping Award from Tourism BC in 2003. Megan attributes that honour to the resort's housekeeping and maintenance departments. "We keep things spotless. Our standards are very high," she says. "Our housekeeping department is a great one for training. We give a lot of students part-time jobs. Our full-time staff is great helping to teach the kids, and the students usually bring a lot of energy to the job. Many of our permanent staff [there are 14] have won the Excellence in Service award, when that program was running."
Megan was instrumental in implementing many of AHSR's current training policies, which included the following:
- A three-hour workshop specific to each of the resort's six departments. The resort's customer service was consequently rated as "Exceeding Expectations"
- A three-hour workshop for department heads called "SuperVision"
- A targeted training program. "We pay for a lot of courses, anything that can be related to the tourism industry, such as customer service, [learning] another language, safety, health and wellness, etc."
- Values feedback from all employee levels, and a direct line between its role in training and the resort's bottom line
The Super Vision Course that Megan developed has been the cornerstone of her training success. Here's an outline:
Goal Setting
- Company goals
- Personal goals that relate to the company
Teamwork
- Definition of teamwork
- Team goals-Getting the team involved
- Management team goals
Job Descriptions
- Importance
- How to develop an accurate job description
Discipline
- Goals of disciplinary actions
- Danger of not taking action
- Fireside chats
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People—Steven Covey's book
- Be proactive
- Begin with the end in mind
- Put first things first
- Think win/win
- Seek first to understand, then to be understood
- Synergize
- Sharpen the saw
"We went briefly over the first three habits and focused on the last four," says Megan of Covey's book. "The first three habits relate to 'personal,' whereas the next three focus on interpersonal communication. And the last habit relates directly to continuous training, growing and learning."
A profitable use of time
This program has had a profound effect on the resort's bottom line. "By strengthening the supervisors' skills on personnel issues," Megan says, "it has freed up a lot of management's time dealing with the issues. The supervisors [now] deal with issues while they are small, which leads to fewer issues that escalate to the point where I need to be directly involved. It has made all of the supervisors more effective and productive. We encourage the supervisors to use each other as sounding boards if management is not available. And all the supervisors know that we trust their judgment.
"Communication is key in all of our meetings. SuperVision also helped the supervisors see a lot of preventative means. The more you share with the team, the better they are able to understand what the goals are and how they are directly involved in the bottom line.
"Another benefit of communication is that when ideas are brought to the table, we receive feedback from all levels of the organization—pros and cons. We have saved valuable time by modifying ideas or implementing ideas in the way that will work best for the resort. Feedback eliminates a lot of trial-and-error and allows for resort management instead to make educated decisions."
