Instilling Company Culture into Business Operations

Integrity in business enhances one’s reputation — which in turn can help attract and retain guests, foster employee loyalty, and build stronger relationships. Integrity goes beyond doing the right thing even when nobody's watching. In hospitality, we need to act with honor, transparency, and ethics to create a culture that permeates the entire organizational ecosystem.

The best management companies align with five guiding principles: ethics, profit, tenacity, innovation, and engagement. How do the best of the best stay aligned with these five guiding principles? Let’s think of the humble coffee filter, which gives way to what matters most (coffee) and keeps out the excess (coffee grinds). If we apply this to business integrity, we should only let through what matters most, which are our five guiding principles. All of the other stuff will hinder success and affect the bottom line. For example, Remington takes pride in providing guests with all-around great housekeeping. The traits that don’t exemplify top-notch housekeeping (like shoddy service and cut corners) will be filtered out. This concept is what has allowed Remington’s company’s mission to succeed. This may all sound easier said than done. How do we instill these values into the daily work lives of our employees, both on the corporate level and on the ground? Constant communication and reference back to company values are vital, which can happen through training and continuous reevaluation of goals.

Additionally, this goes back to creating a company culture where every employee has mission buy-in. My company’s guiding light is our motto, “Where Passionate People Thrive,” and every department has its own set of goals that align with these values. It’s important that a company's mission is well thought out and meaningful, and it shouldn't be empty marketing jargon. To break down our mission statement, we are looking for highly engaged, excited employees to cultivate an environment where they can reach their full potential and meet career goals. Without these values, it’s difficult to attract good talent if it’s not where they want to be.

The Key Differentiators

One of the most important aspects of integrity is having a keen understanding of the rules by which you’re playing. Having a number of initiatives in place not only gives your organization KPIs but also paints a picture of how you will separate your brand from your competitors. A few of my favorite KPIs include:

• Provide Operations Excellence: Remain steadfast to providing exceptional guest service, asset stewardship and maintenance, full operational transparency, and consistent, timely, and proactive reporting and communication.
• Incorporate a Distinctive Commercial Strategy: Focus on providing seamless strategy and execution to drive revenue and market share through thoughtful approaches to sales, revenue management, and digital marketing.
• Integrate Business Intelligence Systems: With more technology, companies are given access to more resources that can affect change. Doing so allows people to spend more time on the details.
• Lead Food and Beverage Operations: Help guests create memorable dining experiences while focusing on operational efficiencies like revenue generation strategies, concept development, as well as outlet openings, renovations, and acquisitions.
• Offer Centralized Support Services: Deliver strong, discipline-specific support across a number of different sectors like accounting, legal, human resources, information technology, and risk management.

It’s important to note that these KPIs don’t specifically mention cost-savings and increasing profit margins, which differs from many management companies. The fact is by putting company values first, profits will follow. The same goes for the industry-wide struggle for talent recruitment and retention. Remaining steadfast to your values and mission will trickle down to every associate being treated with dignity and respect, leading to an organization with a positive, productive, and collaborative environment where employees will want to work to help build and grow a successful company.

When it comes to incorporating integrity into your business, the most important thing is to be unrelentingly committed to your mission and its corresponding KPIs. Once the mission and KPIs are determined, it’s vital the message is consistently echoed across the company to employees at all levels. Constant communication, reference back to the company values, and continuous reevaluation of goals each day is when the company mission will succeed.