The It Factor - Fresh HR Strategies for Your Property Opening

A Property openings is like Marmite…

…you either love it or you hate it! 

You are either brilliant at it or you suck.   A celebrated hotelier of a Luxury brand was heard to say of opening team leaders, “You either have it or you don’t”. So what is this “it”?

Speak to anyone who has led or been involved in a property opening and get ready for wild tales of camaraderie, daring, close shaves and triumph snatched from the brink of disaster.

The opening team’s collective relief wrapped in victory when the doors open and the first guests step into the lobby welcome cocktail in hand.

From our own property opening experiences and the battle-field stories from opening veterans we have collaborated with; “it” refers to a distinct and (sometimes) paradoxical set of skills and attitude.

Here our Magnificent 7 Opening “It” Skills and Attitudes.

1. Inspirational and follow-worthy leadership with egalitarian management skills.

2. Strategic visionary and tactical activist.

3. Off-the-charts entrepreneurial flair and standards obsessiveness.

4. Policy-minded and a creative solutions finder.

5. Unflappable, high pressure tolerance with buckets of humour.

6. A near magical ability to snatch order from the jaws of chaos.

7. Mind-shifting capability to switch from preopening construction mode to opening guest-facing mode with the click of your fingers.

We have “it” and we have built recruitment, training and engagement models to hire “it”, develop “it” and retain “it”. Our specialism is the HR aspect of property openings.  Here are some highlights:

1. In keeping with the ‘bare foot chic’ personality of the brand, hosted a recruitment open day on a catamaran, interviewing over 500 potential internal guests for a Luxury boutique resort and creating free PR buzz in the media.

2. For the client who wanted to make a big impact, planned and executed a 3 day mass hiring event; including the design of all recruitment marketing collateral and candidate selection material. We processed over 1300 visitor-applicants for 270 opening positions.

The Turn-Key HR Function.

Like a SAS or Navy Seals Operation, we are deployed by the client. After developing a comprehensive strategy and tactical plan, we go in – bold or subtle as you like.

Successful missions have included:-

1, Defining the Employer Brand and values

2. Hiring and training the HR team

3. Providing on-going coaching and operational support 1 year post opening by developing critical opening and year 1 operations budgets, Leadership coaching, HR policies, procedures and standards in keeping with national labour laws and the client’s brand values.

The keys are handed over to the property HR team and we leave with another opening tale added to our collection…

We are proud of the assignments in our portfolio of work.  Contact us for more Opening Tales and how we can guide you through the pre-opening chaos and help you get your doors open in style.