Tourism and employment have been given a big boost with the reopening of the 181-room Four Seasons Resort and Residences Anguilla on Thursday this week, October 18.
For several days, from October 11 to 16, the Planning Committee and the renamed Department of People and Culture have been busily engaged in conducting orientation sessions for the resort’s 550 employees – comprising over 100 new recruits and established team members.
The orientation session on Tuesday, October 16, for the new hires, was welcomed and addressed by General Manager, Mr. Jose Adames, who introduced the Planning Committee and thanked the Human Resource (now People and Culture) staff for organizing the sessions.
Addressing the enthusiastic employees in an interactive manner, Mr. Adames set out the high standards, principles and service expectations of the resort by referring to the vision of the Founder and Chairman of Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, Canadian hotelier and writer, Mr. Isadore Sharp. “He based Four Seasons on four pillars: Quality, Service, Culture and Brand,” he stated, pointing out that, in medium to small hotels, guests get a higher level of “service, attention and recognition.”
Mr. Adames continued: “Mr. Sharp was clear that in order to recognize not only our guests – but our employees – the only way to manage or achieve that was through quality.” About service, he said: “Let me tell you what service meant to Mr. Sharp when he set out to build the company and what it still means today. Service in a five diamond or five star resort doesn’t mean that you set my table or give me a massage. True service means that you are special. Service is anticipating what you need before I ask you or before you have to tell me.” On the question of brand, Mr. Adames pointed out that “Isadore Sharp was clear when he started out the company that he wanted to create a brand that was synonymous with the highest brand in the world”, and that he had achieved it.
“The most important pillar of them all is culture,” the General Manager went on. “I left it for the last because culture is the most important one. Mr. Sharp understood that if we were going to be successful in any one of the [110] hotels, we operate around the world, you have to have …motivated and inspired employees. He understood that the only way that we could recruit the best, where we operate, was by representing the golden rule and the golden rule – does not apply only to the guests. It applies to us to treat others the way we would like to be treated; and part of this culture pillar was that each hotel would also create an environment where you would feel safe, comfortable, supportive, valued, developed and loved because we are family at the end of the day. Therefore, culture was the key to the success of the growth of Four Seasons… If you look at the four pillars, they all play a role and interlock because the culture creates a service in the quality which then creates the brand we have today – and it is all about you, guys.”
Mr. Adames advised the employees: “Be happy and have passion for what you do because with this work, we are on stage. The guests don’t know the problems you have. They only know that they are paying a lot of money to stay here – so my philosophy in life, and my advice, is that you must love what you do.”
He added: “The four pillars for me – and I enjoy this part of the orientation – is really the foundation of what our company has done and has been for over fifty years. This company is not about marble, wood, concrete and wood. It is based on our people – and that’s you. I would like to say, on behalf of myself, Four Seasons and Mr. Sharp, my fellow Planning Members and all the Anguillian Four Seasons’ family, welcome to the family. We are so happy to have you. We are excited that you have a career with us and will go [on] to greater things in Anguilla, and elsewhere around the world where you might want to move to.”
The next speaker was the Resort Manager, Mr. Billy Cueto, who told the employees: “My job is to support you, to help you to do what you need to do – to make the guests happy wherever you are in your respective disciplines. These include whether you are in the back of house, front of house, housekeeping, the front desk or landscaping. It is important that our guests are taken care of. It is good for team work.
He continued: “You are part of our family and we open our arms to you, just like you did to me in Anguilla, and bring you into Four Seasons. It is a profound experience. If you worked here before, welcome back; if this is your first time with the resort, welcome. I have had 18 years with the company and worked at four different Four Seasons, but I can tell you that this is the greatest Four Seasons resort I have ever been to – and the best I have ever worked at. You are part of this wonderful machine as a family. Jose touched on the founding principle of the golden rule of Four Seasons – ‘do unto others as you would have them do unto you’. Mr. Sharp built this multi-billion dollar hotel company on one simple rule… and so I will treat you as I want to be treated.”
The other members of the Planning Committee also spoke to the large number of employees during the orientation session. They were: Heads of Divisions, Mr. Lorenzo Maestripieri (Assistant Director of Food & Beverage); Dorla Hodge (Director of People and Culture formerly Director of Human Resources); Gina Thomas (Director of Residences); Sheil Paugh (Regional Director of Finance); Alvin Nazario (Director of Engineering); Raul Garcia (Director of Rooms) and Diane Yost (Director of Sales and Marketing who is located in Miami, FL).
