Who are they?
The Richmond Hill Hotel is a luxury hotel on the outskirts of London, with a view of Richmond Park and set in an idyllic Georgian style building.
What was the problem?
There was a vast range of people working for Richmond Hill Hotel, but when it came to their senior leadership team – they were not that diverse. They wanted to look at their organisation as a whole, understand what gaps they had and what they needed to work on. Richmond Hill Hotel wanted to engage all of their staff through training, workshops and more.
The customers of the Richmond Hotel Hill come from different backgrounds, and the staff can find themselves in multiple types of situations and be on the receiving end of different types of behaviour from clients, which in turn can make it difficult for them to know how to respond.
They also wanted to ensure they could continue to recruit a diverse range of people, and support and help them to progress into leadership roles. Richmond Hill Hotel were also keen to have an impact within their community, and show that they are an inclusive organisation.
How did we help?
We worked with Richmond Hill Hotel on a full Inclusion Journey mapping process. This included monitoring their engagement with staff, running discovery workshops, conducting a full audit on frameworks, processes and more on the organisation. We ran these discovery workshops in person, and worked on their data and information to really understand the organisation. We also conducted staff surveys, to further understand each element and department of the company.
On the back of the results of the audit, we are now running an in-person training programme with them, so all of the staff get training on different aspects of diversity and inclusion. Some of the training everyone has been through so far includes, ‘The Benefits of Inclusion’ and ‘Challenge Your Assumptions’ with more follow up sessions of ‘Challenging Conversations’ and ‘Inclusive Recruitment’ happening soon. So far everybody has been very interested and engaged in all of the sessions, and are really happy to share their thoughts and ideas.
How is it going?
The leadership team at Richmond Hill Hotel now has a great understanding of their data, their priorities of diversity and inclusion, and the opinions of their staff. They have already implemented some great things to put in place for staff, to give them feedback about their thoughts and ideas.
Throughout the training sessions, the whole team have been having very open discussions with one another, and feel they are in a safe space to share ideas, thoughts, and challenges around diversity and inclusion.
There are lots of things they are working on around language, communication and behaviours to help them really connect with, and be inclusive to the guests that are staying at the hotel. Those in senior leadership positions have also had a focus on inclusive recruitment, which has really brought them together to talk about what can be considered difficult subjects.
In the 12 months since this work began, they have seen their retention rate increase from 46% to 72%, which they attribute predominantly to their inclusion efforts. What a result!
Hear it from them…
“Our partnership with Watch This Sp_ce has been incredibly enlightening. It has empowered us to delve deeper into the concept of inclusion within our work environment, inspiring us to adapt our working methods and communication to embrace a wider spectrum of guests who frequent our hotel.
Our entire team has enthusiastically embraced the insights gained from the training sessions, and each member is actively contributing to driving change and creating a positive impact, with the ultimate goal of making our workplace as inclusive and welcoming as possible. We understand that this is an ongoing journey, and our collective commitment to learning and collaboration with Watch This Sp_ce will continue to shape our inclusive workplace.”
Diane Tapner-Evans, General Manager
