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Insights

Hospitality Leadership Series On ‘Professional Visibility’: Heartburn vs Insomnia

We are in week eight of the new year and it is fair to say that 2019 is well and truly underway. But ask yourself this, does the same hold true for your own new year’s resolutions…? Chances are that the answer to this question is a resounding “no”. As part of our personal brand building and professional visibility leadership series, we have therefore decided to inspire hospitality executives and to provide them with the one new year’s resolution which should be easy to live up to – and, if pursued rigorously, it can proof powerful in helping executives to enhance their own personal brand.

In Conversation With Restaurant-Pro Monique Borst, Non-Executive Board Director and Adviser To F&B Entrepreneurs

February saw, for the first time, the Global Restaurant Investment Forum (GRIF) come to Europe. [...] Taking the opportunity to be together in one spot, Aethos™ caught up with Monique Borst over a cup of coffee in Amsterdam. Monique is a seasoned industry expert and can draw on more than 20 years of experience in food service and food retail. She has worked with world-recognised brands such as Harrods, Sodexo and the Compass Group, and has held commercial as well as board-level functions. Nowadays, Monique uses her corporate and start-up experience to help restaurant entrepreneurs kick-start and/or expand their business.

Cross-Industry Hiring Decisions: Recruiting Leaders from the (System Chain) Restaurant Industry – Opportunities and Threats for Lodging Operators to Consider

Hoteliers have historically considered the Food & Beverage (F&B) department as a loss leader, a ‘must-have’ to appease paying hotel guests. To put it bluntly, money was to be made on the rooms side of the business. Yet, times and attitudes have changed. Clients have become more discerning and thirstier for authentic and local experiences to tease their taste buds whilst hoteliers have recognised that their in-house F&B offering can be a point of differentiation.

Hotel CEO Pay and Performance 2018

The latest shaming of US CEOs appears to be in the form of the Dodd-Frank CEO Pay Ratio initiative. Groups like the AFL-CIO are using this topic to rationalize the disappearance of the middle-class. Their most recent analysis puts the average CEO pay at 361 times the typical worker ($14M to $39K). This will continue to be a sore spot for income equality proponents. But think about CEO pay in relation to athlete pay. Floyd Mayweather made over $275M last year for a couple of exhibition fights, while Lionel Messi made $101M for playing soccer and endorsing sneakers. Super Bowl winning QB, Tom Brady made $34M in salary, bonus and endorsements last year. Yes, CEOs make a lot of money. Yes, some of them don’t deserve it. But the answer is in better compensation administration, not government regulation. Will the CEO pay gap create economic instability or unsustainability? We think not.

The Employee Benefit Hotel Businesses Can’t Afford Not to Offer

Hotel organizations in today’s global marketplace compete heavily, not just among one another but also with other service-focused verticals and customer-facing businesses, in attracting and retaining top talent. Robust compensation and benefits packages certainly help meet candidates’ conditions of satisfaction, but these are not enough anymore for retention in the absence of one specific benefit – namely, a company culture devoted to “employee engagement.”

Private Clubs: Raising the Bar

Over the years we have seen many iterations of private clubs. From ale houses and social centers in key gateway cities across Europe, to golf courses and tennis resorts across the United States, private clubs continue to expand, grow and cater to those looking for a full-service experience. Today, it is less about a single activity or event and more about engaging with the membership and offering them a place to work, meet, play and eat – the full spectrum of offerings.

Hospitality Leadership Solutions Series: The ‘Organizational Spinal Cord’

Core values reflect beliefs, and company culture reflects attitudes and behaviours – together they define the “heart” and perhaps even the “conscience or soul” of an organization. But, beyond these traditional HR and leadership tenets is the more fundamental concept of what we call the organizational spinal cord. In medical terms, the spinal cord is a bundle of nerves that go to and from the brain. Its main function is to transmit neural inputs between the brain and the periphery of the body. In business terms, the organizational spinal cord is the nervous system responsible for stimulating and directing critical actions across the entire “body” of an organization. Beliefs and attitudes define why a company is in business and what it stands for, but the spinal cord is about how the company actually implements its strategic and tactical initiatives.

C-Suite Miniseries: The Hospitality CMO – A Global Profile Of The Evolving Role

As part of our investigative C-Suite miniseries, which takes a closer look at and profiles the key senior leadership functions at hospitality companies around the globe, Aethos™ now attempts to paint a clearer picture of the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) role and the leaders who define it. Thus far, we have profiled the changing roles, competency sets and backgrounds of the Chief Commercial Officer, the Chief Human Resources Officer and the Chief Information Officer. Arguably, the CMO is another important piece of the puzzle – not yet completing, but certainly providing a much more comprehensive picture of the management teams of hospitality organisations around the globe.

2019 and Lodging Technology: Is There A One-Size-Fits-All Approach?

Turning the page on another calendar year is always fun and reflective. As we look to 2019, there are some interesting trends and new technologies that should continue to impact the lodging industry. Following is a look into two specific groups, employee and customer experiences, and how we should continue to embrace technology so it can positively affect the bottom line.

The Broken Record Discussion – Boardroom Diversity Within The Restaurant Industry

Participating in countless client board meetings, I can say with confidence that gender diversity within the boardroom leads to first-rate ideation and collaboration. In addition, credible studies conducted by the likes of Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey & Company prove out a strong correlation between a board comprised of a larger female presence and superior results in the boardroom. While top governance experts have been promoting greater gender diversity for more than a decade, not much has changed within the restaurant industry. These glum statistics say it all.