Page 224 - How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times

Job Enrichment and Professional Growth C211

: ALIGNING EMPLOYEE AND ORGANIZATIONAL NEEDS AT
GAYLORD HOTELS

We’ve suggested that it is in the best interest of employers to make
sure their interests are in alignment with employee interests. When
these interests are aligned, a natural consequence is higher engage-
ment on this all-important driver.
But how far can you take this mindset? Surely there is a limit to such
a lofty commitment? Gaylord Hotels is willing to take this commitment
to great lengths and, in doing so, reaps tangible benefits. We again turned
to Kemp Gallineau, the general manager of the Orlando property, to ask
him about the firm’s attitude toward employees who leave:

Q: Do people ever leave and come back?
Gallineau: They sure do. We welcome people back if they leave and
want to come back. There’s an interesting story about that. Within
the last year or so we have had three big, prestigious hotels open prop-
erties here in our market—right in our backyard. And we knew we
would lose some people who wanted to go to work at these other hotels.
We would be naïve if we thought we could offer the best fit and best
opportunity for everyone when all these other outside options were
there for them. So, believe it or not, we decided to offer a résumé-
writing class to help them move on if that’s what they wanted. To
our amazement, only five who took the class left the hotel, and all five
came back because the work experience at the new hotel wasn’t what
they thought it would be. The other hotels had either overpromised or
misrepresented something.

Q: That’s remarkable that you would do something like that.
Gallineau: The most interesting thing to us was that in the course of help-
ing current employees with their résumés, we found talents we didn’t
know people had. We hire people who come from various backgrounds
and from other countries. Many of them have received degrees or other
training, and then, just based on economic reasons, they took whatever
jobs they could get after that. We discovered some hidden talents.