Page 59 - How America's Best Places to Work Inspire Extra Effort in Extraordinary Times

46B RE-ENGAGE

through tough times, using one of the natural and readily available assets
of the hotel—food:

:
In 2008 we saw that the economy was starting to change, and
we realized we had to find ways to give back to employees
in less costly ways. So we started asking ourselves how we
could focus on helping employees save time, which is in-
creasingly precious to them. So we came up with the idea for
what we call “Star-mart” in the hotel, where we give staff . . .
whom we call Stars . . . the opportunity to buy food staples
on their way home rather than have to take the time to stop at
a grocery. So every day we have a site where people can buy
the quality grocery items that we buy in bulk—meats, milk,
cheese, pizzas, roasted chicken, turkey for Thanksgiving Day,
and so on, all at reduced rates. This has helped them save
gas money as well. They can also order meals to go from our
restaurants at cost. 19

Postscript
We contacted Kemp Gallineau a few months after our original
interview to ask him how the deep and continuing reces-
sion had affected the hotel and the engagement of employ-
ees. His response: “It was a tough call, but because of the
severity of the recession, we had to reduce our workforce by
10 percent. We provided career transition services for them,
and we held several meetings with remaining employees to
address their insecurities. We were simply honest; we let
them know that we did what we had to do because of busi-
ness realities. Since then, because of staff reductions, we
have had to do some work sharing. For example, because we
have fewer front-desk people, we found out that some of our
employees in other departments, like catering, setup, and
room service had front-desk experience with other previous
employers, and they now cover the front desk during their