Holiday Inn 2012 Annual Report Download - page 34

32 IHG Annual Report and Financial Statements 2012
Room to grow
Providing all our colleagues with Room to grow is an essential part
of our culture and is at the heart of how we continue to develop our
business. Our approach ensures that we provide learning and
development opportunities to all colleagues, whilst investing
strongly behind our critical roles and core capabilities. To support
this, every employee creates a personal development plan with their
manager, which supports their development and, in turn, drives our
business success.
One of the most important roles for driving the success of our
business is our hotel General Managers. This is why we are
launching our new General Manager training programme, which is a
breakthrough programme designed to shift our mindset away from
simply creating great hotel managers to developing great Brand
managers. To have preferred Brands, we need the best General
Managers in the industry and therefore we have invested heavily in
our approach to hiring, training and developing them. This has been
the focus of our shared agenda with the IHG Owners Association and
we are proud to have worked with them to develop this programme,
which will be rolled-out initially to new Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn
Express General Managers from the first quarter of 2013.
Mid-management and above continue to be supported through
IHG’s Leaders Lounge, our award-winning online community and
leadership development forum. The usage of IHG’s Leaders Lounge
continues to rise, with more than 7,000 visits per month to access
short learning sessions, providing practical tips and insights
designed to be completed in just a few minutes.
Delivering world-class People Tools for our owners
It’s never easy to find people who can live and breathe our Brands,
but it’s an important job, perhaps the most important job, because
guests don’t differentiate between a hotel being franchised,
managed or owned, they just want a fantastic and consistent brand
experience. By working with the hotel human resources community
we developed a set of award-winning People Tools that not only help
increase employee retention, performance and guest satisfaction but
also drive efficiencies and increase revenue for our owners.
Our People Tools are a suite of best practice tools which help our
hotels hire, train, involve and recognise the best people for each
of our brands. In 2012, 96 per cent of General Managers using our
People Tools regularly said they would recommend them to
others. We believe this is a point of differentiation compared
to our competitors.
Building a strong leadership team
Growing our business sustainably and responsibly requires leaders
who deliver great results, do the right thing, inspire their people
and put our Brands at the heart of everything they do. In 2012 we
introduced a more disciplined approach to leadership assessment
and created our Leadership Framework to make it easier for our
People to understand what great leadership looks like, including
the skills and experiences they need in order to be able to move to the
next level in their careers. Together, these approaches are ensuring
that we are best placed to select and develop the best leaders for our
business and for our Brands.
Our global suite of leadership programmes helps us develop our
leaders and attract some of the world’s best talent to our team.
These programmes combine skills, development, education,
Room for you
We pride ourselves on our ability to recognise great BrandHearted
behaviour internally and in 2012 we launched Bravo!, an online
peer-to-peer recognition tool that gives our colleagues the means
to publicly recognise each other’s work and efforts. To date more
than 25,000 Bravos! have been sent, proving our People really
value the opportunity to be able to give and receive recognition
from their peers.
We are also strengthening Group performance culture in our
corporate offices. Our annual incentive plan for our senior executives
now aligns with our strategic priorities of Brands, People and Delivery,
as explained in the Directors’ Remuneration Report on pages 59 to 78,
ensuring alignment with shareholder interests.
As well as continuing to drive awareness around our People Tools
we have also worked to make it easier for hotels to access them.
In 2012 we launched Hotel Solutions which is the ultimate toolbox,
providing hotels with a single gateway to access the full suite of People
Tools, as well as other training and guidance tools. These tools cover
across a broad range of hotel operations, housekeeping and hotel
safety, as well as Responsible Business practices. Hotel Solutions also
encourages collaboration across all of our hotels around the world,
another example of us leveraging our System size for the benefit of our
hotels. Since its launch, 71 per cent of hotels have been using it, with
General Managers saving an estimated three to four hours each month
on administrative tasks. Further, hotels using Hotel Solutions have
seen improvements in guest satisfaction, which shows that the right
tools, in the right hands, can deliver the right results.
experiences and access to great managers, mentors and coaches
in order to develop the leadership competencies we need to meet
our business goals. Support to our leaders also continues to be
provided through IHG’s Leaders Lounge.
By developing internal talent together with the strategic hiring of key
individuals who bring additional skills, perspectives and experiences,
we are building a strong leadership team, capable of driving a high
performance culture and delivering on our strategic agenda.
Our Board and Executive Committee leadership and governance
processes are set out on pages 46 to 80.
Business Review: Our talented People continued