Great hospitality starts with great people, and giving our teams the knowledge, confidence and opportunity to develop is an important part of life at Eden Hotel Collection.
That approach to hospitality training has now received national recognition, with Eden Hotel Collection winning the Excellence in HR Technology Award at the HR in Hospitality Annual Awards for Excellence in HR.
More than 400 hospitality and HR professionals from across the UK attended the awards, which celebrate the people and businesses helping to shape the future of the hospitality industry.
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With colleagues working across five individual hotels and a workforce spanning five generations, we wanted our hospitality training to be engaging, accessible and, most importantly, relevant to the people using it.
Working with Reelyze, we introduced a learning and development app that allows managers within our hotels to create their own short, reel-style training content.
Instead of relying solely on traditional training materials, our teams can learn through quick, visual demonstrations created by the colleagues who understand their hotel and role best.
The videos cover the everyday moments that help create an exceptional guest experience, from making an espresso martini to servicing a guest bedroom or preparing a conference room. Managers can also create personalised welcome messages and guidance tailored specifically to their teams.
Colleagues can react to and comment on the content too, turning hotel staff training into something more collaborative and giving our people a greater role in sharing their knowledge.
While Eden Hotel Collection brings our hotels together as one collection, each property has its own character, location and way of creating memorable guest experiences.
Our general managers are encouraged to operate their hotels with individuality, and our approach to hotel training reflects that philosophy too.
A training video created for a particular team can focus on the situations they genuinely encounter within their hotel. This means learning can feel more relevant than a one-size-fits-all approach and helps each property retain its own personality while upholding the standards expected across Eden Hotel Collection.
Lisa Redding, Group People Director at Eden Hotel Collection, explains:
“Each of our hotels has its own personality and way of operating, and we wanted our approach to learning to reflect that. We also knew we needed to move away from traditional e-learning and create something more engaging and relevant to how people consume information today.”
“It’s been brilliant to see how our teams have embraced it, and particularly how technology is helping to make things simpler, reduce administration and give managers more time to spend with their teams and guests.”
Alongside the reel-style hospitality training content, colleagues have access to Ask Eve, an AI-powered digital assistant designed to help with internal and operational questions.
Technology is helping us make information easier to access while keeping our people at the centre of learning. Managers share their experience, colleagues learn from one another, and training can be delivered in a way that fits naturally into working life within a busy hotel.
And the response from our teams speaks for itself.
Engagement with training across Eden Hotel Collection now stands at 98%. Around 50 managers have created 369 training reels, generating almost 13,000 views, while approximately 16,000 courses have been completed by colleagues across the collection.
Lisa continues:
“Putting our hotel teams at the heart of creating learning has been a huge part of its success. Our managers and training champions can capture and share their own operational knowledge, while technology and AI are making it quicker and easier for colleagues to access learning and find the information they need.”
Our approach to hospitality training connects colleagues across five distinctive hotels: Mallory Court Hotel and Spa in Leamington Spa, The Arden Hotel in Stratford-upon-Avon, Brockencote Hall Hotel in Worcestershire, The Greenway Hotel and Spa near Cheltenham and Bovey Castle in Dartmoor National Park.
From restaurants and kitchens to housekeeping, events, spa, reception and management, every team plays a role in the experiences our guests remember.
Giving colleagues the tools to learn from one another helps us continue developing those experiences while creating opportunities for our people to build their knowledge and confidence throughout their careers with Eden Hotel Collection.
Winning the Excellence in HR Technology Award is wonderful recognition for everyone who has helped bring the programme to life, but we are particularly proud to see how enthusiastically our teams have made it their own.
Because some of the best hospitality training does not simply tell people how things should be done. It gives great people the opportunity to share what they know.
Interested in developing your hospitality career with us? Discover current opportunities across Eden Hotel Collection and find your place within our team.
