Fostering a Positive Work Culture: A Conversation with Travelodge's Head of People Services
Description
In this episode, our host Justine Greening sits down with Lynne Hookway, Head of People Services at Travelodge Hotels. With over 600 hotels and tens of thousands of guest bedrooms, Travelodge is a prominent player in the hospitality sector. Lynne shares insights into her role, which encompasses supporting colleagues with HR matters and driving diversity and inclusion within the company.
As the conversation unfolds, Lynne discusses Travelodge's approach to employee well-being, emphasising the integration of well-being into daily work life. She highlights the challenges faced by the hospitality industry, particularly the need to create flexible opportunities that align with employees' lives. Additionally, Lynne shares how Travelodge is focusing on employee development and career progression through initiatives like the Aspire program and a broad range of learning opportunities.
Recognising the significance of employee engagement and retention, Lynne takes us through Travelodge's innovative HR initiatives, including their "belong" initiatives and recognition programs. Moreover, she delves into their commitment to diversity and inclusion, with an annual calendar of campaigns aimed at celebrating and educating colleagues.
The episode concludes with a discussion on Travelodge's dedication to social mobility and their efforts to attract and retain top talent. Through this conversation, we gain valuable insights into the strategies and initiatives that Travelodge has implemented to create a workplace that is fit for purpose. Stay tuned for an enlightening conversation with Lynne Hookway, Head of People Services at Travelodge Hotels, on this episode of Fit For Purpose.
Chapters
[00:01:19] Integrating wellbeing into daily work life.
[00:06:17] D&I campaigns, pride events, senior sponsorship groups, diversity targets.
[00:09:38] Support offered: vouchers, money saving videos, discount platform, certainty of pay.
[00:11:10] Listening groups, anonymous feedback, shadow board, feedback.
[00:14:24] Lynne discusses Travelodge's social mobility.
Transcript
Justine Greening:
Welcome to this Fit For Purpose podcast. This week we're talking to Lynne Hookway who's head of people services at Travelodge hotels. It's a chain of hotels, independent hotels that started right back in 1985. Now there are 600 hotels with tens of thousands of guest bedrooms. It's a big part of our Purpose Coalition work. I'm delighted that Lynne is joining us the podcast today. Lynne, Head of People services at Travelodge. Tell us a little bit about that role and in practice what it means.
Lynne Hookway:
Yeah, first of all, thank you for having me today. So I'm based at our head office in Thame and my responsibilities really are two parts. So first of all, I'm responsible for our people services and employee relations teams who are central teams there to support all of our colleagues with advice on a wide range of HR matters, whether it's maternity leave and pay to helping people work through workplace issues. And then I'm also responsible for delivering our diversity and inclusion agenda, which internally we call Belong.
Justine Greening:
And so in terms of that employee well being agenda, which is ever more important, and in a sense that positive work culture that enables all of that, how do you at Travelodge prioritise those sorts of things for employees?
Lynne Hookway:
Well, interestingly, I don't think it's about prioritising one thing over another. So what we want well being to be is really just how we do things around here. So back in 2021, we launched our wellbeing initiative called Better Me. And as part of that, to give you an example, we created the concept of Better Me moments, which is where we encourage people, either individually or as a team, to do something to focus on their physical, emotional, financial work, well being. And we've seen some really great examples of people doing that, from going for a walk during a break or doing walking one to one meetings, to having conversations about things like menopause or mental health. So we're really aiming to integrate wellbeing into daily work life. Really.
Justine Greening:
When you look at those broader faces challenges, for example, that hospitality as an industry is facing, how would you describe some of those key challenges? So there's a lot of you said you're doing internally, but obviously it's against an external backdrop that probably is more challenging now than it's been in the past.
Lynne Hookway:
Sure. And I think as a lot of people will be aware, the hospitality industry has a really transient workforce and it can no longer rely on that continuous stream of unskilled migrant workers to fill entry level hotel roles, for example. So we're very much concentrating on creating good opportunities that fit around your life. So for example, if you have caring responsibilities or you're currently in education, you should still be able to find a role with us that fits around your life stage. So I think it's about making us as a business fit in with people's lives rather than them fitting in with us.
Justine Greening:
Yeah, so actually, what's changing is now for Travelodge. It really is much more about fostering employee development and career progression opportunities. And so presumably there's a lot of work that you're doing really to fit that into this bigger picture of careers, essentially, at the company.
Lynne Hookway:
Yeah, absolutely. So apart from our hard skills training, our people strategy really centers around giving our colleagues opportunities to learn more, earn more, and belong. And I suppose in terms of that employee development and career progression, there's three main things we're focusing on right now. So firstly, putting more people through the four levels of our Aspire program. And that's a program designed for our hotel colleagues to progress from entry level roles, team member roles, right through to district manager roles if they want to. And the best thing about that program is that you can join at a time that suits you. So we used to have cohorts of people starting all at the same time. Now you join at the time that suits you. So basically, when you're ready, we're ready. Secondly, we're increasing the breadth of learning for our people to cover things like resilience and managing difficult situations. Again, to ensure when people move into those more senior roles, they're really prepared. And thirdly, and probably going back to the well being topic, we're giving our colleagues opportunities to learn about and really focus on their well being and how this affects their own performance and in turn, the performance of their teams.
Justine Greening:
So obviously, I know that you've got some innovative HR initiatives and programs for Travelodge that have really focused on employee engagement. Tell us a little bit more about those.
Lynne Hookway:
Yeah, so I probably mentioned earlier about some of the challenges in our industry, so employee engagement and retention remains a real key priority for us. Our colleagues tell us what's important to them through our annual engagement survey. And Feeling like they belong was a key driver of our ENPs. So that's our Employee Net Promoter score last year. So we work really hard on our belong initiatives and recognition. For example, we'll be celebrating Housekeeping Week in September to recognise the work, the hard work of all of our Housekeeping teams across the UK. And that's important because around 46% of our 13,000 colleagues are Housekeeping team members. So it's a really good opportunity to recognize this group of people, and we replicate that in other areas of our business, such as earlier this year, we celebrated Nights Week, which included as well some specific wellbeing resources for our Night Team members. So such as sleep hygiene, which proved really, really popular. And we also held some live Q A sessions with some of our senior leadership team, which was really appreciated by our Night teams.
Justine Greening:
Great.
Lynne Hookway:
We recognise length of service as well, and great performance through our better Travelodge badges. And once a month, we spend time thanking and recognizing the work of our hotel teams with our Bath Friday events as well.
Justine Greening:
Sounds really good and it slightly gets us into that diversity and inclusion piece of things in the workplace. Tell us a little bit more for Travel Lodge around, how you approach that really important area and some of the strategies there to make sure promote that diverse workforce that you want.
Lynne Hookway:
So there's a number of things we do for D&I or Belong as we call it. It's a key part of our people strategy and we approach it in a number of ways. So firstly, we have an annual calendar of campaigns which aims really to celebrate and educate. So, for example, we've done a lot over the last couple of years to educate our colleagues on things such as neurodiversity. Mental health is a regular topic. Throughout the year we celebrate religious festivals and for the first time this year we're taking part in two Pride events as a company in Manchester and in Brighton. And we've also given 100 of our colleagues the opportunity to march in one of the parades with us, which is fantastic and it's creating a lot of excitement. This year we've also introduced some senior sponsorship groups and they're headed up by members of our operating board and alongside our senior leadership team help to drive our D&I initiatives. And I think that probably all the research out there that shows that the most successful D&I strategies are achieved by being supported by the most senior people in the organization. And so this is really important to us that all of our colleagues see our most senior leaders driving those D&I initiatives forward. And then lastly, we've set ourselves targets as part of our sustainability plan to improve gender and minority ethnic representation at senior levels. And that's to ensure the leaders of our business are representative of our workforce and the wider society. And I suppose lastly on this topic, I'm really excited that we're about to really kick start our social mobility journey as part of our membership of the Purpose Coalition and that will really underpin and support all the work we're doing in this phase.
Justine Greening:
I think it's really brilliant and we're delighted to have that focus from the Travelodge on social mobility. I think it's fantastic and I think as a household brand, something that people are so familiar with, it's real leadership as well. Let's go back to the talent picture because obviously you want to get that top talent. What's your approach as an independent hotel shade on attracting and then retaining that top talent that is obviously crucial for your success?
Lynne Hookway:
Yeah, this is something we've really been thinking about actually, over the last sort of six to twelve months and we're working really hard on our employer brand to make sure it really represents us as a business and reflects who we are. I think most people will recognize our customer brand, but we really want to make sure who we are as an employer also comes across to people in the outside world. I think we do so many great things internally, but we don't always shout about them loudly enough externally. So we've recently refreshed our careers site and we are really conscious as well that we use real people from within Travelodge rather than models to showcase and kind of celebrate the colleagues we have. And I think our commitment to ensuring everyone can belong at Travelodge really goes a long way to ensure once you're here, you'll want to stay.
Justine Greening:
Yeah, it's so important. And I guess when you look at the impact of COVID you've also had the increasing pressures around cost of living. I guess that's also been something for Travelodge that you've really had to take on board in terms of your People Services strategy and tell us about some of the ways you've responded to that and what you've done to support your employees.
Lynne Hookway:
So yeah, in relation to cost of living, we're really aware that many of our colleagues are paid national living wage and so they really feel the impact of any increase to cost of living. So some of the things we've been doing last year we issued supermarket vouchers to around 12,000 our colleagues in the summer and then again at Christmas, and we're doing the same this year in October. We're also creating an internal series of money saving videos actually under our Financial Wellbeing banner, and signposting people as to how they can save money on everyday items via our partnership with Eden Red, which is an employee savings platform where you can get discounts on everyday things like your grocery, food shop, electrical goods, days out for the family and much more. And we also know that certainty of pay is really important during uncertain times. And so we work really hard to ensure that we give that certainty to our colleagues through their contracted hours and offering additional schemes to earn more for doing more.
Justine Greening:
I think what we've covered is there's so much work, in a sense that's underway around the People Service of Strategy and you've thought about all these different aspects of it, whether it's support, whether it's what you're doing on diversity, whether it's careers and attracting talent and all of that. Tell us a little bit about how you then go on to get that employee feedback and in a sense, what you're doing to respond to that. Obviously it's crucial that you actually find out whether this employee experience is the one that you're aiming to get.
Lynne Hookway:
Yeah, so there's a few different things we do. I think, as I mentioned earlier, we have our annual Colleague Survey which is called Your Voice, and that's really important as our colleagues can provide anonymous feedback on a whole wide range of topics. But on top of that, we hold regular listening group sessions with colleagues representing different areas of our business to understand what's working well and what could be better? And that could be general groups of colleagues, it could be underrepresented groups. So, for example, we have done groups with our female hotel managers, we've done groups with our LGBTQ plus communities. So we hold several listening groups throughout the year to really take on board what those colleagues are saying. We also have a shadow board, which is made up of colleagues representing both hotel and head office roles. And the Special Board meets with our CEO twice a year and has a real great opportunity to share their feedback on the key issues they see that are in the business and also ideas for moving the business forward, which really helps when we're thinking about our strategy and plans for the future and then getting all those things together. Every year, we ensure we report back on the you said we did to show that we're really listening and taking action based on their feedback.
Justine Greening:
And so, I mean, the shadow board is a really interesting concept, actually, because there's so much that people can get from being able to be part of something like that. And just more generally, that's presumably part of a piece of work to really make sure that management and employees, there's that communication. There the whole.
Lynne Hookway:
I mean, communication. I'm sure you can imagine, Justine, with a company the size of ours and a high percentage of our colleagues actually not working in an office environment where they have access to emails, it can be quite challenging. So there's a number of different ways in which we communicate. So I suppose for more formal actions, we have a manager's weekly action, which exactly as it says, go out on a weekly basis. We have a monthly newsletter that goes to all colleagues, and that's for business updates. What's coming up? We have weekly and monthly team huddles for specific business area updates and a really active internal social media channel where we can all celebrate recognition, share our D I campaigns, and literally where anybody within the company can post a question or find out more information on some things.
Justine Greening:
And so for people, I guess, to sum up, so if people are watching this, thinking it sounds really great, and actually want to become part of that Travelodge family and want to get a bit more of a sense about careers at Travelodge, how all of that works, where can they go? To find out more about the roles you've got of the careers that are available?
Lynne Hookway:
Well, all you need to do is literally type Travelodge careers into your search bar and that will take you to our Careers site, where you can search for jobs in either our hotels or head office. But you can also get a really good taste of what it's like to work at Travelodge Day in the life of videos. And we've also got a really great Belong video there as well. So you can find all about it by simply typing in Travelodge careers.
Justine Greening:
So it's all there then, isn't it? Well look, thanks so much Lynne, for doing this podcast. It's been really great to hear about the work happening at Travel Lodge. We're really proud to have as part of the Purpose Coalition is just great leadership on social mobility and we think it's really valuable. So I hope that's been really interesting for people watching the podcast to get a sense of the opportunities you've got and how you're making sure they really are available to people to not just get into Travel Lodge but also to get on. So thank you for the time today.
Lynne Hookway:
Thank you.
