Storytelling - how to empower underestimated employees.

Challenge I am working as a supervisor in Food&Drinks department in a big, international hotel chain. Together with the F&D Manager we found out that employees hired at one particular division (7 people) are not integrated with other staff members. We decided to talk with these unwanted employees and get familiar with the problem. They told us that they are treated with disrespect, no one ever thanks them for their hard work and other colleagues do not see their personality, just the profession. The main problem was that they felt unneeded which influenced their motivation and affected morale.

Selection Together with F&D Manager we decided that the whole department needs some shock therapy. The problem seemed to be deep and burning. Istead of discussing the issue 1 on 1 with all 100 employees we wanted to build a showcase which could be useful in the future and easy to transfer to the other hotels. To be short, we needed a good, appealing story.

Application In a big hotel You always have big events as well. It is a very specific working environment because the company is opened 24/7 and right after busy night party-service comes early breakfast. During one of these busy events (lunch for 300 guestes, with drinks included) we asked the "unneeded" and "disrespected" group of employees to come to our office and have a chat. We prepared  cakes, coffee, played some games and just waited. First warning calls started to come after one hour. We were answering the phone by saying that we have no idea where those lacking employees are. Then it got even worse. After 2,5 hours we got an information that it's not possible to continue the service without these employees. But we waited until the end. When the event was finished, we came to the kitchen to make staff meeting, where we asked them how could they be so mean and disrespectful to the dishwashers. Everyone had to work overtime that day and clean loads of dishes all together including us, the management.

Insight&Approach Building a showcase was very important from our point of view. Employees often look at each other in an instrumental way and forget that there is a human being on the other side, with its motivation, reasons and feelings. Showing them how important is the role of each division in our organization was our biggest aim. Dishwasher division was a natural choice because its employees are  often  considered  to  be  at  the  very bottom of  hotel  hierarchy whereas  their  role  in  the organization is invaluable.

Right after the event our waiters were asking each other: how are we going to clean all these plates and cutlery? They were trying to turn on dishwashing machines, use the dryers, trying to guess in which container should they put the food waste. When we came to the department with the dishwashing division, they understood what has happened just after few words of speech that F&D Manager prepared. Their faces showed different emotions, some of them were still angry at us while other ones were already feeling a bit guilty, but all of them understood what did we mean by this example and how  important  dishwashers  are  for the comfort of everyones  work and  guests satisfaction.    Of course, we could probably talk with all our employees one by one and discuss the problem of dishwashers who are underestimated and isolated from other workers. We just thought that even the best 1/1 talks cannot give better effects than one extremly hard shift at work. At the same time we wanted to make the dishwasing division proud of their work and show them how important are they

for us and the other ones. They are more motivated now and they became a part of the team. We believe that this story can open minds of many employees and be told in different industries. I hope that You can use it somehow at Your job, cause there are always some very underestimated parts of the company, how are in fact extremly important.

