Hotel ICON, the innovative thought leader in hospitality management clinched the prestigious Hong Kong Management Association (HKMA) training and development award – the Silver Award for Excellence in Training and Development 2018 in the Skills Training category, fortifying the company’s spotlight on people development and elevating guest service levels for the industry. Hotel ICON, a local home-grown hotel brand was the only hotel shortlisted as a finalist last night. The hotel also scooped the Outstanding New Trainer and Best Presentation awards.
Wholly owned by the world-class Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hotel ICON is a hotel with a special purpose to cultivate the next generation of Asian hospitality experts that will contribute to enhancing Hong Kong’s position as an “intellectual capital”.
To genuinely inspire and develop existing and emerging talent for the hospitality industry, Hotel ICON introduced the ‘We Love to Care’ training programme in 2017. The goal of ‘We Love to Care’ is to augment the skills and knowledge of the hotel’s interns and colleagues – in particular around ‘excellence in customer service and in the understanding of emotional intelligence’.
Organised by the Human Resources Development Management Committee of the HKMA since 1990, the Award for Excellence in Training and Development is the only award of its kind in Hong Kong that gives public recognition of achievements in training and development to individuals as well as companies. The award commends Hotel ICON’s dedication to providing quality training for associates and formulating long-term strategies for developing talent.
During the rounds of interviews with HKMA’s panel of adjudicators, Angela Yip, the Director of Learning & Development’s impressive presentation on behalf of the hotel led to her win of the Best Presentation award, while Charles Yeung, former Learning & Development Manager was recognised with the Outstanding New Trainer award.
“We are very honoured to receive the awards. Seeing that traditional models of training and development are not necessarily best suited to prepare our team to discover and build on their own potentials, we created the ‘We Love to Care’ training programme,” said Richard Hatter, General Manager of Hotel ICON.
“To date, we have had many success stories with ‘We Love to Care’. Many colleagues including our former Learning & Development Manager and this year’s recipient of HKMA’s Outstanding New Trainer award Charles Yeung have shared that the training has enhanced their essential guest service skills and most importantly the way they connect with guests emotionally. We are thrilled that many have benefitted greatly from the training, and we are especially proud to see many of the young hoteliers whom we have trained rising through the ranks both at ICON and at other reputable hotels around the world”.
Service audits conducted by ICON’s Learning & Development team indicate a higher level of service consistency among colleagues scoring between 89 and 100 after the training compared with the lower score range of 78 and 100, prior to the training.
Hatter added, “We recognise the success and value of our programme not only through more personalised service as described, but also through the results and comments on TripAdvisor. Since the programme’s initiation, Hotel ICON has moved up on TripAdvisor from fifth to third, and the hotel has maintained the ranking until now”.
Touted as a ‘Hong Kong tourism success’, and sought-after in the industry as a hospitality-related consultant, Hotel ICON will be launching the SHTM+ICON consultancy services together with the School of Hotel and Tourism Management of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University next month.
About ‘We Love to Care’
Hotel ICON established the ‘We Love to Care’ training programme to genuinely inspire and develop existing and emerging talent for the hospitality industry, and to create a unique and memorable experience for its international rooms and local food and beverage guests. The programme aims at “being brilliant together” by elevating the service quality of the existing 360 associates and interns.
Launched in 2017, our focus is to drive ‘guest service excellence’ and to help our team enhance their self-awareness and emotional intelligence at work. By including empathy in our training programmes, we encourage our associates to take into account the experience and perspective of their colleagues, especially when resolving issues, managing conflicts and leading their teams towards greater innovation and higher productivity.
Hotel ICON is also the recipient of the following Learning & Development awards:
- Outstanding New Trainer Award of HKMA Excellence in Training & Development 2018
- PATA Grand Award in Education & Training 2017
- Excellence Award in HKMA Award for Excellence in Training & Development 2014 – Skills Category
- Excellence Award in HKMA Award for Excellence in Training & Development 2014 – Development Category
