One&Only Resorts: Creating a purpose-led service culture
One&Only operates a portfolio of ultra-luxury resorts stretching from the beaches of the Maldives to the mountains of Australia. Their purpose is “We Create Joy” and they asked Within to bring that purpose to life in their culture - as a foundation for their ultra-luxury proposition and their employee engagement.
Kerzner International’s portfolio of ultra-luxury resorts are expanding globally, and want to ensure that their signature brand of service continues to be delivered consistently as they grow.
They knew that ultra-luxury isn’t defined by the location, the hotel or the perks any more - it’s a human experience, and we know that’s delivered through culture, not brands and policies.
We codified One&Only’s purpose into a distinct service philosophy that could be taught and embedded into how all colleagues work and create joy for guests every day. This started with a deep immersion into the unique culture of each resort - from Mexico to the Blue Mountains of Australia - to surface what was common in the culture and what could underpin the service philosophy.
We then worked with the global leadership team, as well as each resort’s General Manager, to create an embedding programme to launch the philosophy - including a simultaneous event around the world - which kicked off the re-immersion process for all 9000+ colleagues.
We focused on developing highly experiential training sessions, geared towards helping colleagues build meaning into and internalize a set of behaviours. We piloted those in different resort cultures around the portfolio, while helping all resort HR functions learn how to deliver that training themselves.
In the following years One&Only reclaimed Forbes Five-Star awards for several resorts, a feat CEO Philippe Zuber attributed to their unique philosophy of service:
This is a service philosophy which is based on five pillars. And instead of being the usual pillars, which are then being deployed into guidelines, they are based on behaviors. From the leadership down to any of our colleagues within the organization, they all have to behave to those five pillars. It’s extremely, extremely strong and it really talks to the value of One&Only as well. I’m so passionate about that because I think it has been such an amazing journey and the response of the colleagues toward this philosophy has been absolutely amazing, and the way that we deploy it with the team and the resorts is very, very unique.
Meet the Man Behind One&Only’s Five-Star Triumphs, Forbes Magazine, Feb 2020
“We Create Joy” also won 2019 CIPD Award for Best Employee Engagement Initiative. Stuart Thompson, Executive Vice President, Global Human Resources said:
“Within created a very robust program - we’ve ended up with a really high standard of thinking. They have helped us get to the conclusions faster and more effectively, with a structure to help us take it forward with momentum”
Almost six years on, we’re watching One&Only continue to flourish, with We Create Joy as the heartbeat of its culture.
Learn more about our approach to codifying culture and embedding it into across your operations.
How does your culture drive your employee engagement and service excellence? If you’d like to know more about this work or how Within can help, please get in touch.