This, in turn, will motivate teams to delve into themselves and bring out their lesser-known selves. Even though a picture is worth a thousand words, sometimes the right words are just what you need to make it through the day, to inspire your team, or to change your perspective.

Today’s Traveller: How do you keep up your team’s morale?

Vineet Mishra: Winning teams don’t win every time! But, they learn from every experience, keep their outlook positive and morale high.

Firstly, communication is key and it’s a two-way street. A team feels more motivated with two things – Empowerment & Engagement. At any given point if you take away either of these two, it has a direct impact on overall morale.

My personal experience has shown when we look at an involved team you get far better results. Sometimes we surprise ourselves with what we can achieve when we push each other for more.

Recognizing victories and celebrating, however big or small they might be along with due credit, plays a key role in a successful and motivated team. One should allow your team to do what they do best.

As a leader, you may not be well-versed in a particular discipline and following advice and recommendations help overall achievement. Fail and fail fast, accept mistakes will happen and learn from them. Respect, a smile, pat on the back goes a thousand miles

Today’s Traveller: A major milestone that shaped you as a Leader

Vineet Mishra: As a child, I played for a football club and we would participate in small leagues in the city. I always played defense, never forward or mid-field, it was always defense. I was never the captain of the team, but I was a good defender and was respected for it by my teammates and coach. I was heard on the field and my opinion mattered.

Leadership is a team sport that requires collaboration and teamwork where members within the team can leverage each other’s strengths to eliminate individual weaknesses. Today when I reflect back, somewhere I feel that leadership is an action more than a role.

Through school and later in college I was fortunate to take on the lead for projects and assignments. One major learning that came to me when I was the Vice President of the student council in my college, came when I was to supervise my own peers. At that time I learnt that every role comes with its complexities and dealing with them is important for your own growth and development as a leader.

As I moved through my professional life, I picked up a lot of skills by observation. As a young manager, I learned about leadership through observing other leaders in action; some great, others good, few bad, and rare ones even ugly. Interestingly, I learned just as much from the good as I did from the bad.

Personally, I feel leadership is a privilege and an honour that carries with it a tremendous responsibility.  Through my journey, I have learnt that great leaders know not only their own limitations but also the limitations of their team members and can offset these limitations with individual and group strengths to achieve overall successes.

Having the fortune of working under some of the best in hospitality, I saw that great leaders are those who listen well, can motivate and inspire, and provide a clear vision and direction. Also, who lead by example and empower others to do what they do best.

Finally, the responsibility and having a clear understanding of the positive and negative impacts their actions may have on their followers. However, above all I believe one tool to be the most important aspect of leadership; is taking care of people. It is by far the most important leadership tool and possibly it is the most critical tool for effective leadership.

Today’s Traveller: How do you approach a challenge?

Vineet Mishra: A challenge is always an opportunity. It is something that helps you learn something new, sets a new record, pushes you to the edge, and raises the bar. I usually look for a challenge.

When you see a problem in front of you, it magnifies and diminishes based on how you look at it – like a mountain you can’t climb or a sea that you can’t swim through. Sometimes it’s better to build a tunnel or a bridge than climbing or swimming.

Having said that I don’t underestimate a challenge. I look at every opportunity to see how one can overcome a situation, tactfully and skilfully. It makes you stronger and wiser, no matter whether you win or lose from it and hence it is an opportunity.

A step by step approach keeping a certain amount of risk assessment in mind usually helps you reach your goals and overcome the challenge. However, one should never forget that a challenge is always dynamic – it moves and changes just the way you do. Be proactive to think and never underestimate or be overconfident, rather be tactful and intelligent.

Today’s Traveller: What is that one thing that you have learnt during the Covid-19 Pandemic?

Vineet Mishra: It is to never take anything for granted. Less is more. Health and wellbeing is a priority for yourself and your loved ones, and try to balance your life.

Today’s Traveller: What is that one thing that you cannot miss?

Vineet Mishra: Well, for me it’s some form of exercise every day… whatever it may be. Irrespective of the climate and environment, if I can go to the gym, run/walk or just do 20 minutes of stretches at any time of the day.

Today’s Traveller: Which non-professional activities give you energy and satisfaction?

Vineet Mishra: I love running, cycling and hitting the gym occasionally. Playing with my children and spending time with our canines.

Read More: Corporate Connect

Today’s Traveller put these important issues before Agnihotri, currently heading Human Resources for the Radisson Hotel Group, South Asia, and managing talent capital for 94 operating hotels, impacting 18,000 employees.

Agnihotri is the right man in the right place as he has the distinction of achieving business growth in rapid change environments, as well as designing and implementing innovative systems, processes, standards and policies for HR operations, retention and diversity, employees’ effectiveness and reduction of HR costs.

In a candid interview, Agnihotri speaks on critical issues of our times  and how these will shape future trends in Training and HR policies in the Hospitality industry.

TT : In the post COVID scenario, what factors will determine a company’s staffing goals and strategies to support profitable business operations?

Yogendra Agnihotri: Human Resources as a function needs to be agile and resilient during such unprecedented times to support business continuity. As we move forward, organizations will have to redefine their staffing strategies with a value driven mindset.  At Radisson Hotel Group, we are strongly leveraging our India Unification Strategy, that builds on the strength of our network and delivers efficiency across five focus areas. 

Manpower is one of these key areas, apart from procurement, food & beverage (F&B), operations and commercial. Under the manpower strategy, the following key initiatives have been undertaken:

• Cluster General Manager Program to optimize the potential of our human resources along with managing their career aspirations and providing them enriched job content
• General Manager Lead Referral Program to leverage and reward relationships built in-house to grow the brand through a result-oriented incentive program
• Manning Blueprint to develop a future-ready organization, in order to deliver greater efficiencies led by a quality-driven mindset

We are looking into digitally enabled processes supported by task management and engineering software and internal communication platforms. Much before the crisis, we had developed internal processes to enable employee feedback to flow freely to the management and these listening exercises have become even more critical in the current situation.

TT: Hotels are being asked to go back to the drawing board and bring in austerity measures, inventiveness and adaptation to survive. As manpower is a major factor in this equation, what will be the new rules of engagement?

Yogendra Agnihotri: Our teams have been working tirelessly to overcome the challenges posed by the global pandemic, and our primary focus is the health and wellbeing of all our guests and colleagues. 

Our endeavor is to strengthen the bond with our colleagues further through a three-fold approach – Communicate, Connect and Care. We are supporting our colleagues and helping them stay inspired through various engagement initiatives such as –

• Periodic Newsletters around relatable topics ranging from remote working management, to inspirational pieces, personal development, and lifestyle tips
• Weekly Learning Vitamins to enhance leadership and functional capabilities
• Radisson Talks Live Sessions, wherein senior leaders connect with employees globally and share success stories and provide updates
• Virtual Coffee sessions wherein employees catch up with Human Resource team and share how they are coping with the complexities of the new environment
• Going forward, Radisson Academy Online will take center stage for employees and most of our new programs would be administered through this new initiative to ensure convenient online access to all.

TT: Do you see drastic change in staffing plans, compensation, benefits on the cards?

Yogendra Agnihotri: The long-term fundamentals of our business in India remain strong and we are positive that people engagement and training efforts will enable our business to tide over these temporary challenges. With a robust network of 94 operating hotels, we are in a unique position to leverage the strength of our scale to deploy talent in an optimal manner. 

TT: In what way will training and development policies change?

Yogendra Agnihotri: Hospitality sector will require rigorous reskilling, upskilling and new trainings for employees. Apart from hygiene, various other aspects of customer service and back end operations will witness radical shifts due to accelerated use of emerging technologies across all guest touchpoints such as contactless check-in and check-out, touchless room service, digital menus and sensor and gesture based controls.

This will result in redefined roles and responsibilities of employees handling these key areas. To ensure our employees seamlessly transition to their new roles and exceed guest expectations, we have devised ‘Business Recovery & Re-Opening Training’ modules across all our hotels.

The training aims to empower our employees to make the right decisions and be fully prepared for complex scenarios. We have registered a positive response from our staff regarding these modules whereby they feel better equipped to deal with new guest requirements. We are committed to help our teams feel inspired and confident to deliver a differentiated guest experience.

TT: How do you see the future of jobs in the hospitality industry?

Yogendra Agnihotri: With a new normal in place in the post-pandemic era, there has been a significant shift in the hospitality business operations. Businesses will now certainly look for candidates that are proficient at multi-skilling and work well under pressure. 

Candidates who possess distinctive qualities of problem solving, crisis leadership and critical thinking will certainly get preference. As our dependence on technology for interaction with guests has amplified, digital skills in sales, reservations, revenue, IT, and marketing will be in high demand.