Orgwide recently partnered with Extended Stay America to accelerate the skills and abilities of its 600-plus hotel general managers, while reducing turnover in this critical position.
Extended Stay America (ESA) had grown over the years through acquisition, and ultimately merged five distinct brands into one united extended stay hotel brand. This growth resulted in tremendous opportunities for advancement; however, a long history of giving general managers the autonomy to operate their hotel as an individual business also had led to a retention problem in this critical leadership position. ESA recognized this opportunity needed attention, and the starting point was to take a critical look at what training was being offered to general managers. “We found the general manager training was inconsistent and limited in scope, leaving general managers with a lack of confidence in many situations,” according to Sanjay Shah, Extended Stay America VP of Operational Excellence.
Today, ESA owns and operates 629 properties across the U.S. and Canada. Because all ESA hotels are company owned and operated, they have the ability to develop and implement strategic changes to their brand and operations more rapidly than the standard franchise environment of other hotel companies. This level of control is also at the heart of their current business model: Each hotel is staffed by a 10- to 14-member crew and led by a general manager. Shah explains, “General managers are critical to the success of our business, especially as our operating model leverages a lean but empowered staff. There’s little margin for error, so GMs must be proactive, prepared, and confident to lead their teams.”
As the business was enjoying record growth, it also was grappling with a GM turnover problem that added additional stress to the system. “We were seeing a great number of our general managers leaving, and we knew that gaps in our training were a significant reason why,” says Shah. “We needed to find a way to better support them and keep them with us. The training opportunities we had in place were reactive, not proactive, and simply weren’t enough. We needed to ensure a consistent knowledge base across our organization.”
With goals of extending employee tenure by investing in training, ESA hoped to increase top-down support within the company and lay the foundation of a learning culture. “We believe in growing our own and giving them the resources to set them up for success,” says Shah. ESA determined that a formal General Manager Certification program that guaranteed consistent across brand training was the answer.
Approaching Development and Building Training
In February 2015, after a period of researching the best organizations available to assist with his challenge, Shah approached Orgwide Chief Business Development Officer and Partner Jim Hartigan about the project. Orgwide’s reputation in the industry of providing innovative custom corporate training experiences convinced Shah to pursue a partnership. “We were approached by Sanjay and immediately knew creating training from the ground up would be a special project,” Hartigan says. “ESA had all of the necessary material to successfully train a new general manager; it just wasn’t in a format that was easily consumable. We knew we could help them make a significant impact on the organization.”
The challenge meant developing a system to train managers in every aspect of hotel operations through the guest journey, including everything from checking in to checking out. Kate Berg, Orgwide senior director of Learning Solutions, notes that the sheer quantity of information and know-how a general manager needs was initially staggering. “It was an enormously comprehensive project that demanded making connections in all directions,” says Berg, “but we were up for the challenge.”
Extended Stay America Chief Operating Officer Tom Bardenett explains how ESA needed more than just a formalized training to grow as an organization. “It’s about getting people excited about their jobs, giving them an immediate sense of belonging, and taking control of the company’s destiny. That’s what we needed to expand and strengthen ourselves as a company.” Adds ESA Chief HR Officer Kevin Henry, “our GMs are critical in setting the proper tone in our hotels. As leaders, they role model the right behaviors and hold others accountable for operational execution and caring for our guests. Ensuring that they are capable and competent to do their jobs well is critical.”
Orgwide began tackling the project by stepping outside its roles as training developer and stepping into the shoes of general managers. Hartigan stresses the necessity to see things from the perspective of a learner. “There’s a pattern in how people learn, which we call Know, Do, Believe, Achieve. Learners need knowledge before they can act on it, and they need to believe in the worthiness of a goal before they achieve it.”
To develop the framework for training, Orgwide and ESA worked through the Know, Do, Believe, Achieve pattern in reverse. ESA started by identifying the goal, or what general managers needed to achieve, in each area of their job. “Once we understood what general managers needed to achieve, we needed to know what to teach,” says Berg. The project team worked their way toward figuring out what general managers needed to be able to do to be successful at their jobs. Then, the instructional design teams worked with subject matter experts to uncover what general managers needed to know in order to successfully do their jobs. “Adult learners need to be intrinsically motivated to learn,” Berg explains. “Orgwide had to develop content and methodologies that learners trusted to be efficient and relevant.” Giving learners reasons to believe in training helps motivate people towards doing the action of learning. It’s also critical to keep adult learners interested.
The instructional design process involved more than 50 in-depth interviews with subject matter experts (SMEs), as well as the analysis of 2,000-plus pages of existing standards to create a 70-page High Impact Learning Map (HILM), which captured Know, Do, Believe and Achieve for each identified goal. From this point, a High Level Design Document (HLDD) was created to break all of the learning into logical modules and serve as a design outline for training. The HLDD contained specific modules, learning objectives, and identified the best delivery platform, from e-learning to on-the-job training, including case studies to classroom activities, simultaneously taking all types of learning styles into account. “Once they analyzed our content and determined what we currently were doing, they helped us figure out a way of closing the gap between our current and desired future state by articulating specific learning objectives by module,” says Michelle Quesinberry, Extended Stay America’s manager of Leadership Development.
“It was all about reinforcement and consistency. It’s easier to learn and retain information if you’ve dealt with it before,” says Berg. “Creating training experiences that are easy to understand and apply helps give people the confidence they need to succeed.”
The final product was a blended, multi-platform model that provided structure to each new general manager’s first 10 weeks through online, classroom, and practical learning. Extended Stay America’s new General Manager Certification Program takes a non-traditional approach that involves on-site orientation with the GM’s boss, 14 days of on-the-job training at a certified training hotel, and then six weeks of additional e-learning and practical exercises completed back at the GM’s home hotel. After the first 10 weeks, new general managers are invited to finish their instructional journey with a three-day trip to ESA’s support center in Charlotte to meet with the corporate team and various functional SMEs and to receive their certification.
Involved in every step of training development, Orgwide and Extended Stay America also worked together to fold in a learning path for incumbent general managers. To give incumbent general managers the same learning experience, they were asked to complete all of the new e-learning and attend a two-day regional meeting, which allowed them to connect with the ESA corporate team, as well as cultivate their leadership and communication skills.
“This is our first formalized program and our first comprehensive learning program,” Shah says. “This was a huge move forward on Extended Stay America’s part.” All general managers are presented with accomplishment certificates after completion of the training and upon meeting the corporate team.
Implications for the Future
Extended Stay America took a leap and invested the time, energy, and resources into revamping its general manager training, allowing it to take greater responsibility with its employees.
“The most memorable training involves demonstrating to employees early on in their careers that their success and job satisfaction matters,” COO Bardenett explains. “This training shines brightest in its ability to make general managers feel plugged in immediately. It will enable us to bring greater support to our employees, who now have the confidence to do their jobs to the absolute best of their abilities.”
The General Manager Certification Program is expected to fulfill Extended Stay America’s goals, including increasing business and improving employee tenure length. “We want this training to be a pillar of Extended Stay America’s commitment to not simply corporate learning, but continuing education,” Shah says, “In the past, it seemed to be an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ mentality. This training has created a transparency within the company and allowed us to work together for the benefit of the organization. Through giving general managers this learning opportunity, we’ve created a connected and engaged community. We’ve broken down barriers.”
Having a strong learning program determines whether a company can recruit and keep high-performing employees. In a time when companies are jumping to rebuild and fortify their employee training, Extended Stay America is among the leaders in the move toward investing in the training and satisfaction of its employees through building a learning culture within its organization.
The companies that realize the value of perpetual education are poised to propel themselves forward and upward. The key is teaching the right things, at the right time, in the most effective way (e-learning, classroom, on-the-job training, etc.). Orgwide’s tagline states, “Telling the fascinating story of inherently dull things,” which it believes is the best way to enhance each team member’s connection to the organization’s values and outcomes. The Extended Stay America team agrees that Orgwide succeeded in creating a fascinating story, and their general managers are all the better for it.
Founded in 2004, Orgwide Services, LLC (Orgwide) developed from a vision to significantly improve how organizations manage the acquisition and distribution of knowledge and expertise. Leveraging problem-solving talents and consulting skills, Orgwide combines the science of learning and the art of communication with advanced analytics to dramatically improve organizations’ results. The company’s motto is: “telling the fascinating stories of inherently dull things.” For more information, visit http://www.orgwide.com.
