Midas: Giving Hospitality The Golden Touch

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Wrap yourself in the softness of luxury Minky fabric as you cozy up under the Stars and Stripes.

Our blankets are designed to ignite your patriotic pride and keep you warm all night long.

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Freedom has never felt so cozy.

Timothy put the catalda on.

Inspiration.

Ra.

Welcome to Timothy Put the Kittel on where I, Timothy R. Andrews and my co host Sarah Cattell are talking hospitality, bringing you solutions to the issues we are facing and inspirational stories from the incredible people who make up our hospitality industry family.

This podcast is shared on all major platforms, iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, YouTube and Spotify and is marketed on social media.

Hi Tim.

Hi Sarah.

Good to see you again.

You too.

How are you?

Very well.

How are you doing?

I'm doing all right.

I'm doing all right.

So this week we are bringing you double the value on guests.

We have got two guests with us today.

Hilary Cook, a life coaching, leadership development and team building expert and Joanne Taylor, SAG general manager of the Athenaeum Hotel and Residences in London.

And they're going to tell us about their exciting new project, midas, which is an acronym, an acronym that works, which makes me really happy, which stands for Master in holders developing additional skills.

So let's start with a little bit about you both.

Joanne, tell us about your current role at the Athenaeum Hotel and Residences.

Hi Sarah, thank you very much for having us on.

Yeah, the Athenaeum is a fabulous family run and operated hotel in Mayfair.

I'm actually really privileged and lucky to get to lead the team that are there.

They're full of young, vibrant, inspirational people and a couple that aren't quite as young but still are at heart.

So 164 bedrooms right in opposite Green park, so right in the centre of Mayfair and it's a wonderful job to have.

Amazing.

So Hilary, tell us about your role at Merlin Business consultancy.

Okay, thanks Sarah.

So Merlin's I suppose we're a learning development consultancy or organization development consultancy.

We've been going about 30 years.

We've got a strong hospitality story through all our projects.

We deal a lot with hotels, work a lot with hotels, hospitality in general, often senior management consulting, team building, all that sort of thing.

Fun stuff.

Liri how did you get into hospitality?

My dad was a training consultant and I used to love going in with him on a Sunday to do his setups in hotels.

Put all the pencils in a straight line, set up all the tables for him.

From when I was, I don't know how old, my dad was my hero.

So doing this for him was fantastic.

And I can remember sitting and waiting for him and my mother.

Actually we were away together in the North British, in Edinburgh, which is now the Balmoral.

And I was sitting, waiting for them, sitting on one of these funny padded seats in reception that you used to have in those days.

That was when it was a British transport hotel.

There was a reception desk and then there was a door by the side of the reception desk and two people came out of the door.

It was a man and a lady.

I was probably about 8 and they were both laughing and they'd clearly come out from some sort of meeting.

And I was just fascinated to know what had gone on behind that door and I have been for the rest of my life.

That was it.

So what's going on behind the scenes is something which I am endlessly nosy and curious about and that's what hotels are really.

It's lovely out front, but it's even more fun around the back.

Joanne I kind of fell into hotels.

I started doing a law degree and got a waitressing job to pay for my university.

Halfway through my law degree, I realized I was dawdling to get to lectures and speeding to get to work and thought, hang on, there's something wrong with this picture.

So I had a conversation with my grandmother, who was an amazing woman and a huge influence in my life, and she said to me, you were born to be in hotels.

When I was three, apparently all of my friends wanted to go to the Wimpy Bar.

We didn't have McDonald's in South Africa.

But I was obviously quite precocious because I wanted to go for afternoon tea at the Elangini, which was a five star hotel on the beachfront in Durban.

And she said to me, since you were three, that's where you've wanted to be.

Go and do it.

Tell us, how did the two of you connect and create Midas?

It's certainly about more than just Hilary and I.

It really starts with the Master in Holders.

And the Master in Holders are a group of leading hoteliers whose aim is really to be the standard barrier to influence and to ensure that we continually improve the standards and the professionalism within our industry.

And one of the ways we do that is through education.

And we really focus a lot on trying to help develop and train, particularly future generations.

Depending on where you are in your career, there's generally a Master in Holder's brief for you.

So Hilary looks after mild, which is the Master in Holders Aspiring Leaders Diploma.

There's also another program which is around scholarship.

So with a number of other key stakeholders, the Worshipful Company of In Holders, the Master in Holders Charitable Trust, and the Savoy Educational Trust, we would send out scholarships to Cornell University in New York or Cranfield or various other development opportunities.

But as the Year of COVID started to become longer and longer, we realized that we wouldn't really be able to offer those scholarships and to take a new batch of MILD guys and girls onto the program.

It just didn't feel like the right time to do anything.

And more or less at the same time, there was the real stepping up of the initiative for seats at the table to get a minister for hospitality.

And so there were a lot of stats going around.

And one of our conversations with David Morgan Hewitt, who is the current chair of the Master End Holders, we were talking about the fact that hospitality held 10% of all jobs, yet a third of all redundancies were coming from our sector.

And the people that were taking the biggest hits were really the guys that sort of sat from supervisor up to kind of hod.

That whole layer seemed to be being removed from our industry.

And it really hurts.

You know, we're an industry that looks after our people generally.

We're all about caring and looking after people.

And it really felt wrong.

And so in various conversations, we felt that if we couldn't offer the scholarships and the MILD program, we needed to do something.

We needed to try and support this bunch of people who, through no fault of their own, are suddenly in the biggest career crisis of their lives.

And we have a duty of care for them.

And also, quite selfishly, we would really like them to come back at the end of this crisis.

And if we look after them and keep them engaged and keep them learning, then we would be able to do both of that.

And so out of that conversation, this embryo of Midas was born.

Midas on LinkedIn everywhere.

The buzz is incredible.

I've picked it up and it's just everyone's talking about it and you're seeing it everywhere.

So what I want from both of you, and I'll start with Hilary and then I'll go to Jo, is what is it that's so brilliant about Midas?

Hilary?

Thanks.

There's A lot around to help virtual team working, for example.

There's a lot around to help job seeking.

There's not an awful lot around if you actually want to develop your skills.

So Midas is all about retention and skill building and networking.

So what we're really trying to do here is build a community, a community of learning.

And that, I think, is where we have kind of hit a nerve, because all of us want to network.

There's a lot of requirement for just coming together and hanging out, which is what we would do in hospitality in a pub, and we can't do that, so we might as well.

The best, the next best thing is to do it on a.

On a screen.

So that's really, I think, where the interest comes from.

The people that we're aiming to reach with Midas are, I don't like saying the young because it makes us sound old, but it is, is the younger, the next generation of leaders of managers.

And there isn't much of a network for them, which is why I think we've had the demand that we've.

Or the response to demand that we've had.

There's a lot of networking at Master in Holder level.

They run some fabulous webinars called Leading through the Revival and there's a very good network themselves.

What there isn't so much of is a network and a voice for the other levels in the organisations or in the industry.

We just want to be there for each other.

Johan, I think it's hit a nerve because we have so many amazing young people that are feeling really, really isolated and quite a few of them are really worried not only about the current situation and their current jobs and some of them are working, some of them aren't, but also they're struggling to see a future.

And I think knowing that you're not alone in that is incredibly powerful.

And so I think it absolutely gives them that support and that network that they can tap into.

But it is also trying to keep them focused, to develop skills with a belief in a future that will come.

I mean, it's great.

We had a previous guest, Libby Davis, who I think you both know, who just speaks so highly of Midas and what it's doing.

So.

So it is really having an impact.

So really well done.

That's good to hear because we did put it together, hoping and believing we would help.

Help was the key driver, but you don't know how it's going to land.

The very first module, we kind of thought we'd maybe have about 30 people turn up And I think the highest was well over 100, 164.

You can actually watch the recording of that on YouTube, can't you?

And it's quite amazing how many people just fill into this room.

It's really quite magical.

It's just.

It was wonderful.

Yeah.

Beyond any expectation that we had.

And I think that just shows that it is definitely the right thing at the right time.

It's been great.

It's a bit like standing on the station and watching a runaway train come at you, but it's good fun.

So why is it called Midas?

Well, it was a fun acronym to work with because it's Master in Holders development, developing additional skills.

But Midas was also, in Greek mythology, a king who responded to three wishes and one of the wishes was that everything he touched would turn to gold.

So it's like a career in hospitality, really.

So what topics are you going to be covering in your Midas sessions?

That's an interesting question, Sarah, because it changes every month depending on what's happening.

So in January we had finance and money matters because at that time we thought everyone would be going back to brand new budgets and starting a new year properly.

Didn't realise we'd all be sort of shut out and closed.

Anyway, we ran it anyway and that was very well received.

February, resilience.

What's it take to bounce back?

And March is all around motivation and finding your mojo.

So I think the motivation bit is very far reaching in terms of maybe you need to be motivated to carry on looking for another job.

Maybe you need to be motivating a team in terms of preparing for recovery.

Let's hope.

Or maybe it's just motivating yourself either to stay home or to go back to work.

Because I think, although there's also a feeling, oh, goodness me, let's get back quickly.

I can't wait.

I think there's also a lot of underlying anxiety about how will I cope when I'm back?

How will it work?

No, sir, it's not going to be the same when we get back.

It is going to be different to what we had before.

Would you like to tell us how people can get involved, if they'd like to get involved and they've not been to a Midas session yet.

Yeah, thanks, that's great.

I'd love to.

So we every month we try and push out four elements.

So we push out something to do with theory.

So there's always a master class with some tips.

So how to.

So motivation in terms of how to be more Motivated how to motivate a team, because there's techniques and tools for that sort of thing.

So there's a master class on the last Friday, which is Friday 26th March at 2pm and then on, on Tuesdays we have a networking session.

So that's an open zoom, drop in, use breakout rooms.

We'll set questions around motivation, test the water for a bit, see how people are feeling, get them to share.

And that's on Tuesday the 23rd of March at 3pm and then at the same time, we put together a video, short video, and also a podcast.

Not in competition with you, but a podcast because you can't have enough podcasts.

And all of those are available either on the master and holders YouTube channel, on the Master and Holders website.

You can download the links or register.

You can download the link to register for both the masterclass and the networking event.

Everything's free, everyone's welcome.

There's no eligibility criteria.

Www.masterinholders.co.uk that's fantastic.

I'm actually going to sign up for quite a few myself and I'm sure Tim, you will be joining in as well, because what I've seen on YouTube is really impressive so far, so I'd love to be a part of that.

So in the interviews that Tim and I have done in the last six months have actually left us really excited for the future of hospitality and we, we, sorry, Tim, I'm going to speak for you here.

We feel that there's some really great stuff on the horizon and we are just going to rise up and be amazing.

And it does feel to us like we're building an army to come back stronger as an industry now, how can we keep looking at ourselves and have this reflection that lockdown has given us to keep improving?

I think leadership and how we are around people and how we leave people feeling in a team, in the workplace is going to be more relevant, even more relevant than it was before.

So we've got a whole lot of relearning to do when we go back.

It's going to be good.

We are going to be good because hospitality people will always bounce back.

We are a breed that that's what we do.

But I think the leadership of that is going to be key.

I absolutely agree with Hilary and I think the other thing that we can't underestimate is all of our teams are going to be smaller and I'm ever the optimist.

I do think that whilst getting back to where we were pre Covid in Terms of business levels will take a couple of years, but I think we are going to have a strong domestic bounce, I really do.

If we see what happened last summer in the coastal towns and in the countryside, I'm expecting that same kind of rebound.

We are going to have to think creatively about the guests that we have, because some of us, London, I don't know, 70% of our business is international.

It's going to be a complete flip and we're going to have to change the service and think about things a little bit differently.

But we're also going to need to do that very much with smaller teams.

So people are going to need to be far more multi skilled than they ever were before.

And then I think the other thing that is going to change is our view on what we do in terms of smart growth, not just financial growth, but also how we are impacting the planet.

So I think our care for the guests and our care for the world we live in is going to be incredible because one of the positives from COVID has been the massive drop in carbon emissions and that sort of thing.

And when those planes do start taking off again, I think we're going be far more conscious of the impact we are having and I think that is going to fundamentally change the way we operate, not just in hospitality but in every sector.

Totally agree.

Yeah, absolutely.

What advice would you give someone working

in hospitality at the moment?

My advice would be carry on believing most of us got into this industry because it is a calling, it's a purpose, it's a passion.

You can't do this and not love it.

You would be doing something else.

So hold on to that.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel now and everything that you love and everything that you're good at will come back.

Just keep the faith.

We will come back.

We will get back.

Do you know what?

When I hear both of you speak about this and when I think about what you're doing, I get like the hairs of the back of my neck.

Like, this is something really exciting.

Same.

It's really good, isn't it?

We're quite excited about it.

Yeah, you should be.

Quick fire round quick fire questions.

This is so our audience gets to know you a little bit better.

And the rule is, is we're going to ask you a question and you have to say the first thing that comes into your mind.

Goodness.

Oh, good Lord, this could end so badly.

Hilary, what's your favourite book?

Lord of the Rings.

Jo, what's your hidden talent?

I make A great biscotti.

Hilary, if you could instantly become an expert in something, what would it be?

Dog training.

Jo, what is a dream you have that you've yet to achieve?

I would love to travel across the Okavongo swamps and see elephants up close.

Hilary, if you could be any animal, what would it be?

And why a horse?

They're really elegant and loyal.

Jo, what is your favorite hobby?

At the moment, it's cycling.

Use one word to describe your computer ability developing.

Jo, what's your weapon of choice?

Humour.

Hilary, what's the last item you purchased?

A pot of buttermilk paint.

Hot or cold?

Hot.

No need to think about that.

Hilary.

Licorice all sorts or jelly babies?

Oh, licorice.

All sorts every time.

Except for the ones with a little.

With the little beads on.

Don't like those.

Chicken legs or chicken wings?

Chicken legs.

Hillary, Roast Dinner gravy, yes or no?

Yes.

Joe, Cheese butty in a roll or sliced bread?

Oh, fresh crusty bread.

Hillary, Milk chocolate or dark chocolate?

Dark chocolate.

Joe.

Corn on the cob or off the cob?

On.

Hillary.

Restaurant food served on plates or wooden boards?

Wooden boards, Joe.

But in the fridge or out of the fridge?

If I'm dieting, I'll say in the fridge because it's harder to scrape.

If I'm not, then absolutely warm because you can get more on the bread,

You're off the hook.

Well, thank you very much.

Pleasure to see you.

Thank you.

Take care.

Stay safe.

Bye.

Thank you for listening.

Please share, subscribe and like.

This podcast is shared on all major platforms, iTunes, Google Play, SoundCloud, YouTube and Spotify, and is marketed on social media.

Timothy, put the katawa on sa.

Inspiration.

This July 4th.

Celebrate the spirit of freedom and comfort with Minky Couture blankets.

Wrap yourself in the softness of luxury Minky fabric as you cozy up under the Stars and Stripes.

Our blankets are designed to ignite your patriotic pride and keep you warm all night long.

From backyard barbecues to fireworks in the sky, make every moment memorable with Mickey Couture.

Indulge in the ultimate comfort and style this Independence Day.

Visit us@mikkouuture.com or your nearest store today and embrace the True Essence of July 4th with Mickey Couture Blankets.

Freedom has never felt so cozy.

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