Why HR Belongs in the Boardroom

it's more important that it's not some wording on the wall or people just saying it i think culture is something that employees should feel and i think that hr is playing a very important role in keeping that al welcome to the first episode of room 4 talent my name is cindy kasumusni head of hr at corandon hotels today marks an exciting milestone for me and not only is this the first episode of room 4 talent but it's also my debut as a podcast host taking me proudly beyond my comfort zone the advice that alan scourie the wonderful person behind this podcast gave me was to start this podcast here with somebody i know and i feel really comfortable with so a few people came to mind but one in particular my guest is someone i not only deeply respect professionally but someone who also played an important role in my own journey it's nicole bom we worked together at corendon hotels where she was my manager at the same at the time nicole is a true hr professional and has a strong love for people culture in the hospitality industry and therefore i asked her to be my first guest in this podcast could you tell us well nicole first of all welcome and wonderful to have you here and that you really want to be my first guest so can you give us some more background about you and what you did today absolutely but first of all cindy thank you for the invitation and for your warm and kindly words and it's also my first time i had some speakers experience on big podia but i never done a podcast so we join our hand join our hands together and make it a wonderful podcast together so i think for everything there's a first time yes a little bit about me i have my roots in the hospitality industry i came from a family who had a known restaurant and bar so i think that's where the love began the hotel management school in the hague and afterwards i started my career in one of the hotels at schiphol but then i moved away from the hospitality industry i worked in the casino business but also in the pharmaceutical industry but then again in 2019 we've met and that was the time i came back to the hospitality industry and at the moment i'm currently busy with my career progressing my career as an hr director people and culture within corendon but then for the tour operator and the airline yeah so that's really in the nutshell yeah thank you yeah okay that's it in a nutshell that's in a nutshell yeah when you think about back to the moment that you chose architect what originally pulled you towards this field because you chose you did hotel school and ended up in hr so yeah we got the opportunity within the hotel management school to also do a minor and that i think i was in my third year and we could do a minor in train the trainer and that was actually the first time i really was exposed by coaching and helping other people the minor was set up to help the first year students to work more together as a team work as team building but also coach them and help them to come through the first year but also to help them with big projects they need to deliver an entrepreneurial project and assignments so so we were there to help them and to coach them and i think they're where the love begin for hr and i think that's what i like to do helping people to develop coach them but also help them when they struggle with some issues not only on a professional level but also sometimes on the personal level okay so that was kind of a long time ago a long time ago but if you so that was all new to you and that's where kind of the the love grew but if you had to describe your current role to you like 15 years ago what you do now what would have surprised you most about it i would never expect i would be back in the hospitality industry but that's where i think the plot goes where it so that that's really part of my dna so i i've moved worked for startup companies i worked for fintech companies nothing to do with hospitality at all but actually there persuades me to i think in 2019 to come back to the hospitality industry and at that at that time i worked for a fintech company so really with it guys developers front end developers back end developers and nothing to do with the hospitality industry at all so they did quite a good job at the time to move back and i've never felt sorry about it no no regrets no because you have seen a lot of different industries and you're also well back in the hospitality like you say blood runs deep and i think when you get a little bit it's contagious working like in the hospitality industry but you've always been in hr so what part of your work still gives you the same energy as it did like when you first started or like 10 years ago yeah i think it's maybe the level that i'm working at the moment so i can really drive strategy and be important for people in their career but also for the company itself so really on the executive level i can really yeah hopefully make a difference and that's also what i like the most if you just ask me to just run a hr department that's not a challenge at all for me so i always want to make a difference and always would like to improve so if you can give me that that gives me a lot of a lot of energy and you know cindy i joined corandum back at 2019 we all know what happened in march 2020 so it was not the most easiest time at all no it's really the COVID time but particularly during that time we as hr could really make a difference for all those people of course we had to let go a lot of people but if we can do it in a respectful way just helping them guiding them supporting them i think that's hr we can yeah that's a heavy task but also very grateful task to do that yeah yeah that was a really hectic and heavy time i still remember that i was in the office crying about the iv that we had to let go of a lot of people and then we just wiped our tears and i was like okay do this we have to get to the crisis but if you look back on that period what what kind of lesson did you get out of it what did you learn about yourself in that time i think the persuasion i think i know that i can get through hard times but it also affected us i think also personally i think everybody in covid time also had their personal issues with children with other challenges you're having probably the concerns about your parents so it was already a challenging time in my personal life and then it was really hectic on my professional life as well and i if i look back i don't know how i just kept going but i think the most important lesson and it was really what we did at high time at the team effort and i think that's the most beautiful thing within hospitality what i felt comparing to other industries the team spirit is so strong because you work it's a hotel is open 24 7 people also see each other it's part of their personal life as well and the way how it's in their dna with people who love hospitality they like to take care of people and the way how everybody was there for each other it doesn't matter in what kind of department you worked it was a shared assignment that we had to do and we just had one common goal just get through covid times and hopefully we were there supporting each other i think that gave me a lot of strength yeah i share that thought it was like really doing the team effort together and just trying to remain sane in all of the chaos of course i really saw you as a true leader getting everybody together and just doing the job but also being there for each other if looking back on that if you look at your younger self what kind of leader would you thought you would become or was that something that wasn't on your mind when you stepped into your career in the hotel school or later on to be honest never thought i would be a leader i think that was no ambition at all of me i think at that time if you look back i was so shy and so modest i would hate it to be put in the front and to expose to a lot of people and making decisions and leading people but i think you slowly grow into that and it's not like you said it was one of my ambitions to become a leader i just love my job and then you slowly developing in your career and yeah and look now i made it as a director of hr but actually i love to be a leader and working together with a team and see what we're capable of if we all working together have the same common goals and actually helping the organization developing and growing but also people within them yeah i can imagine that covid like was like one of those defying moments that really shape you as a leader are there other moments in your career when you look back on it that kind of define that leadership within you yeah of course i think everybody has some met some heroes within within their careers and if i look back i think it was 2016 when i worked with a startup company but unfortunately we had to close that business and the owner of the company already stepped back a few months ago and then an interim managing director came in and actually the director was the coo of the group and that was such a great leader in all kind of aspects he gave guidance he gave priority he brought a lot of peace and he was really a true people manager so we learned a lot from from him and especially myself and the way he was i think at that time he did three jobs but every time i sat down with him and talking about the priorities he really gave me the feeling that he had all the time in the world he was there only for me was there to coach me to guide me and to make sure i could deliver and was helping me just to do my job and i think that's a real talent if you give somebody the feeling that he's totally there and dedicated for you and helping there and his door is always open i could always approach him and i thought how does that guy doing it with all the jobs that he's doing his span of control at that time was huge and with all his responsibilities but every time i spoke to him he know a lot of personal things he remembers things and yeah that really made a difference for me i said wow and then you see i always yeah did he ever tell in secret how he did it how he does it yeah he said it does also due to his family life he could really make a distinction between work and his private life and his wife isabella was always there brought some peace make sure he set also the right priorities for his family and not that he say it is only work but yeah he found some peace in his private life and that made him able to focus and give them the focus and the energy to fully be present when he was working okay and did you did you take some of those learnings with you in your daily leadership skills something that you i'm trying i think this part of my it's up to my team to decide if i'm able to do so i'm far more chaotic and then he is because when he when he was entering the room he was bringing so much peace and i think you know if i'm entering the room and i had a busy day i'm i'm all over the place so but sometime it's good to think back about about him and hopefully that bring also some peace yeah yeah yeah maybe doing more yoga and two more mindfulness sessions that i can really be in the moment present and bring some peace yeah is it something that you execute already or is it still a learning process oh absolutely absolutely yeah yeah it's quite a hectic time but we're actually facing with corona now i think it's crazy times with everything that happenings in in the world and anticipating as a company towards so that made it especially important to stay calm and bring peace and also towards the rest of the team members and not only with my own team but the rest of the company that they feel trusted they feel safe and not bringing any insecurity in a direction where the company is going so yeah okay have you ever experienced a period of doubt in your career because we're also talking about what goes well but we all well we met our heroes but we also met our devils somewhere along the way yeah yeah i think i had that doubt and i think it's and you were actually part of that as well together with anna another colleague that when i left corindon in 2022 and i didn't had another job yet and i said i will never go back in hr never here we are yeah you can maybe remember those words yeah and during COVID time it was it was tough and at that time we were also opening a hotel at curacao so in i think it was february 2020 when we had a big recruitment event at the island at i think we recruited more than 150 people there and one coordinator we need to let all those people go and we all know we don't have the same social security system in curacao as we have in the netherlands so there was a big impact of all those people and that really hit me and i think oh my god and if you look back at my career at that time i love building i love working for startups together making a company bigger and successful and actually at that time within covid we were only downsizing the company and letting people go and i said oh my god i hate that part of my job and i want to pursue my career in a totally different direction and even thought of starting my own company a small restaurant lunch restaurant very small very nice just serving people making some nice food with nothing to do with hr anymore but yeah tada you kind of failed there the love is still there the love is still there yeah really had to dust it off a little bit but it's still there yeah so you're still well you're still part of hospitality and hr so that kind of pales away can you share an experience when you saw someone grow under your leadership and what it meant to you personally i think i have several examples i think within within my career it's also sometimes comes with if we have a nice good trainee within your team and you see them growing and it's the first experience within hr and i also always hope that you can also pass the love for hr and when they turn out their career and being really nature manager somewhere that is really amazing and i also had it within my past job my last job there was somebody working there very shy very modest and she really grow and was exposed to a lot of different challenges but she took it on gave her confidence and then you shot actually every day you saw her growing and i think that's that's if you just give people trust but not letting them go fully but being on the side and coaching them i think they can do miracles yeah yeah so you're kind of miracle worker too huh no i hope so i hope so but i don't have that magic stuff for me yeah yeah so that's but i think you have the same i think cindy within your role as well sometimes when you come come to a certain level within the organization you also feel the responsibility for a team and let people grow and i also see that sometimes i sometimes can recall some nice compliments they were giving you from people within the kitchen or on other levels that you also made some differences within people's lives not within your own team i think within the company i think it's also maybe nice to share yeah that's that's very sweet but i think it's when you go into hr for for the of course right reasons is that well we like to take care of people and that goes beyond our teams and i just like i'm not in the same hotel every day anymore but i i have the privilege to go everywhere and yeah i'm just curious about people and how they are doing and to help them out to help them grow also but also just to ask them how are you doing usually then the stories come you know and also the complaints and like because you're you listen and it's oh yeah it always makes us feel good when when people tell you that that you made their day with just some small remarks or just giving out a compliment i'm still getting that into the organization to be more resourceful with complimenting people that they also walk by just to see how everybody's doing my job is just to facilitate and make everybody happy i always say so on one hand i think we have the best job still but also sometimes the easiest job just make everybody happy from your perspective when we are looking from your career to hr but also in hospitality in general what do you think is truly working right now in attracting the right people for the hospitality industry it's i think but that's of course times is changing if you look also at the different generations that we're having but it's not one size fits all and we actually experienced it also already within the hotels that we were working for we were all working for corendon hotels but every hotel was also different so it's also tailored work that we're doing people have different ambitions and that's what we also see the way how work is positioning the current days within people's lives it has a different place in their in their life if we look back at the years maybe my two daughters always say boomer my release but at nighttime it's just work hard and that's what you're taught and that's how you were raised as a child if you just work hard you will get there but that's not the case anymore people have different expectations of work work is more how they work and facilitate their personal goals what they want to achieve what's in there for them and there's no right or wrong it's just the way how work is perceived nowadays also regarding the flexibilities but also the impact now of all the automation digitalization and also bringing in ai yet those developments goes so quickly at the moment that we also require different competences and different type of people within the company so we have to stay close of how we use all our resources and then especially our human resources and it's just a big shift i think how we look at people and what they should bring and i i believe that ai can absolutely not replace our workforce especially not in hospitality because it's especially also what the personalities of each each and every person also bring to our guests to be authentic and it's really also still make a difference to it but it's not easy nowadays especially when the labor market is under pressure it's going to be more costly it's still quite expensive and we also had it when we had to build up the teams again after covid that we had to recruit abroad so also get people in from other countries it also has also a big impact on the current teams and to be more international but i think if you look at the resilience of the teams within hospitality that's really amazing they can cope with so many things they're so flexible and so resilient so i think that can never be replaced by ai but that's my personal opinion no i think i agree on that but i think the whole the pressure on the labor market and also the entrance of ai in our society that i think it forces us to look at employment in a different way because well we're not gaining any people with it the task force becomes smaller and smaller why do you think that ai has a part in hospitality why do you think it's applicable and where not yes of course there's still room for ai they're all with all the repetitive tasks that can be taken away i think behind the scene if you look at all the back offices but also for the people with checking in make it more easier but also all the financial procedures with payments with stuff i think there's still a lot to gain and we can also do it in a different way but we already see that we have also the digital checking in the online checking ins that's already going on and we can learn a lot more about our guest also through to ai so that can it make it more personal and more tailor made so we can also use it in our benefits to learn more about our guests to give a more tailor made guest experience towards them and where is the how do you seal the role of hr within this whole new era with ai where is our role currently we see that just to educate them and how to use ai in a very responsible responsible way in a more ethical way i think we still have to make some steps to make sure we not throw everything into ai into or an open ai that make it really really dangerous but use it in a very responsible way but also ask yourself the question why are we putting things through to ai what we want to gain from it so that make it very very important but it can be used i'm not a specialist in ai not at all but yeah i think we also is our responsibility to make sure that we educate our teams to use it in a very good honest and respectful way and if we take that into a broader scope because i totally agree with you that i think that hr also needs to guide an organization in the use of ai and also to think about how we can use it but also the adaptability of it but why do you think that hr can make the biggest impact in hospitality in general i think it's also like we already addressed it's still a very tight labor market so once for example if we have a vacancy i think it's also up to us to challenge our managers if we still need this position or can we just fill those needs and those resource needs in another way can we just work more smarter yeah we always say smarter than harder that makes it really really important for example if we have a vacancy for example in our back office who do all the road tests all the screen scheduling all those kind of things that's actually a perfect example that nowadays can be done by ai or can be done by tooling that we have with workforce planning so actually we don't need those kind of humans or persons anymore to fill those kind of tasks do those kind of tasks so that's also make it very good combinations with where we can use our resources more effectively and then we hopefully have more focus on how we can deliver the perfect guest journey in all those kind of things and i think it's up to us to address those challenges that we're having and how we use our resources but also challenge our managers if they really need a person to do the work but also maybe some other intelligent tooling yeah it's all about people in the end so and everything that we can that can be done by ai i think we should go there in the future but people together create culture and culture is like it's very abstract but it's very important what do you think what creates a culture where people generally want to stay within the company i think it's a due to a lot if people feel seen and heard nowadays and if a company can also bring something to them personally not only it's always give and take but nowadays it's very important of course everybody signs a contract and you have to deliver some efforts and some jobs and in return you get paid but nowadays it's far more than just a transactional agreement that we're having with each other and like you already said it's it's normally the culture and the companies that make a difference for for people and that's why i think it's very important in the selection process that as a company you're very aware that the other people sitting at the end of the table is also what's in there for me and they need some kind of fulfillment of their personal needs and how that work it's not only seen as work anymore for the current generations it's bigger they ask for companies who who have sustainability on their agenda they want to make difference in society for example so it goes far beyond delivering a project or a product or service it's also like you said how you as a company take your responsibility with all the pollution with all the how we deal with poverty in the world is the company giving a lot enough back to the world so that makes it very also important and that also shapes a culture of giving back i think yeah and if i think we agree on the fact that a culture becomes more and more important for new candidates new employees do you think that the role of hr also evolved with that does our role become different when culture becomes more important totally but i think that's the whole development of hr as we seen the last decades i think decades ago it was more like transaction law we make sure people signing a contract make sure they don't do anything against the law and in the end they get paid by for it in the salary in the end of the month but that's changing all the time but all those kind of tasks can already be delivered by some systems and things so i think where we can really add value is make sure that we keep the culture strong the culture is also how do you say that clear to everyone because sometimes it's more important that it's not some wording on the wall or people just saying it i think culture is something that employees should feel and i think that hr is playing a very important role in keeping that alive make sure it's embedded in everything that we do but it's a shared responsibility and i think we should just chase it and should make sure that it's on everybody's agenda and it goes from top down but also from bottom up that make it made it really strong so yes we definitely have a very important role to play in how to create it within our organization and to keep it on the agenda but let's say you always want to say people don't only talk about it they should feel it and that's the most difficult thing to get sure that people really when they're stepping into a hotel and that's their new workplace that they can really feel it and i think one of the biggest compliments that we got from people working for karendon especially for the hotels that we say we really have part of our mission vision is that we are family and get the feedback back from people that they're saying it really feels like a family and sometimes they can hardly explain why it is but they just feel it to be part of the family i think okay sometimes i don't know how we did it but we did something right in that case yeah yeah i feel the same way and it's still because we defined this this culture and this dna when you were still our hr director and well up to this day we we still still living it and we still try to select people on basis of that dna but of course well people and and culture always gives a lot of challenges what do you personally focus on when you first step into these kinds of challenges with people or culture that's a good one i always want to be very transparent and people don't feel something is done behind their backs of i have a hidden agenda so everything should be fair so fairness in payment fairness how we treat people if we do something for one of those teams it should be done by the other teams as well to being really being treat people in an equal equal way i think that's really important for me and also something like justice if yeah you get really get me angry and to strive for to make sure that that everybody is treated in in the same way and yeah that really yeah that's really important for me have you ever also underestimate underestimated a cost culture issue that later become like really big or that that you had kind of okay this was totally not what i expected from the outcome yeah for me it's really important like you said if you feel that something is wrong in a culture that you feel there somewhere in certain people have some negativity don't have the right agenda always go for their own interest and not serving the interests of other people don't underestimate what the harm they can do maybe it's only a small group of people but the damage they can do to the rest of the teams but also how an obstacle it can be to really achieve the organizational goals and then makes it really really difficult to to get them in the same way that's in the same direction that we would like them to have so that requires a lot of management skills of their manager and also together with isr really or to isolate that kind of behavior or to really address it because you never want that people say okay especially apparently this is the kind of behavior that the company allows so it has a bigger impact than only the behavior or some for some individuals so if you don't treat it or don't deal with it in the right way as a company it says a lot how you deal with that on the organization level with that kind of behavior yeah yeah yeah true to that yeah what is a misconception about hr that you once believed yourself i think i still had it yesterday i was actually entering a team meeting or do some explanation about something and people and the team didn't know that i was joining the team session so when i entering you see all those scared eyes and think oh my god hr is in the room and then and the first thing i think oh my god people are still scared when the hr director is coming i was just only there to give some explanation about something right and so maybe to say i'm not only the higher and fire departments i'm always there to bring peace and good news but apparently that's some kind of reputation that still exists within within our current company yeah so i always i always say when i'm now entering thing i come in peace i come in peace yeah yeah white flag i'm okay guys nobody gets fired no yeah well sometimes it happens so i understand it's a funny example i totally get it oh hr is at the table get scared so yeah what was a moment where a hotel team was struggling with engagement and retention and what did you do to turn it around because well we're still struggling these days with engagement and well getting people in as one but keeping them is is like the real challenge any thoughts on that oh that's a difficult one i think one of our strengths at the time was really thinking out of the box because every hotel will be the same so you have to think about what can we do differently and that was also i think we were very close at the time not only the managers but also the hr team what really drives our current staff members what do they want what's important to them and of course you cannot always make it tailor made for everyone but if we hear and listen and make it happen for each individual and everybody in the in there comes in a different phase in their life they have different priorities and for example if you have people who just become a father or a mother or become parents they have different needs in their work maybe more flexibility around the working hours maybe divided their hours into in a different way so yeah it's it's really important to keep them and to make sure we can are really open to what their individual needs are and try to see if we can do something different but it was also brainstorming about what we can do differently and like is there but like you said we also work now with students a lot with students so also the close collaboration with the schools at the time that we set up it's more like people had some kind of distance to the labor market you can see and help to close those kind of gaps and work with those people so again it's really thinking out of the box thinking outside the box of course asks for a certain manager or leader what do you believe hospitality leaders still underestimate about talent today that's a good question but i underestimate if you can there's certain talents that well because there are a lot of people coming into the business with many talents but well a few years ago everybody was doing the cherry picking and now we are forced to look to have a broader wider scope towards who we are hiring because well there aren't many people out there do you think that hospitality leaders still underestimate maybe a certain group or that we don't see the talents in people due to the fact that we only want to have them maybe people from hotel school schools and not like mothers who want to work from 7 to 12 for for example i think hospitality is one of the the perfect industries where you can really be trained on the job and progressing your career by learning and learning on the job i think if you have the passion for the industry and you have the passion for people not only for people working in your team but also for the guests i can you can do great within the hospitality business because you can learn so much on the job you're exposed to so many different situations difficult situations now we already said it we can already write a book of everything that happened within the hotels it's amazing but i think that's also a great opportunity for people stepping out of their comfort zone if something happens during their night shift and they just have to deal with it and they have to always solve the problems on the spot so that's why it's a great learning place for each individual and i had two weeks ago my eldest daughter want to go to the hotel school as well so we went to an open day and when we heard the presentation and they say during their internship they actually are forced to go abroad because they every time the hotel school wants that all the students go out of their comfort zone so they learning they will be exposed to different kind of situations for example in the hague they have to be in a room with a roommate they don't know and then they are forced if they have issues just to solve it and i think that's only not within the hotel school but i think that's also on the workflow as well i think that it's really an underestimated industry i think hospitality because you learn so much about yourself how you deal in different situation how you deal with different kind of people from other nationalities with different needs difficult guests easy guests crisis situations angry guests and you just have to solve it so it's an automated learning school and i think you can never have that kind of experiences that you are exposed within the hospitality in any other industries maybe what we have for example within corindo within the airlines i think the experienced people our chemicals have on board and expose i think it's also similar but it's also for hospitality but it's amazing and i think we don't have to underestimate just the people who just our waiters were just serving our guests i think sometimes the way how they're exposed to so many different situations and they have to deal with it because the manager is not always around on things happened and sometimes you make the guest even angrier and then you said okay hold on i i i will get a manager they want to have it solved on the spot and they have to deal and they want to deal with you at that time so that makes it i think a very unique industry yeah yeah i still think i still rate it as the best industry ever because there there is so much to it and i always say definitely to students and trainees we are in the best business what do you like to do when you go in your in your free time i would like to go out i want to go to a restaurant go to a cinema and i was like that's all hospitality so we're in the business of making people happy and they're coming well the whole world is in your hotel or in your in your airplane so that asks a lot but it's also the most fun i'm totally convinced so what advice would you give young hr professionals who wants to build who want to build careers within the hospitality industry i would say learn as much as possible because as an hr you are exposed to so many different departments because we as hr we see how every department we have to deal with every kind of department for example if you work within marketing or sales that's only that working area but we are exposed to so many different jobs positions so you not only learn a lot about hr and how to deal with people but also really how to run actually an organization how all the processes goes where are the responsibilities how will all the communication go so it's it's more than learning within hr you learn a lot about companies and my advice always would would be very open to it so ask the questions dive into really the organization not only from an hr perspective because i always find it important to always know what the company goals are and we make sure that we facilitate the company as much as possible to achieve those goals and we all know that the human part is most important because they you need them to deliver everything and if that's not there and if they don't look in the same directions then you will hardly achieve your commercial goals your organizational goals it ain't going to happen so if you're open to it you can learn so much about how a company is set up and it's a big learning curve for everyone at the time yeah well that's a beautiful beautiful advice wow i see it's just like all days with you when i'm talking to you time really really flies so yeah we're almost in it for an hour almost there yeah oh yes and we can go on for hours but i think that's so i will put one last question for you of course this is a podcast it will be listened to by i hope a lot of people but if this is listened to by hotel leaders tomorrow morning what is the one message you hope truly lands with them make sure you have hr as your as your wingman i think that's the most important i think nowadays hrs maybe and also people in culture deserve to be be on the executive be an executive boardroom because it's become nowadays it's becoming more and more important and we can really make a difference in in how successful a company would be i could not agree more with you nicole thank you so much for being my first guest on this podcast it really really was a pleasure