Lilia Bekmukhametova was recently appointed as Human Resources Director of Lotte Hotel Moscow and will now help roll out ‘Korean-style’ HR in the new Russian property. The five-star hotel has just opened its doors and is promising to bring a Korean approach to human resources, creating over 400 jobs for young specialists within the industry. Staff training systems will be customised Korean-style to improve upon the traditional client-oriented policy. Bekmukhametova explained, “The concept of developing ‘service minds’ is grounded not only by personal responsibility and diligence, but also the sincere wish to fulfill service.”
The hotel held a mass hiring for over 1,500 candidates who applied for jobs in all departments. Two key criteria for candidate selection were: the intention for career development in the service industry, and an understanding of the true meaning of the word ‘guest’. Staff instruction is taken very seriously within the Lotte Group in Korea, and Ella Dolmatova, the hotel’s training manager, commented on what the group looked for in new hires, “We consider of the utmost importance—a positive disposition towards guests, a wish to encompass the client with attention and provision of the best possible service.” She added, “Such willingness is often inherent, but Lotte also provides necessary training to augment this.”
In line with the Korean system, employees of the Moscow hotel will undergo, or ‘experience’ as the hotel puts it, a three-month training programme under the leadership of specially invited operations department managers from other hotels within the group. The managers will share their professional knowledge and corporate know-how from Korea, gained over the last 30 years in the operation of five-star properties, with the Russian staff. One part of the training programme involves memory training sessions, where employees learn to remember guests’ names, car numbers and other data to help speed up the process of dealing with client requests. International experience is also brought into the training programme by means of study courses abroad, which to date has included the Russian chefs undergoing training in New York and Paris.
Paul Arkwright
Publisher
