SPECIAL REPORT
the work environment with debt that is 10 or 20 times what their fathers and people that came before us bring into work . So they ’ re stressed , they have anxiety and their need to progress within a company is exceptional .
At Hilton , we are experimenting with pairing baby boomers with millennials to see how the decision-making progress changes . Experience and drive , you couple the two of them together and you actually get outstanding results . We are more prone to making fast-paced decisions like I do with technology , and my boss brings me down and says , ‘ Let ’ s take a deep dive and review the fundamentals .’ We come to a place in which we are making better decisions by doing that .
We cannot discourage boomers and Gen X from the workforce because of the experience they ’ re bringing … It ’ s not only technology ; it ’ s values that need to be embedded into the culture so that the new and the older share something that is not driven by age .
Lukus Grace : I think a lot of it stems from mentorship . This new generation is really prone to just getting the answers really quickly and not validating whether those answers are correct . What we lose sometimes is what the old guard can teach .
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( COMPANIES MUST MAKE ) SURE THAT WOMEN ARE OPEN TO OPPORTUNITIES , KNOW THAT THEY ’ RE THERE AND SEE OTHER WOMEN IN THOSE LEADERSHIP ROLES , WHICH IS SO CRITICAL .
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– RACHEL HIGBIE
I ’ m having those real conversations about what ’ s important , how do you develop your career , what are smart moves . We lose that conversation with a lot of the young people because we focus so much on , ‘ It ’ s the millennials , all they care about is technology . Let ’ s give them more of this and more of that .’ But really , they care about the same things that the old generation does – they want to have purpose in what they ’ re doing … They want the people that they look up to to display to them why they should care about showing up to work … It just all comes back to connecting .
H : Let ’ s change direction . What needs to happen for more women to break through the glass ceiling ?
Farahpour : I ’ ve been at Marriott for 10 years and I can wholeheartedly say that throughout the five years of being on the development side , I ’ ve seen an increase in female developers . At one point I think there were maybe two . But now there is definitely a lot more … More and more they are entering the space when in the past there has been a stigma , such as there ’ s a lot of travel involved and it ’ s a good old boy ’ s club . But now , throwing technology in there and the ability to manage multiple things makes it a lot easier for females to have
SAM GELIN OWNER MADE HOTEL , NEW YORK CITY
HUGO GERMAIN VICE PRESIDENT , DEVELOPMENT GROUP GERMAIN HOTELS , MONTREAL
LUKUS GRACE HOTEL MANAGER HOTEL BEL-AIR , LOS ANGELES
RACHEL HIGBIE SENIOR DIRECTOR , OPERATIONS STRATEGY DAVIDSON HOTELS & RESORTS , ATLANTA
JAMES MABEY CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER ANTAEUS GROUP , HONG KONG
24 hotelsmag . com May 2018