Peace and silence come with a price
tag. Travelers choose to come to
remote resorts paying high prices for
the peace, harmony, and tranquility
they get after a busy city life. Having
said this, the making of a resort in a
remote location is a challenge and even
more so in running it. On the contrary,
from a human resources perspective,
attracting local and international talent
and their willingness to explore a career
opportunity in emerging or sometimes
hardship location is a crucial task for
human resources professionals while
dealing with their differences and
acceptance on flexibility, adaptability,
and open-mindedness to cope with a
different culture. Human Resources
operate from behind the scenes as
a key strategic business partner to
overall operations while contributing
to the success of any pre-opening
project. Working in a hotel during its
pre-opening phase is challenging yet it
allows immense learning, multi-tasking,
and flexibility. While for some it is easier
to work in a fully operational hotel but
where is the fun if everything is easy!
Working for Mercure Maldives
Kooddoo from the very beginning of
the project in early 2016 immediately
after the General Manager was on
board helped me in several ways while
building and creating a new world for
all our colleagues & associates and
welcoming them into a new family. At
the time I joined this project, for over
3 months there were only two of us
(General Manager and myself) involved
in the project from the scratch (pre-
opening operations) and I had to quickly
become familiar with our owning
company approaches and processes in
coordination with their representatives.
During this stage, I did feel comfortable
approaching my colleagues at Accor
Regional Office whenever I was unsure
about a certain task and they too were
willing to teach me patiently. Between
the two of us, we managed to plan for
our team and strategy and I do not
recall that we ever had the feeling
of “we have plenty of time” attitude
which could have detracted us from
34 ILHA
key milestones under our direct scope
including the tracking of executive
involvement in the project at later
stage. His leadership and vision kept
the project deliverables clear and with
planned risks into consideration.
Our first goal was to set our dream
leadership team to cover crucial aspects
of pre-opening operations while
ensuring that we have the right leaders
and subject matter experts in the team
which would be vital to a successful
resort pre-opening planning and
execution. As a part of our recruitment
strategy we focused on two crucial
aspects i.e. identifying candidates
with Accor experience or having work
experience in the Maldives; past pre-
opening experience was an additional
advantage as our candidate shortlisting
criteria. This strategy helped us
to integrate country specific work
dynamics with organizational culture
and policy framework from process
compliance perspective.
Since we were a very small team
initially, we also had to teach one
another, and I felt that I learned the
most when I had to pass on my training
knowledge to my fellow colleagues and
counterparts in the owning company
on certain procedures pertaining to
HR and legal framework appl icable
to Maldives. Even though I was hired
as the Cluster Director of Talent &
Culture (HR), I had to be involved in
activities beyond my job description
and I was quite fortunate to be involved
in all other spheres of pre-opening
operations (legal, statutory, operations,
liaison and negotiation etc.) while
based at the capital city anchoring
and coordinating the sequence of
activities in line with the General
Manager’s strategic vision. I served
as a liaison between our management
company (regional office based in
Bangkok) and owning company (based
in Singapore) for the opening phase on
matters pertaining to compensation,
benefits, recruitment, and labor law
compliance. As a result, I learnt about
legal, statutory, finance and public
relations, which I didn’t have much
experience previously. Besides that, in
parallel working on new staff uniforms
and designs and to create logos and
branding collaterals for our dive center,
spa and other back of the house areas
while setting up my own Talent &
Culture team has been very satisfying
experience and exposure.
The best part of this pre-opening
experience is being able to bond
well with the team at each level and