IIM Udaipur witnessed one of the most rigorous summer placement seasons, wherein a plethora of roles was being offered to the students by several reputed companies. However, the story that I am about to share deviates from this placement season’s course right here! In fact, a series of events were set into motion the moment I had decided to sacrifice my term break and take up something called a
Live Project.
Ramada Udaipur Hotel and Spa had on several occasions been a host to several guests from IIM Udaipur in the past and had had healthy relations with the institute. Thanks to this, I had the good opportunity of working on a live project in the field of Digital Marketing, to boost the visibility of one of their events at the time. Being a techie, I employed all my skills and, in the process, helped them unravel few of their system security vulnerabilities as well. Satisfied with the results, they made me an offer to intern for them in the coming summer.
Ramada Udaipur Hotel and Spa is a franchise of the
Ramada Hotel Chain and is owned and maintained by
Taldar Group of Hotels. Taldar Group of Hotels had recently set up their very own 3-star boutique hotel brand - “
Mumbai House Hotel” in Andheri East, Mumbai; I was deployed to this site. And so began the rollercoaster of a ride in the form of my summer internship started, as I am one of the very few people who did their internships in
Hotel Management.
To start with, I was the very first MBA degree holder to set foot on the Hotel premise (as a staff of course!) as, even the sales force of the Hotel comprised of executives having degrees in Hotel Management with years and years of field experience. I reached the Hotel on time, and the General Manager of the Hotel received me. He briefed me regarding the various departments and the basic working of the Hotel Industry. Hotel Mumbai House is a hotel that works with the bare minimum staff and resources to reduce costs, but simultaneously they don’t fail regarding quality and service due to the good bonding between the staff. However, it also meant a lot of work load rested upon the shoulder of each staff. The General Manager himself took up sales calls and meetings in between his already hectic schedule.
Since I was new to the organisation, I was asked to get acquainted with the different functionalities and to ponder upon ways to boost business and revenues. But little did I know that there was a grave issue building up against me as every hour went by in the organisation. It didn’t take me long to realise that the staff seemed to be off in some way or the other, and in some way, their displeasures seemed to be originating from me. Most of my tasks involved me taking help from the service staff, and I couldn’t go ahead with my tasks if the staff didn’t comply with me. I tried talking to them, but my efforts were futile, it seemed the staff welcomed none of my initiatives and every time I had to implement something I had to persuade the General Manager to talk to the staff to get things into motion. This went on for some time until I realised that I needed to take some serious action as this seemed to be a slippery slope, once ignored, could turn into a bigger problem.
The following day, I went to the General Manager’s office and conveyed my displeasure in working in the organisation and narrated my woes. He smiled calmly and said the following sentence:
“It is only when the roots are deep, can the tree grow high.” I understood the context clearly. All this while I was trying to direct my efforts in a different direction while the answer to my problem was in the subject – Organisational Dynamics. Organisational Dynamics is one of the mandatory subjects that students have to take up and is most of the times taken lightly (as clearly seen in my case). The issue was that a few of the service staff in the organisation saw me as a threat to their position. It sometimes happens that the MBA degree does, in fact, give a positive boost to the career, and many times these are not positively received by everyone, since there might be people in an organisation who have been associated for a longer period, and suddenly a position desired by them is filled in by a candidate probably half their age!
I chose to try out “
lead by example” approach and decided to spend time in every department of the Hotel, from Housekeeping to Operations, even though my offer letter mentioned Sales and Marketing. I dissected my schedule in the following manner:
- Week 1 – Monitor the Housekeeping Department
- Week 2 – Monitor Front Office and Reception
- Week 3 – Monitor the Restaurant
- Week 4 – Monitor F&B and the Kitchen Unit
As the days went by, I worked closely with each unit, and thus got to know every staff on a personal level. At the end of the first stressful month, I knew the entire operations of the Hotel from the back of my head. There were several changes that I was able to bring about, several of these were to optimise the processes further, which were welcomed by the Hotel Staff this time. I also incorporated many changes that were intended to reduce the workload of the staff, without hampering the current operations. All this was possible because now this was a two-way street, wherein I they were treated as equal stakeholders in the decision making, and also because I could now empathise with them on a better level.
My real test came in when the General Manager called in sick one day and asked me to take the reins in his absence. We were able to pull off two different conferences using a single banquet hall, and we were able to convert one sales-call that day with a leading pharmaceutical company. I do suspect deliberate intentions behind the sick leave, but those two months have taught me something during my previous two years of work experience could never teach.