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Implementing Your New Year Goals

By Merrick Dresnin Chief People Services Officer, Cote Hospitality | February 2025

Turning priorities and goals into action is essential across all hospitality disciplines. From a people perspective, HR needs professionals who understand the company’s direction and have a vested interest in implementing it. It is all about execution.

When I interview HR candidates, if they say, “I wanted to go into HR because I love people,” the interview tends to end there. While social skills and empathy are vital, success in HR is about understanding company priorities and executing plans to achieve them. HR is about action and implementation, not just support. When done right, HR helps drive the organization toward its goals.

In my industry, it is all about the people; but when aligning HR with the business, it is about the direction one is driving the organization’s people. That direction and ultimate implementation defines success or failure of the business.

Regardless of your division – HR, Finance, Sales, Rooms - here are steps we can follow to make plans happen and drive our organizations towards self-defined success.

Step One: Define and Communicate Goals

Set clear, SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) for the coming year. Share these goals at all levels: department heads pass them down to their teams, discuss them openly in large employee meetings, and reinforce them through branded posters or monitors. Frequent exposure and discussion will build understanding and acceptance throughout the company.

Let us assume one of your goals is ensuring the achievement of a particular percentage engagement score on the employee survey. Such a goal is specific as it identifies the number sought, it is measurable because you know if you hit the goal or not, it is achievable assuming you have a culture focusing on people, it is relevant because ensuring a high percentage of engaged employees means optimized guest service (if employees are happy they will happily service the guests) and it is time-bound as it is a goal for the year.

That articulated goal should be shared with the highest levels of leadership. They then need to pass the goal to those within the departments over which they manage. Subordinate leaders should then ensure their smaller teams are aware of the goal – it should be talked about openly and transparently. The goal should be the subject of a pre-shift (if not multiple pre-shifts).

In addition to the “trickle-down messaging”, leadership needs to openly discuss the goal in large employee meetings so employees hear the same messaging from their direct managers along with key leaders of the organization.

The articulated and documented goals need to be printed on branded posters, placed on bulletin-boards or flashed via monitors periodically. They should be placed physically or electronically where any company messaging exists. The key is frequent visible exposure and frequent/repeated conversation. Repetition creates absorption, understanding and acceptance. Frequent sensory exposure fits our business, as our employees are tasked with maintaining inviting, comfortable spaces and providing exceptional service that provides wonderful smells, tastes, sounds and sights. We need to similarly “decorate” with our communications heightening the awareness of our people.

Frequent exposure fosters familiarity, making the goals a shared reality across all levels—from service workers to management.

As the goals trickle through the organization, each level needs to talk about “how” to make each goal a reality, thus leading to the next step in making things happen.

Step Two: Outline Steps to Accomplish Your Goals

Once you have your goals and you have broadly shared them, how do you meet them?

If we continue with the above example of increasing the engagement survey percentage score, steps must be taken to achieve that goal. This particular example is illustrative of the collaboration needed at a property or within a hospitality company. One might look at the priority and see it as an “HR thing”; thus it is someone else’s job. HR should spearhead the goal and ensure steps are determined and occurring; spearheading does not, however, mean that HR is doing everything.

In our example, HR should exercise its expertise and determine how to drive engagement scores higher. They should come up with initial steps in driving connectivity with staff – recognition events, pulse/pre-engagement surveys, action planning the results from the year before, holiday celebrations/contests – all of these steps should be “calendared” and planned for. There should be no surprises and minimal “pop up” steps to execution and accomplishment of a goal.

HR should hold planning sessions with other leaders and departments to see what they might add to the list of steps in driving up that score. All should collaboratively determine when things should occur and the calendaring of each of them.

Calendaring these steps can be grounding, especially in the often-unpredictable hospitality environment. Consistency becomes your fallback during busy or uncertain periods.

Once this roadmap of steps towards goal accomplishment is set, review them and fall back whenever you need to.

Step Three: Track, Mark, Communicate Accomplished Steps

Once the organization has the steps necessary to accomplish the goal along with stakeholders for each step, the next thing to do is track and mark each step. There are project management systems (ie. Monday.com) available to help record each step and provide a visualization as to progress. In the absence of a purchased system, an excel spreadsheet may work just fine. So long as you can record the steps and completion.

When steps are accomplished, it is important to communicate when they are done. At times, we can find ourselves in “ruts” at work – nothing will pull people out of “ruts” like proven accomplishment. Visual progress markers or dashboards are very helpful as they allow participants, stakeholders and leaders to “see” where they are, where they have been and where they are going.

Being able to share progress and how completed steps are leading towards achieving a priority will motivate one’s team and oneself. It also creates a general metric that can be provided to company leadership, boards or ownership groups – you can describe where you are in the achievement of certain priorities.

Step Four: Identify Stakeholders for Each Step

Taking the time to identify the steps is critical and helpful in keeping the company on course. While these steps should be collaborative, an organization should continue to maintain accountability and expectations. To do this, each step should have a stakeholder. This stakeholder is responsible for the implementation of the specific task/step at issue. Should there be an issue or concern with that task/step, they are the ones to approach.

The stakeholder is the “go to” and must ensure that the step is completed. However, it is far too simple to “blame” them should something go wrong. Better to view the stakeholder as someone with knowledge who can collaborate with others on the solution if the step is incomplete. A stakeholder’s success is interdependent with the team’s success.

Step Five: Celebrate Accomplishments

When dealing with teams, tracking the completion of accomplishments is no doubt of value. Some people (including the author) appreciate nothing more than the ability to check things off that perennial list.

Progress on a checklist, however, may not motivate everyone. When a team can complete steps/tasks that are of note, celebrate such completion! Encouraging an environment where every small step is towards one’s goal is meaningful. Whether it be donuts for the team in the morning or a quick “Teams Chat” complimenting everyone’s contributions, never let an achieved step go unrecognized. It has been said for years that recognition (how a company makes people feel) can be more valuable than money. Victor Lipman, in Psychology Today, noted that “how you feel is often more important than what you earn” (June 13, 2013).

Thus, each accomplishment deserves recognition, celebration and acknowledgement before moving to the next one. After all, we are paid to produce – each step is documented proof that that is exactly what the team is doing!

Step Six: Prepare the Story and Report the Wins (or Opportunities)

Your goals are in place, each step towards accomplishing the goals have been documented and are available for review. Each step has a stakeholder and as each step is completed, the team learns what happened and celebrates the completion. You can show anyone who needs to know the progress the team is making. The organization is moving forward in a steady, documented, illustrative manner.

As you approach the goals with the many documented steps, you have the making of a story. You can report the challenges that the team overcame or lay in front of you. You can talk through the “wins” made along the way and that lie in your future.

Going back to our engagement percentage improvement example, every step is a “people” story. One would imagine the steps including recognition events, holiday celebrations, implementation of suggestions, action planning from the prior year’s survey. Assuming one of the steps was implementing a suggestion – the source of the suggestion, along with how it was put into place, make for a powerful, descriptive narrative. The ability to tell the story allows you to share your production and progression – the fruits of your labor. By amplifying every success, even seemingly small contributions add to a rallying narrative within the organization. Everyone then marches, in unison, to the completion of the organization’s goals.

Conclusion

Vision is critical, but that is the mountain. Teams are in place to collaboratively figure how to climb that mountain. The steps for climbing need to be noted, documented, owned by someone and celebrated when made. Each documented, celebrated step is a foothold that brings the team closer to the summit.

Reaching the top of the mountain is the crescendo; the story is how the team gets to the top – each step it must take. Be prepared to tell that story as you go through this next year in a structured, strategic manner. Know the company’s goals (its mountain), plan how to get there and climb!

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Hotel Newswire is a newswire service that distributes press releases on behalf of our users. If you decide to submit a press release for distribution through our system we will transmit your entire press release including any personal information therein contained to our media contacts and online distribution points including search engines. This is the only redistribution of your information that we engage in. Your submission of press releases through our system indicates consent with this policy. The information we collect during your registration process is used to notify users about updates to our service and inform users of any special events hosted by Hotel Newswire. This information is not shared with other organizations for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

Cookies: Our system requires the use of cookies to enable the user to log back into our website to access information from the newswire, without having to log in each time using the required username and password.

If you do not want to receive email from us in the future, please let us know by following instructions included in our communication with you. Users who supply us with telephone numbers online may receive telephone contact from us regarding their account, or informing them of new products and services available on the HotelExecutive website. If you do not wish to receive such telephone calls, please edit your account and remove your phone number from your account profile. This can be done from your user account menu.

Ad Servers: We do not partner with or have any relationship with any ad server companies. From time to time, we may use customer information for new uses not previously disclosed in our privacy notice. If our information practices change at any time, we will post the policy changes to our website to notify you of these changes and provide you with the ability to opt out of these new uses. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check back at our website periodically.

Upon request we provide site visitors with access to all information (including proprietary information) that we maintain about them. Users can access this information by logging in to their account.

Security: We always use industry-standard encryption technologies while transferring and receiving user data exchanged with our site. We have appropriate security measures in place in our physical facilities to protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of information that we have collected from you on our site. We do not store credit card information in our systems.

If you feel that this site is not following its stated information policy, you may contact us.

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The Benefits of a Small Hotel Management Company

By Kasia Russell, Senior Managing Director, Practice Leader, HVS

The last few years have been fraught with mergers and acquisitions in the hotel management space. Companies have grown larger and less personalized, more streamlined, increasingly technologically advanced, and geographically agnostic. The benefits of a large management company may seem obvious: efficiency and economies of scale, technology and innovation, specialized knowledge and resources, and distribution channel advantages, among others. However, when choosing a management company for your hotel, I encourage you to look beyond the seemingly obvious and evaluate whether a more personalized and strategic approach is appropriate for your hotel real estate investment goals. This article outlines the benefits...

Educating Your Guests About Their Property While Communicating Positive Messages

By Chintan Dadhich, Complex General Manager, Conrad New York Downtown & Tempo by Hilton Times Square

Guest education is often overlooked in hospitality, but it is an integral aspect of the guest management experience. This education process offers significant benefits that go beyond simply informing them about the physical property, its amenities and outlets, and the surrounding destination. Education serves as a powerful tool for enhancing the guest experience, by building deeper connections, and communicating positive messages that can lead to lasting loyalty. By offering them opportunities to learn something new, you can enrich their stay, increase engagement, and build loyalty. Education and learning can also help you differentiate your brand, showcase your expertise, and...

10 Ways Hotel Design Can Forge Emotional Connections and Engage the Senses

By Sergio Saenz, Arq., Intl. Assoc. AIA, HKS

Hospitality Design that resonate with guests on an emotional level is more than just a creative endeavor; it’s a sophisticated art form that requires a deep understanding of how a space can deeply influence its guests. Architects and designers are the stewards of guest journeys, and the guest’s perception is everything - curating environments that not only captivate the senses but also empower guests by providing a seamless and immersive experience. Design itself becomes a form of service dedicated to ensuring that every moment of a guest’s experience is memorable and emotionally fulfilling. These art forms have the profound...

How AI is Shaping the Future of Hospitality and Driving Growth

By Filip Linek, CEO & Founder, Flae Robotics

According to the Hotel Tech Report, the market size and growth of AI technology implementation in the hospitality industry have evolved from a niche investment to a necessity for staying ahead in the industry. With hoteliers facing rising labor costs, volatile booking trends, and shifting guest expectations, AI has become a key component of modern hotel operations. The AI market in the hospitality sector is projected to grow more than 90 times over the next decade, from $90M to $8.12B (Future Market Insights), and mainstream adoption is predicted, with $1.2B in AI investments in travel & hospitality by 2026 (IndustryARC)....

4 Trends Shaping the Future of Hotel Experiences and How to Best Monitor Customer Loyalty

By Kim Lawton, Founder & CEO, Enthuse Marketing Group

Traveling is so much more than the "where" of it all. The "what" has grown in importance over the last few years, especially in the age of personalization. People aren't just traveling to a given destination. They're traveling for the experience, and a large part of that experience hinges on their accommodations and its offerings - a fact not lost on most brands in the hospitality industry. In recent years, an increasing number of hotels have been revamping their offerings to better align with the expectations of the modern traveler, all in an effort to redefine the traditional stay and...

Building Resilience Through Storytelling

By Lisa Ross, President & Partner, rbb Communications

Across the globe, the hospitality industry has weathered wave after wave of disruption—from the pandemic and inflation to the rise of the experience-driven traveler. Now, with economic uncertainty once again shaking consumer confidence, hotel brands face a key challenge: how do you continue attracting guests when the future feels so unpredictable? The most successful hospitality brands recognize an important truth: even in uncertain times, travelers don’t stop dreaming—they simply become more selective. They seek reassurance, authenticity, and experiences that feel personal and worthwhile. This is where strategic communication and destination-led positioning become essential. Today’s travelers are more intentional than ever...

6 Ways to Build An Employer Brand Your Employees Will Rave About

By Cara Silletto, President & Chief Retention Officer, Magnet Culture

It’s obvious that hotels need to keep their customers happy, and loads of time and money are spent researching the needs of their target clientele. While this focus on external customers is important, it is equally important for organizations to care about the needs of their internal customers – the employees! Employees who feel valued and supported are more likely to deliver exceptional hospitality. On the other hand, employees who feel undervalued or neglected may experience decreased motivation and job satisfaction, which can compromise the quality of service they provide. How you treat your employees makes all the difference....

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Implementing Your New Year Goals

By Merrick Dresnin Chief People Services Officer, Cote Hospitality | February 2025

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