How it all began!

When I joined the Indian joined the Indian Hospitality Industry in late seventies– after having worked for seven or eight years in Beirut and UK – the ‘HR’ was not as evolved as it today. In its place there was the ‘Administration Department’ which performed the function of recruitments, appraisals and the related day to day clerical work including  oddoffice jobs that go alongside. This administration department further evolved and later came to be known as, ‘The Personnel Department’.

Fortunately, my first job in India was with one of the ‘Government Organizations called ITDC’, where unionization was slowly seeping into the system. I was lucky to have had a little exposure to the beginnings of new world HR trends, where the leadership under the stalwarts like S.N.Gadhok, AjitKerkar, M.S.Oberoi created a highly motivated man management trends. At the same time I also witnessed the highhanded approach of the management, implementation of unfair policies and nepotism, which to my belief was responsible for the rise of labor unions to guard the interest of the employees.

Then as usual the political parties started patronizing  these unions - intentionally - as these  were their vote banks – thus giving rise to hostility, indiscipline, insubordination, defiance, militancy other such ‘penchant’ in the hospitality industry.

I have a strong conviction that ‘Unions ‘are born out of autocracy, frustration and constant oppression of the employees by the management. There can be no other reason for the employees to lay siege on the property where they come to earn their bread and make a living. I give full marks to the management for disruption of services or any such event – History remains a witness. If someone believes otherwise, he needs a few lessons in the theories’ of causation.  

In this Blog I wish to site some interesting examples, which are eye openers, along with the  ‘Road Map’ the Industry followed including my personal experience.  I trust my colleagues and friends in the Hospitality Industry will find interesting.

1980 –Airport Restaurant and Flight Kitchen at Dum Dum, Calcutta

Back in 1980 when the ITDC took over the Airport Restaurant & Flight Kitchen from a local Restaurant owner Kathleen, the management shortlisted Ravi Seth Senior Assistant Manager and myself, Assistant Manager for the posts of Manager for Flight Kitchen and Airport Restaurant. Although I was the only qualified Flight Catering Professional, but the Interview Board selected Ravi and I was put on the panel. Ravi Seth joined the Calcutta Airport on ITDC take over, fortunately or unfortunately within a week he resigned, blaming the Company and the difficult job (he now lives in America “God bless him”). On 10th February 1980 I was asked by my boss Ms. Psyche Nigam to immediately report at Calcutta Airport, and this was the beginning of my toughest and most challenging assignments. The Airport Restaurant & Flight Kitchen were separate entities from the Airport Hotel Calcutta having common administrative control of the hotel. ITDC Administration was not very effective, on other hand Calcutta was (and is even today) one of the most unionized cities of India. The hotel was not making profits and the staff wanted more salary in the hotel (nothing to do with my unit).

Come Dussehra and the staff went on a lightning strike, having a common Union, the hotel union leaders decided to disrupt the working of the Flight Kitchen, by forcing the Airport Restaurant staff to go on strike as well. The next 7-8 days, my team of Officers, three Chefs and four Managers had to produce approximately 2000 meals every day. In the process I was able to shed approximately 15-20 kgs’ as we were working round the clock with no breathers in between. Surprisingly enough, my staff that was forced to go on strike sat outside the restaurant and appeared to be very unhappy with the situation, some of them were even crying, to see us work so hard.

The Air India Union Leader called Mr. Bandhopadhya who headed the ITDC Union in Calcutta, as he was also the Union Leader of Calcutta Airport, with phenomenal organizational capabilities. ITDC, being the largest hotel chain in India decided to break the strike at this point. It flew in 20 management trainees from Delhi to help my team; so that the In-Flight catering doesn’t get affected (this move was not in my knowledge). As the aircraft carrying these 20 men landed they were literally kidnapped by the union staff, from the TARMAC. They were held hostage somewhere, they were given proper accommodation, food & everything. Even today, I still wonder how they came to know that they are coming from Delhi, when even I was not told about this. To cut the long story short, Mr. Bandhopadhya forced the hotel to accept all their demands, and on the 8th day, they withdrew the strike. Full Union Executive Leadership, came to see me, and apologized for the inconvenience; this was indeed an amazing lesson.

Thereafter, I stayed in Calcutta for three years and worked with the Union, and was able to create a team of the most loyal and hardworking staff (including the Union Officials). The best compliment I got was from Mr. Bandhopadhyay when he said, “I am not scared of the ITDC or Air India, but I’m only scared of you, because you are the only one who can replace me.”  ITDC was one of the worst managed  companies as far as their ‘Industrial Relations Policy’ was concerned. they were managed by highly egocentric Human Relation Managers like Om Varma. Today when I look back and evaluate the causes for ITDC’s decline, I conclude that it was only because of very thoughtless Human relations and egoistic hoteliers with a high handed, unfair Labor practices.

1984 – Pizza Fast Food Restaurant Chain

In 1984 I joined Mr. VijayaMallya and Mr. Kisan Mehta as a General Manager of Fast Food Division, McDowell & Co to open a chain of Pizza Restaurant in Delhi & Bombay by the name of McDowell’s Pizza King. This was the first International Fast Food chain coming to India, we had a knowhow from a Brand called Shakey’s. Within six months we launched the first outlet in Connaught Place, followed by others at South Extension & Greater Kailash. Altogether in Delhi and Bombay we had nearly 20 outlets before we closed.

Before we opened the first Pizza Restaurant in Delhi, the total market for Pizza (mainly Nirula&Ashoka Hotel) in Delhi was about Rs. 14,000 – 15,000 per day, within the opening of three Pizza Restaurants we were selling over Rs.1,00,000 per day in Pizza King alone, and today’s market is over 2-3 crore per day.

Fast Food Restaurants in India are highly staff driven, where the staff is required to produce food in the shortest possible time. We in Delhi alone had six Restaurants and a Central Kitchen with a total workforce of nearly 300 people.I had one of the most highly motivated team of young professionals from Catering colleges who were well paid. We even gave them a salary of Rs.1000, where the minimum salary was Rs. 400.

The question is then why did we have labour problems? In an effort to analyze what went wrong, we discovered that we had hired a large number of  people from the same community for the kitchen. The story is that my Manager Development, Ravi Dhawan had a servant, so when we were hiring staff, Ravi went out of the way and appointed that guy to work in our kitchen (this was before my joining). This single man kept on bringing people from his community/relations who were working in different restaurants in positions of Commis II and III, and before we would know, they became a group of 45-50. One community guy was supported by Militant Union (C2). When this small group of people started disrupting our Restaurant operations, my remaining team members including the senior staff took over the charge of the kitchen, and the operations continued, till these guys started harassing the Customers / Clients. We then went to a prominent lawyer, and got a Legal Order for them to stay 500 yards away from the restaurant.

C 2 was the strongest Union in the Restaurant Industry in Delhi, plus their were other Restaurants whose operations got affected because of our coming and they were also financially supporting them. We along with the Staff started getting harassment attacks, not by our staff, but from the staff of the other restaurants. One day in Connaught Place these guys came and broke all our glasses by stoning the Restaurant, all this happened while the customers were sitting inside. We did not give in, and within 3 hours we had all the glass restored, and the Restaurant was functioning properly. We asked for Police support, which was given to us. Slowly and steadily C2 became frustrated, they went to the Labor court, and I still remember when I visited the Labor court for the first time, the C2 members from the other Restaurants tried to manhandle me. Finally we won this blatant blackmail, and nearly terminated all the bad employees, did not pay even a single rupee as compensation.

One of the top C2 leaders told me, “This is the first time we have been defeated”, this was because we were on the right side, and we paid good salary and took care of our staff, and had a highly motivated team of staff and officers.

 Some lessons learnt in the process are:

A. Never bring too many people of same community or relations. It always results in formation of groups.

B. Neither victimize nor let anyone harass or victimize yourself, however big or strong he may be.

Some of the people who worked with me in this pizza chain are doing exceedingly well, and I would like to thank them for the support they extended to me that time. They are as follows:

1     1.   Sanjay Anand – Senior Vice President American Express

2.    2.   Vijay  Suri– Today, a sucsesful business man

 3.   SmitaAnand–Managing Director Asia Pacific, Korn/Ferry International

 4.   Shekhar – Managing Director, Largest Kitchen Equipment company in India.

 5.   Sameer Puri – Managing Director, Restaurant Chain

 6.   AshutoshBhagati- In America teaching Americans about Automobile company

 7.   Sanjay Wadhera and many many-more.

Centaur Hotels – Srinagar & New Delhi

Part 1 - Centaur Hotel, Srinagar My next experience is a fine example of how India’s most profitable Hotel and Catering chain got destroyed, because of a poor functioning of the Human Resource department, especially under leadership of a gentleman  called Mr. Ranjan -Director Administration, Hotel Corporation of India.

I visited Srinagar to meet the Director JTDC as a Consultant. I was put up to stay in Centaur Hotel and was forced to extend my stay for another two nights because of heavy snowfall. I still remember getting up on the 2nd day morning and reaching the lobby, I saw lot of commotion, there were about 7-8 rowdy Union Leaders who had ‘Gherowed’ the General Manager Jagmohan Mathur and were dictating certain instructions. Not far in the other corner I met Mr._Arora Vice President Sun’n’Sand Hotel, he seemed rather unhappy with the hotel services and the minute he saw me, he started complaining about the hotel. He told me, “Virat my wife’s mangalsutra which she had kept under her pillow is missing, and I am requesting Jagmohan Mathur (General Manager) that if he can’t take any action against the hotel staff, at least he could arrange to lodge an FIR so that I can get some money through insurance, he seems to have a problem with that too”. When Jagmohan came back, after talking to the Union, and informed him that he will not be able to file the FIR because the Union will not allow and it will create Industrial problems.

Then in June 1986, I took over as the General Manager of the same hotel, my boss Mr. Anil Bhandari was not happy with my going there, because it was a common knowledge that this hotel was considered the worst Resort hotel in the country. A study conducted by an international consultancy firm confirms the fact and had rated us as the worst luxury hotel in India. The interesting part was that, the staff and officers of the hotel were untouched by what our reputation was whether any guest came or not.

While I was trying to build the hotel, within two months, one of the Senior Managers from Headquarter Human Resources & Administration, Mr. Shinde visited the hotel to meet the Union, to resolve some pending issues. While the meeting was going on in my office with the Union Leaders, he showed his inability to resolve any of the pending issue because he had not received clearance from our friend Mr. Ranjan. Union Leaders asked him that if he did not have issues approved why did he come to Srinager on pretence of meeting them and made them wait for three days. His reply and attitude really made Union Leaders wild, they manhandled him and ‘gharowed’ us, and said that they will not let anybody leave till this one year old issue was resolved. As the General Manager it was my duty to protect anybody coming to the hotel, I was really taken aback and I requested the Union guys to be more considerate. They turned around and told me that they have no problems with me, they want to tackle Mr. Shinde and his boss, a person who had been taking them for a ride and, that I could go out, no restriction for me. I refused their offer and aftera long negotiation of 3-4 hours, and requesting our dear friend Mr. Ranjan in Bombay, I was able to partially resolve this issue. Later on while talking to Mr. Shinde, I realized that Mr. Shinde was intentionally set up as a Stooge, as  theDirector Administration himself wanted to project himself as the final authority in the day to day functioning of the hotel and Shinde was not one of his favorites.

As there was mismanagement and we also needed to take disciplinary  action against the staff, within the next 30 days I took the following action:

1.   All justified demands; I approved and cleared (thanks to the support of the Managing Director).

2.   I suspended three office bearers.

3.   Thanks to my highly competent Director Human Resource - Mr. Lamba, he prepared a note which every employee had to sign that they will not disturb the services of the hotel, if they did so, we could take strict disciplinary action against them and they would have no objection against it.     

Come September and winter  setting in Kashmir, now was the hibernation time for the hotel staff, very little business, heated hotel with good food and no work. My action resulted first in a flash strike which lasted only 24 hours . Sitting out in cold was not an interesting proposition. Next day, Union President came and apologized and signed all the documents which we wanted them to sign. Three Union Leaders remained suspended, it was decided that we will conduct a quick enquiry and terminate them for intimidation & physical violence. Unfortunately or fortunately we had no controls on that, after the enquiry the paperswere sent to the Head Office for the final approval of termination. The Human Resource-Mr. Ranjan kept sitting on the documents till July next year. In August, ten days before TAAI - one of the biggest conventions  being hosted by Centaur Srinagar - I got instructions to take the three suspended staff back, all their unreasonable demands were met. You can imagine the morale of the officers and hardworking staff. Still, I personally invited these three guys, revoked their suspension, hugged them and welcomed them back.

Within three months with good man management practices we were able to overcome negativity, and they became one of the most sincere & hardworking staff, but then I got a letter from my dear friend Mr. Ranjan, instructing me to terminate their services. Any such action when Industrial relations were at their best, the staff highly motivated and business was good, would have resulted in a disaster. I stuck to my guns and did not terminate them, it’s worth mentioning that for the first time in the history of Hotel Corporation of India, we ourself negotiated and finalized the agreement with the Union, with no trouble whatsoever, we did not allow Mr. Ranjan and his cronies to interfere in what we were doing.

The two points I would like to carry from this experience:

1. As far as Industrial Relations are concerned, decision-making should be efficient and without               prejudice.

2. If we accept high handedness / gross indiscipline that would be a decline of the hotel operations, all must know that smooth day to day hotel operation is the most important criteria for long term success of any hotel.

Centaur Hotel, New Delhi

Part 2 - I was subsequently transferred to Centaur Delhi. This property had a reputation of being the most indiscipline and Violent Union. Every General Manager was manhandled; the guy whom I replaced had a 24 hrs bodyguard to protect him from being roughed up by violent union members.

My teacher in man-management was my uncle who taught me three very important lessons:

1. Our loyalty should be first to the hotel, second to the employees and thirdly to self.

2. Similarly employees should also take care of the hotels, and if I take   care of them there will be no problems.

3.  There should be no group, the seat of the General Manager must be the most unbiased, and all the employees must be judged by the same parameters.

In Centaur Delhi I made it clear to all my employees including the Union, that I will function in such a way that all the employees / Union will have no problems, and will be satisfied with my decisions. I would like to place below a few incidents which occurred before we had a smoothly operating hotel, these incidents are amusing but scary as well.

1.  There was a Union Leader who went up to the General Manager Mr. JagmohanMathur, GM, opened his palm and put a bullet in his hand and said, ”Ispeteranaamlikhahai”, that employee was suspended finally. After about 2 years, I was able to waive off his suspension after his commitment that he will not misbehave again and he, didn’t.

2.  Before Mr. Mathur left, he intentionally issued a circular – without my knowledge - which he could not implement, because some militant staff would get annoyed, when I came to office about 100 people barged in shouting slogans against me, anyway it took me about 6 hours to sort out the situation. I remember my colleague, General Manager from Chef Air fight Kitchen, told me, “If this would’ve happened to me, I would’ve resigned and gone.”

3.  The Managing Director of the company was not allowed to enter the hotel, and right before me, when he tried to enter they gharowed him and tried to manhandle him. My first job was to   create a strong team of officer and staff, so that if I invited the MD again there would be no problem and total group of officers and sincere staff would stand by me to make sure that Mr. Bhandari was not harassed. Well I am glad that I was able to do that and Mr. Bhandari started staying at the Hotel without a problem.

4. The first Union election took place within couple of months of my joining. The backside corridor was nearly 200 yards long, and was plastered with posters & banners. The Centaur Hotel didn’t look like a hotel but an Industrial factory, and none of the Senior Officers could dare to pass through the corridors, because of slogan shouting and other Election activities, but these officers were very much a part of the Politics. At 4:00pm in the afternoon I decided to walk into and look into the corridor, I was halfway through when some of the Union Leaders saw me and instantly they tried to gharao me, but by that time, my goodwill had reached to most of the staff. Still one of the Union Leaders shouted to make all the staff excited by saying, “Officers are trying to interfere in Staff Elections.” I quietly smiled and told him,” if you have evidence you should give it to me and I promise; I will suspend the officer, irrespective of his position.” To my amazement, all the staff started shouted slogans in favor of me, and that was one of the major turning points in converting a Militant Union to becoming a more professional Union. After that my request to not deface corridor wall was accepted without bias and they never did it again.

5.  We had incidents of Violence amongest the staff, and when I forced the Security to do the inspection of the staff lockers, we were able to find over a dozen knives and even a gun, which was handed over to the Police. We did not lose one man day for the 3 years I worked with them. I was the only General Manager who was given a farewell by the Union in the history of Centaur, Air India.

Basically the staff was Unionized by the Headquarters and their power struggle. They promoted / backed the Gundas, corrupt staff and  groupism . All this was so strongly visible and supported and backed up by our dear friend, Mr. Ranjan - Director Administration. It was thanks to our ManagingDirector, that I was able to make the Director Administration’s politics null & void and create a good team that resulted in 100% occupancy in the next 2 years, salary increase, service charge increase and we slowly saw the negative guys also changing and for once started working for the betterment of the hotel. It could be worth a mention that, the Air India owned  Centaur Hotels, were  one of the worst managed hotel & catering Chain in India I ever knew and worked with. If they were well managed  they would be a major profit Centre for Air India.

Jaypee Hotels – Vasant Continental & Siddharth Hotel, New Delhi

I joined the Jaypee Hotels in 1993-94 as a Senior Vice President Operations; At the time of taking charge Vasant Continental had an average room rate of Rs. 800, and Siddharth Hotel had an average room rate of Rs. 700. I was given a task to increase the room rate to Rs. 3500 in the next 3 years.

On joining, I found out that the company doesn’t believe in firing incompetent offers / staff, but they tried to create situations so that they can resign,  that would only happen If they had morality, and unfortunately most of them did not. Surprisinglyinspite of being a Private Sector Hotel, they had a very strong Union. The Union derived its strength from the fact that Mr. Jaiprakash Gaur our Chairman was very sensitive to any slogan shouting or placement of posters etc. because of this demand the management had hired half a dozen Human Resources Consultants who created more problems than solutions. 

The Union came into being a few of years before my joining .To solve this problem management decided to hire some Gundas as employees, unofficially their job was to thrash or intimidate the Union Leaders. This worked for about a year till one of the Gundas became very strong, and the man behind all this my dear friend MrSreePrakash, Director in the company, decided to thrash him in front of the staff, this resulted in this Gunda joining the Union, and the rest is history. We had to deal with the Union with soft gloves at times even put political pressure, so that they do not create any problems. Fortunately, I had my own style of functioning. I motivated the management to take the following actions:        

1.  The salary of the staff was very low, it was nearly doubled.

2.  Created a Moral Code of Conduct for all.

3.  Sat down with the Union and convinced them that by creating problems we can only make situations more difficult, only if the hotel does well they will have more money in their pockets.

I got full support from my staff, the Union and the officers, and the room rate from Rs. 800 / 700 went up to Rs. 3500 within 8-9 months. We renovated both the hotels, we professionalized the system and after 2 years we again increased the staff salary substantially. When I left after 3 years, the room rate was Rs. 6,500 for Vasant Continental and for Siddharth hotel it was very close to Rs. 5000, with a very high GOP.

Fortunately for us! In today’s world, the Hospitality Industry is offering very good opportunities to the employees / officers. The Industry requirement of professional / trained workforce is really ten times higher than what our catering Institutions are producing. Along with that, the International management style has come in with the foreign chains, as they are progressive and understand the value of a motivated staff. I sincerely hope that this trend continues, but at the same time we must also be ready for the pain, effort and hard work which would carry the team forward, rewarding people who are producing results and bringing in money to the ownership and keep them fully motivated and satisfied. 

 Written by : Anil Chak & Virat Varma