The Winning Culture in Wildlife Hospitality
Understand the nuances of creating a successful Work culture in the Wildlife hospitality and Ecotourism business in India.
The Winning Culture in Wildlife Hospitality
The most successful Wildlife hospitality brands understand Work Culture is the True differentiator where people like to grow and stay for years. They believe exceptional guest experience comes from exceptional team. And this intangible asset is built on decades long deliberately engineered channels, that turn people into outstanding park guides, naturalists, camp hosts, supervisors, captains, chefs, and even top managers.
Why is Building Work culture Important?
A safari lodge sells wilderness, but what guests actually remember is the experience they had. A guide who spotted the tiger, a naturalist or the camp host who shared fascinating stories from the wild, a chef who took care of all your meals, a warm gesture from the manager anticipating all your needs, the housekeeper, the security guard, and the F&B service team always welcoming and serving with a genuine smile, exceeding all your expectations.
But when there are many people within a team with different backgrounds, beliefs, attitudes and habits, the real challenge is bringing everyone to the same page for the business. This has become even more important as modern travellers value genuine human connection, personalized service and immersive experiences.
So How to Build a Work Culture where People stay for Years and Deliver?
Well, wildlife hospitality as an industry has wide employee attrition problem. This often happen because of low wages, remote locations and demographic challenges but it’s also driven by operational inefficiencies, inexperienced owners, lodge managers and work place politics. Nonetheless it has been proven wrong for some Hospitality brands in India who got there by building Culture through the following systems.
1. Hire Integrity and Root locally
Skills can be taught but integrity, empathy, attitude and learning mindset are inherent. Recruit 80 - 90% locally as they bring in the cultural context, authenticity, and indigenous knowledge from the terrain. Balance the rest from the industry
2. Build Your Own Training and Learning Ecosystem
This is a great strategy as building an Inhouse learning and training ecosystem lets the brand encode its own service philosophy directly into the curriculum. Training longer, periodical and organizing refreshers come handy to standardize deliverables, develop service excellence, improve operational conduct, enhance sustainability practices and soft skills.
Industry Examples
· The Oberoi Centre of Learning and Development
· Field Guide & Naturalist training Course - Singita, Pugdundee & Taj Safaris
3. Create Clear Career Growth Path
Culture thrives when employees can see a clear progression for their future growth and current efforts. Hence a transparent career path should be defined for each employee. With consistent support, mentorship, training, skill development and regular feedback, people surpass their own barriers and emerge as future leaders and torch bearers for the organization.
4. Empower People & Discourage Work place Politics
After establishing the right systems, training and expectations, if you can’t trust your team then it’s meaningless. Hold your top management accountable for results, and empower them to build similar ownership within their department heads.
Celebrate honesty, right values, mutual respect, and reward initiatives taken, and exceptional guest care. Protect your culture and don’t tolerate workplace politics, dishonesty, manipulators or people pleasers. Some long working employees never let true culture build and always look to create divisions. Such employees hamper growth and suck the core of the brand as a termite. Just pluck them out!
5. Learn and Evolve Continuously
You may face challenge while building Culture but eventually team starts understanding what they do and why they do it. Overtime this turns into collective work excellence, reducing complaints, and work harmony. Also treat training and skill development as a continuous journey.
Build a healthy work environment. Encourage team bonding through games, celebrations, exposure visits and annual recreational tours. Invest in them, promote them, cover their insurance, give them employee benefits and allowances which gives them sense of security and belonging.
I always believe Culture can’t be built overnight. It evolves with time and effort. Are you ready to build a culture that your people will be proud off ?? For consulting and culture building - Contact Ashish +91-7999224215