Spotlight interview | Cultural Diversity – Rob Hood FIH

It was World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development on 21 May, so we thought we’d talk to some of our members about how cultural diversity has affected their hospitality careers. First up is Rob Hood FIH, Corporate Director of Food & Beverage – Silver Hotel Group

Can you share a situation where your cultural background helped you connect with guests or colleagues in a meaningful way?

In the last couple of years, I have had a lot of managers who have joined us from different countries. When people assimilate into new countries, there is a sense of fear and excitement. It is working with managers and line associates and giving them a sense of comfort to understand the basic rudiments of a different culture than theirs. At Silver Hotel groups, one of our core pillars is cultural diversity, we want to people to bring their individuality and promote their own character. Our guests are interested in meeting someone in a new place from somewhere else and to connect on how that style, character and unique service experience is felt. We are in the process of providing emotionally enriching experience to our guests and that stays on by having a diverse set of team members who provide service to our guests.

In the last two years, there is an active Diwali celebration and now I understand the reason of the celebration. While I had heard about it before, I did not know much about the celebration but after interacting with our colleagues from different parts, I learned about Diwali and experienced how eating food together on such occasions brings us together.

How do you use cultural diversity in your team or workplace to improve guest experiences or business results?

In menu development, we have moved away from the boring, stale restaurant formula. My culinary teams comes together and creates a taskforce to brainstorm on different variety of food preparations we can provide to our guests. Rather that restraining the team and setting a limit on how far they can go. What we have done is took one food variety from one cultural background to another and suddenly we have been able to create an incredible fusion. The food created takes you on a journey in which you never really expect to go on. We have brought together Indian heritage food with Greek food – it is so opposite on its own, but then when we put it together, it is totally divine. Food helps in bringing people together who would have not been associated before.

Have you faced challenges in hospitality due to cultural differences, and how did you handle them?

Yes, I have. One summer, I was looking for a Food and Beverage Director and a young man sent me his resume. He was from Delhi in India and was the exact profile I was looking for. I did a meeting with him, found him wonderful and he was very excited about the opportunity as well. The caveat to that is that the work located was based in a very remote area in Canadian Prairies. The weather on a warm day in winter is -38 or -40 degrees Celsius. I had to tell him that “You are a great candidate, but I said that you are from a very warm place, and where you are going is a very cold place. I need you to go home, research as much as you can about this place and learn everything you can about 24 hours and pay particular attention to the weather. If you are still interested, call me tomorrow and we are in and will look for a 2-year commitment.” The next day, I got an email from him, in the title there was a caption, “We are ready”; there was nothing else in the email except a photograph of him and his wife wearing Canada Goose coats. He joined and worked with us for 3 years. He always remembers that story. It wasn’t a challenge, but what I wanted to share is when you take people from different parts of the world, it is the manager’s responsibility to take care of people and guide them in while they are getting comfortable into a new work environment.

What advice would you give to others in hospitality to embrace and use cultural diversity in their careers?

I tend to say this to my managers in our development programme; meet as many people as you can, network and never stop doing that. If you meet a new person every day, you have made contact. Be yourself, don’t be anyone else. You will find that people who stand out, who move forward in their careers (not just got promoted, but have an impact) are the ones who stay very true to themselves, who do not strip away the cultural background just to fit in. They wear their culture background like a badge, they do not apologise for it. If you get to know people like these, you will get to discover something new, delightful and bring in with them something that is brand new. They are going to take that very diversified character and cultural background and bring to our guests, who are looking for such experiences when they travel, stay, and eat in wherever they go. It is the people that bring to the life such experiences and again if we are all the same, it would be boring!