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Hospitality Heroine

15/08/2016

In May 2016, Kathy Guy, doyenne of New Zealand hoteliers and Group General Manager of iconic historic hotels Wairakei Resort and Chateau Tongariro, was awarded a NZ Order of Merit for services to the tourism and hospitality industries – the last place she expected to build a career when she started out as a waitress 35 years ago.


“When I grew up, hospitality in the provinces was a dining room attached to a hotel or a fish ‘n’ chip shop. I never planned to go into the industry – my introduction came out of necessity,” says Kathy.

A former nurse, Kathy was a young married mother of two when she and her husband moved to Taupō, bought a house, and needed a job to help pay the bills. Her first role was as a waitress in a small café, followed by the Lake Hotel, Huka Village, Lane Cove and The Chateau where she worked her way up into top management.

“There were quite a lot of opportunities in small tourism towns like Taupō that offered the type of work that fitted well around my family. It’s something I always remember when we are hiring women – how difficult it is to fit work around raising a family – and today we ensure that it doesn’t become a barrier for mothers wanting to work.”

Kathy credits her knowledge to workplace training: “In those days that’s how you learned. It’s like anything, if you immerse yourself in it, you are more likely to absorb it. It’s incredibly important and one of the reasons we are so passionate about training.”

Over the years, she has recruited hundreds of employees, always looking for those with “passion, intuition and personality”, talented people, who, with training, can uphold impeccable standards and provide the gracious and unpretentious service that local and international guests expect from two of New Zealand’s grandest historic tourism hotels and convention centre.

“We’ve never tried to be anything other than what we are,” says Kathy. “We’re quite independent and autonomous from anything else in New Zealand. It’s about polite, down-to-earth behaviour and we build that expectation of employees early on and constantly reinforce those philosophies through training.”

Combined, the two hotels employ 210 staff, entertain 120,000 guests and hold around 480 conventions per year.

KathyGuyThe business uses ServiceIQ on-job training programmes that lead to national qualifications and give staff essential skills, knowledge and extra polish for exceptional service.

“I’ve always believed that it’s better to train and have staff leave, than not train and have people stay. I don’t compromise on standards for anybody. When I walk into a room, I’m always looking to see that everything is exactly as it should be – our staff do it too with the same set of eyes,” says Kathy. “You need to have pride in what you do, be confident about the role and have the skills to be confident, and that all comes from good training.”

Kathy is also responsible for restoring The Chateau to its former glory, and creating modern new accommodation and amenities that complement the grandeur and romance of the original hotel, and attract more visitors.

But no matter the beauty of remote locations, splendid isolation makes it difficult to hire staff, and that’s where on-job training and qualifications also make a difference, says Kathy: “It’s a compelling recruitment tool that gives us a competitive edge as a preferred employer.”

For Kathy, the biggest compliment is “seeing staff we’ve trained go onto management roles or start their own business. Interestingly many of them end up coming back to us and hold senior positions. I’ve always said that if people take their learnings and move on within the industry, it means we’re growing our industry with quality, well trained people who can enhance it for the future.”

For more information, please contact ServiceIQ on 0800 863 693 or email intel@ServiceIQ.org.nz

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