The historic Broadmoor hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado, was in the news recently as a result of the massive wildfire that struck the area in early July. While the fires raged on the other side of the city and the resort was physically unscathed, the team and business was more directly impacted. The area’s recovery is ongoing and business has since comeback in full, according to President Steve Bartolin, who not surprisingly would rather talk to HOTELS about the start of an exciting two-year, US$60 million renovation and the Broadmoor’s continuous culture that has greatly aided retention (just five executive chefs in almost 100 years) and drives service excellence.
HOTELS talked with the man who has been at the helm of The Broadmoor for 30 years, as well as Human Resource Director Cindy Johnson about the company culture, the renovation and managing through the wildfire.
HOTELS: What keeps your team so loyal?
Steve Bartolin: We have had the good fortune of continuity of ownership with just three owners since 1918. Three remarkable individuals – Spencer Penrose, Ed Gaylord and now Philip Anschutz – have the financial capacity to be not just owners but real stewards of the property and a commitment to keep The Broadmoor independent. Then the seven-person executive committee has an average tenure of 19 years. In a branded property, just the rotation of management through its system alone creates upheaval. Here, people are committed to property, staff and community over time.
During regular employee forums more than anything I want to know how they are treated and about their relationships with managers. That means more to me than anything. It is intangible, but a big part of our culture. If we have managers who are uncaring toward employees, I don’t care how much experience they have they don’t last long here. How people are treated means a lot to me and I use those forums for that.
Cindy Johnson: We employ tools to hire the right people. We use a predictive index behavioral interview tool that helps us make better matches with skillsets and for our culture. We hire for attitude.
The training piece is another key to success with over 150 hours for every new hire and 50 to 75 hours a year thereafter. In particular, we have a customized eight-hour guest service class facilitated by managers… We budget over US$200,000 for training, have a state-of-the-art training facility and a staff of five full-time trainers.
HOTELS: How do you create a “family” culture with 1,900 team members?
Bartolin: Not a month goes by in staff meetings that I don’t talk about the old axiom about not getting too close to staff. We feel the opposite. We want them to know we care about them. We show it in many ways and can’t fake it. There is an intangible piece that creates a culture here that is hard to define. It is partly because of the continuity and being vested here, which allows us to create a culture that works.
HOTELS: What are the most exciting aspects of the renovation?
Bartolin: There is one big and one small piece. The renovation of the West building is not typical. There are 152 rooms built in mid ‘70s. Architecturally, it is lacking. We are transforming the exterior to look like the main building built in 1918. The detail and character of the exterior, the lobby experience along with a sensational guestroom product will look outstanding.
The other piece that is fun is a unique, new restaurant and game area combined called Play at the Broadmoor. It will have a restaurant, bar, six bowling lanes, a state-of-the-art game room, and even shuffle board. In the center is the restaurant. At a good price point, it will appeal to families and corporate business, and between game and F&B revenue it pencils out to be pretty profitable.
HOTELS: How did the wildfire impact the resort?
Bartolin: It affected us greatly – more than you’d think to the tune of 6,000-plus room nights – a combination of group and leisure. The media coverage was intense, but the reality was we were physically completely unaffected, yet the public scrutiny and concern of our guests was profound.
We were able to work with two of the three major group cancelations to reschedule later in the year. We also reached out to all of our social guests asking them to considering returning when they could. We did what we could to mitigate it but this was our prime time – the height of our season, so it impacted employees, their families and paychecks. But when you see it could have been so much worse this was a temporary speed bump we have already worked through, and business is back.
Technology really helped, as well, or our losses would have been greater. Daily, we took time-stamped photos of guests using the facilities, showing that the environment was good, and posted them on Facebook and Twitter. It helped alleviate fears or cancellations would have been double.
During the first three days of the fire we stayed full as groups were still here. After that it was 70% as opposed to the 100% we had on the books. But it wasn’t 40% either.
Johnson: About 32,000 people were displaced from their homes and many were our employees, so we had to take care of things internally.
To manage the process on the Saturday the fire started we assembled our emergency management team. Over 200 employees had to be evacuated and we right away converted all of our training rooms into evacuation shelters. We had shower facilities, food and water available, and we partnered with our employee assistance program to provide assistance with stress. We continue to volunteer to raise money, and our people were racing to volunteer, which made us incredibly proud.
We also saw obligation to help in our community and provided financial assistance to victim’s assistance fund and supplies through the Salvation Army. Our staff volunteered hundreds of hours toward relief efforts.
Bartolin: Partnering with Colorado Tourism and the CVB was important to get the word out that we were open for business as the public images were devastating. We had a tough hand dealt us, we mitigated the damages as best we could, took good care of staff and had good outreach in community, as well.