Red Carnation Hotels

Investors in People works with ambitious organisations to help them improve their productivity and performance. Last year, it expanded the Investors in People framework, to deliver new forms of recognition which acknowledge employers' commitment to continuous improvement. The introduction of Gold recognition provides additional challenge to organsisations such as Red Carnation which set their sights high.

Investors in People recently introduced an extended framework to help companies who had already achieved the basic standard. They were keen to give those organisations something more challenging to aim for and to find a way of recognising the ones which are performing at an exceptionally high level. Very few hotel groups, or individual hotels, rose to the challenge - but Red Carnation, who always set their sights incredibly high, went for it.

John Telfer, Managing Director of Investors in People London, said, "This is a fantastic achievement for Red Carnation Hotels. I would like to congratulate the organisation and its people on becoming one of the elite by achieving Gold status. Investors in People offers a flexible, practical and easy to use business improvement tool designed to help organisations and their people enhance performance and meet goals. Red Carnation Hotels have set the standard for others to follow and I hope that news of their success will encourage more international organisations in the hospitality and leisure sector to sharpen their competitive edge by choosing to work with Investors in People."

As Liz McGivern, Director of Human Resources and Training at Red Carnation explains, "We were assessed on a wide range of measures. These included the extent to which we engaged with our employees, our investment in training and development events plus levels of staff take-up of these programmes; efficient succession planning and internal promotions; the quality of two-way feedback through appraisals and 1:1 sessions; the effort we put into our annual staff appreciation party and associated employee awards; and the way we've approached fund raising and supported our chosen charities."

When the Investors in People Assessor, Vincent Dolan, polled Red Carnation staff from the UK to South Africa and Geneva to Palm Beach, he asked whether they considered the company a good one to work for. The responses were unfailingly positive, insisting Red Carnation was "a great company", and these enthusiastic unprompted statements contributed hugely to the extremely high scores.

Jonathan Raggett, Managing Director of Red Carnation Hotels, voted 2009 Hotelier of the Year at the Hotel Catey Awards, says, "This award really underlines our passionate commitment to helping every member of the team achieve their full potential and recognises that we go out of our way to provide outstanding opportunities for people who work hard and embrace the organisation's values where 'no request is too large, no detail too small'. I'd personally like to thank everyone who was interviewed by Investors in People, and all those in our organisation who continually coached and encouraged these individuals to stretch themselves even further."