Rooms101 is Nearly Here and it’s Shaping up to be a Good One
- By Harri Insider Team | February 24, 2022
Excitement is building at Harri HQ as the must-attend, people-focused hotel conference of the year, Rooms101 by EXP101, draws near.
The event on March 15 at the Hard Rock Hotel in London’s Marble Arch is proudly sponsored by Harri, and promises to be thought-provoking, forward-thinking, bold and, above all, lots of fun. This year’s event will deliver insight into best practises and suggested strategies in recruitment, training, retention, succession planning, diversity and inclusion, and more.
Rooms101 will examine the trends driving brands to think and behave differently, and offer real solutions for the hospitality industry; attendees can expect to leave feeling empowered and inspired by the possibility of what they can do to improve their places of work.
Harri speaks
Harri’s very own director of sales, Roy Walker, will be amongst those speaking on the day, as the event drills into what hoteliers can do to make the employee experience the best it can possibly be. Roy will be joined in a panel by Lyndsay Southward, the People and Operations Director from Village Hotels, and Daniel Vale, Group HR Manager at Andrew Brownsword Hotels, with more to be announced.
With hospitality vacancies at an all-time high, and competition for candidates fierce, recruiting and retaining staff is one of the biggest issues facing hoteliers right now. Roy and his panel will explore how technology can support recruitment and retention strategies in hotels, and think about what hotels need to do to modernise their practices.
Roy’s conversation will be followed by a panel discussion around the employee life cycle model with Jon Dawson, group director of people development at Lore Group, Tom Ross, group operations director at Pig Hotels, and Anne Golden, general manager at Pan Pacific London. Using the latest data and drawing on their own experiences, the panellists will discuss and make recommendations relating to brand attraction, recruitment, onboarding, development, retention, exit and advocacy.
And now for the fun bit
After lunch prepared by the Hard Rock Hotel chefs, it will be time for something a little bit different: writing and performing a new anthem for hospitality. Anthems unify us by celebrating our history, traditions, and culture, so delegates will be guided to write their own anthem to express their company’s purpose and values, and unify their teams.
Musicians from SongDivision – who have performed with artists such as Prince, Cher and Taylor Swift – will help attendees establish the chords and style of the anthem, write the lyrics, and then everyone will join together to sing along to their newly created anthem.
And there’s more
Other speakers during the afternoon include endurance athlete Angus Collins, who will talk about his adventures with the aim of inspiring people to seek seemingly impossible goals and to find the positives in failure as well as success.
To wrap up the day’s activities, EXP101 founders Chris Fletcher and Kieron Bailey will chat with general manager Simon Drake and founder and chief executive Naomi Heaton from residents’ club The Other House. This is an interview not to be missed as Simon and Naomi reveal the story behind London’s most exciting opening of 2022.
A residents’ club effortlessly combining home comforts and apartment-style living with hotel facilities, The Other House offers guests the chance to stay for anything from a day to a year: with everything at their fingertips on The Other House app, they can make it their other house for as long as they’re in town. People are at the centre of The Other House, and so Rooms101 will round off with a window into how this dynamic team have built a business that puts both team member and guest first.
A bit about EXP101
Rooms101 is just one of many events staged throughout the year by EXP101, which was launched by Chris Fletcher and Kieron Bailey after a combined 40 years in the hospitality industry across all sectors (and in all positions from KP to board members).
All of EXP101’s events – covering casual dining, hotels and pubs – are focused on improving people’s experience of a business, whether that be the guest experience or employee experience. Their events aren’t just educational but are designed to provide “edutainment” – in other words, attendees can do business, learn and have fun at the same time.
Perfect partners
Of course, Harri’s technology is all about supporting the employee experience, making it a natural partner with EXP101.
From the word go, Harri’s Talent Acquisition Suite offers a host of functions to help with hiring, including screening questions to enable managers to quickly and easily identify the candidates most suited for the role, and video interviewing.
Harri’s innovative AI hiring assistant Carri can manage the entire application and candidate communications lifecycle via SMS, web-based chat on your careers page, Facebook Messenger, and more. Carri’s real-time messaging allows candidates to quickly apply and set up interviews, plus Carri can communicate details about the team, benefits and culture with applicants in a personable way, making them feel valued from the very start.
Once you’ve found the right person for the job, the advantages of Harri’s tech don’t stop there.
Our onboarding solution ensures new recruits get a good first experience of working for your company, while our communications tools and smart scheduling platform keep employees fully engaged and in control.
