About St Ermin's Operating (UK) Ltd

The HR Manager at St Ermin’s created 2 development programmes specifically for the business: For Management: Fish S.U.P.P.E.R (Supports, Unites, Plans, Participates, Energises, achieves Results). For Supervisory Fish S.T.I.C.’s (Strives To Inspire Change). They involve the following: Leadership vs Management, Stages of group development, Behaviour and Motivation Learning styles, Communication Conflict Management, Time Management Problem solving and decision making. Whilst both programmes have the same elements, the Management Programme deals with more complex theories and processes. Both programmes are highly interactive, with a significant range of exercises observing natural and learned behaviours. There are 6 modules, 4 weeks apart with practical work based projects to complete between modules. The course also has a very practical base, where hotel issues are openly discussed with no fear of retribution then analysed and often fixed there and then or a plan put in place by the delegates. The modules are tough and also a lot of fun. At the end of the course, the attendees are then set a project as a group that is work related and needed to improve or launch something within the hotel or help with employee communication. The 2013 project was to make a video that embodies St Ermin’s culture, especially fun, love and energy. The pilot courses were run in 2011 and proved such a success that there are courses each year, and to date, 58 employees have attended a course. In 2014, 10 delegates attended the course. The 2015 course is already planned for April.

The courtyard garden at St Ermin's is planted to attract wildlife, give food for bees, and give a focal point for the local community. The company have had a blackbirds nest, squirrels are now hiding nuts from the park across the road, and they have a range of spiders that have moved in creating fantastic webs. St Ermin’s often see their guests or passers by taking photographs of the garden. The hotel is home to 200,000+ Buckfast bees, a good tempered honey bee, who reside in 7 custom-built hives on St. Ermin's' rooftop. These lucky bees have fantastic access to London's parks, all within their three mile flight radius, to collect a wide variety of pollen and nectar, which in turn gives their honey a truly delicious taste. They also have the courtyard garden where there are flowers ready for them in the spring and enough nectar rich plants well into the autumn. The hotel holds Bee keeping classes in late summer which are open to locals, friends of the hotel, guests and employees. St Ermin’s use the honey each year to make a range of specialist dishes in their Restaurant, honey based cocktail’s in the bar and desserts and pastries for their afternoon teas. Some of the honey is given as gifts to St Ermin’s Corporate Clients. The hotel also now has a Bee Hotel for solitary bees and insects on their 3rd floor where they also plant strawberries and wild flowers.

St Ermin's Operating (UK)’s employee rewards programme encompass the 4 areas within the culture and is designed to reward employees for behaviours that meet the Vision and Mission. Traditionally in hotels, reward programmes are centred on earning credits/points that can be exchanged for items within various company catalogues. The company believe that the most important thing to their team members is the ability to earn extra money outside their normal salary. St Ermin's created a programme called ‘Fish hook’, which is split into the 3 of the 4 core value areas, Choose Your Attitude, Make Peoples Day and Be There plus Guest Recognition. The reward is a points based system, 1 point = £1 and the company pays the employee and employer tax on that £1 so that the employee receives the whole £1. Points are issued to employees by way of a personal cheque given by a Manager. All managers are issued with guidelines on what to look for within the business and are able to issue cheques to any employee they see or hear fulfilling the required criteria. Points are totalled at the end of every business quarter and the employee receives the cash value of their points in their salary. The average quarterly cost to the business has increased from £4,000.00 (plus the employee tax) in 2013 to £4,7000.00 in 2014. All new employees receive a travel card wallet with the Vision printed on the back and Fish hook details within.