COVID-19 has created an unprecedented and difficult situation for people around the world. With so much uncertainty around the virus and its effects on our lives, we believe that communicating with our team on various levels is key to keeping them safe, healthy and well-informed. With a team of over 8,000 employees located across the country, it is of paramount importance to our leadership team that we are regularly communicating with our employees on how to stay healthy, how we are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, and what that means for our operations. How can other service providers or hospitality companies ensure they are reaching their employees with important information? Here are a few of the ways we have used existing platforms to effectively communicate with our employees during the pandemic:

  1. Mass Texting – The majority of our employee base are hourly housekeeping, stewarding, EVS and food & beverage associates who are dependent on text messages instead of email communication. Employing mass text messages, supplemented by with email communications, has been one of the most effective ways for us to communicate our updates and pandemic response across our company.
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  • SHINE on Shift – We developed our weekly SHINE on Shift communication in 2017 to easily and effectively communicate important information to our teams in the field. Our SHINE on Shift includes important topics such as our mandatory training topics, pre-shift calendar, benefits information, best practices, department updates and safety information. During this pandemic, we have added additional information around COVID-19: our pandemic response plan, CDC recommendations on preventing the spread of COVID-19, and other essential COVID-19-related information for our managers to communicate at their properties or facilities. Here is a snapshot of our SHINE on Shift from March 13th.
  • Mandatory Webinars – Our Operations and Safety leaders have been hosting daily webinars for our Supervisors and Managers at our hotels, casinos and resorts. The goal of these webinars is to keep our leaders in the field informed as well as listen and respond to their questions and concerns.
  • Dedicated Safety Site – Our Safety team expanded their safety-dedicated website to include a section on COVID-19. People within our organization can access the site at any time to review coronavirus-specific FAQs, guides, our company’s response, best practices, and CDC and OSHA recommendations/guidance.

How has your company been communicating with your team during the pandemic? Leave a comment below.