Developing Premier Managers at Premier Inn

Premier Inn London County Hall is the flagship hotel in the Whitbread chain, generating revenue in excess of £12million per year and running at 96% occupancy.  This requires the management team to be focused and driven towards results and to have the capability of achieving results through their teams.  The site is recognised as a centre of excellence for Premier Inn and as providing a pipeline for managers of the future.  

Mentor ADE

Mentor’s Assess, Develop, Evaluate (ADE) approach has helped Premier Inn London County Hall to focus its managers on achieving excellence in performance through the development of their leadership and management skills.

Mentor adopted a partnership approach with the General Manager of the hotel in order to assess the development needs of the management team as a whole and each individual within the team.  Focused interviewing formed the initial phase of the assessment whereby Mentor was able to fully understand the key business drivers, defined by the hotel’s balanced scorecard, and the aspirations of the General Manager for his team.  The Mentor consultant who lead this programme has considerable hotel experience and was therefore able to appreciate the challenges and opportunities facing the management team and to ‘talk their language’.

The development programme took a 3 phase approach and combined a variety of learning experiences.

Phase 1 – aimed to raise awareness of the different styles and preferences people have (through administration of the MBTI questionnaire) and to encourage the participants to appreciate those differences and to adapt their style for success.  This phase consisted of 2 team workshops, delivered 3 months apart during which time the participants implemented their personal learning and actions. 

Phase 2 – focused on the core management team by providing them with a 4 month personal development plan.  The aim was to build their confidence and competence as managers and leaders.  Each of the 7 managers attended a 2 one-day workshops together, supported by 1:1 coaching and 360 degree feedback.

Phase 3 – (being delivered through 2009) is a series of 4 power sessions,
each themed by one of the 4 key business drivers; sales, profitability, balanced scorecard targets, budgeting and planning for the future. 

The development programme delivered a Premier Inn London County Hall has been recognised as the key factor in the development of the management team.  The reputation and profile of the managers who participated in the programme has been enhanced and as such, more than half of the managers involved have moved on to new roles within the company.  There has been considerable interest in this programme amongst other hotels in the chain which signifies the impact that it has had not just on the participating group and their hotel but also on the wider population in the company