Reopening: Rethink or Regress?
It’s April 2021, the month we celebrate Earth Day and see the signs of spring and reopening! Every day I see more posts about live events and other ‘back to normal’ activities. But as we reopen, let’s not get ‘back to normal.’
Here’s what I mean. One of the most common and frustrating experiences people have when trying make positive changes is to encounter the “it’s against the policy” and other “we’ve always done it this way” thinking.
I was recently working with a mentee who works at a hotel. The hotel is not reopening, it’s opening. It’s brand new. None of the employees have worked for this brand before, yet she is constantly encountering “[hotel x] says we have to do it this way.” This employee shared that she throws out most of the oatmeal made every morning for the breakfast shift. This isn’t surprising since the World Wildlife Fund found in their Hotel Kitchen project that oatmeal is one of the most wasted foods in hotels!
Note that I’m not naming hotel x because I’m not a fan of the blame and shame game and I know many who work in corporate level sustainability at many hotel brands and I admire and respect the work they are doing. However, suffice it to say in the more than 120 people I’ve helped start green teams, about half of them have worked at hotel x or one of hotel x’s top competitors. So I know this is a pervasive phenomenon. Across the industry. And for that matter, other franchise businesses and corporations with dispersed locations.
The policies, standards, and other documents that employees are referring to were set up for a good reason - they ensure guests get a consistent and quality experience from location to location. They facilitate economies of scale and efficiency. It makes it easier to train and inspect quality. And all that makes sense.
But somehow, these policies have morphed into that catchall excuse to reject innovations and improvements. They also prevent autonomy (one of the job characteristics research shows is valued), and most importantly, sustainability! The same hotel x corporate website lists all the commitments the brand has towards environmental performance and social impact, including food waste reduction. Yet I hear time and again of people in these hotels, trying to change wasteful practices, running up against this same wall. Over and over. It’s against the policy. This isn’t the first time I’ve written about this and no doubt it won’t be the last.
If most of the oatmeal prepared is thrown out each day, why not make less? “Because [hotel x] says so.” (By the way, it probably goes without saying but oatmeal is just one of many examples of food waste the hotel is generating.) In this case, I’d like to point out some of the reasons employees might use this as an automatic answer to everything.
There are many times staff or managers say “hotel x says so” when hotel x has not actually required what they are claiming. Employees take a specific standard, such as what bowls to use, and extrapolate assumptions that anything in a bowl must go in this one size bowl. But more likely, there were a few bowl options but the person who did procurement for the initial bowl purchase selected one of the size options and now everything goes in that one size, even though from a food waste standpoint, it might be helpful to have 2 or more sizes. The decision gets communicated in a way that by the time someone is questioning bowl size (or other factors for vessels), there’s no room for improvement because they’ve been boxed in by “policy”.
My advice is to question assumptions by asking specific questions but to be thoughtful, respectful, and curious. Keep it positive and look for ways to justify changes with the business case. The idea of buying new bowls might immediately trigger concerns over the economics of it. But reduced food waste and other sustainability savings can offset additional costs.
Similarly, this excuse is thrown out often, even though most people in the organization have never actually read the policy or contractual agreement. So this default response is really about something else. It could be fear of not knowing the answer or appearing less authoritative. It could be sheer laziness. More likely, though, it’s fear of losing credibility and power. If an employee like my mentee asks a manager why so much oatmeal is thrown out, saying “[hotel x] requires us to make that much” is safer than saying “I don’t know”. No one wants to risk looking purposefully wasteful, much less ignorant.
My advice is to frame the question with some background and education so that the decision maker understands the positive outcome of a potential change. Approach it as an opportunity for collaborative problem-solving, which taps into people’s desire to upskill and demonstrate leadership.
Consider the other psychological issues at play. In this particular new property, the mentee explained some of the resistance the chef had about reducing the amount of oatmeal prepared every day. Based on what she knows already of the chef’s background, I suggested that perhaps this person has experienced food insecurity. Or job insecurity. I mean, she is in a new job! She certainly doesn’t want to do anything that would risk losing that job, like running out of oatmeal! And certainly not in the current state of the hospitality industry!
My advice is to have empathy for where people are coming from. It’s so easy to just assume people don’t care when they refuse to cooperate with your ideas. But there’s usually something else going on. Get to know people and learn what matters to them. In this case, I suggested my mentee work with the chef to come up with a plan to safely donate the excess food. It’s always better if you can not produce excess in the first place, but food donation is a way to touch the hearts of staff and open their minds to change.
Legitimately, wasted oatmeal is likely to be the least of a business’s concerns. Food waste is an important issue but when lots of other things are going on it’s easy just to throw out an answer that “blames” someone else (hotel x corporate people) rather than having to pause and think about a whole new problem.
In this case, if you are a manager, the best approach is to empower people to make small changes. If you are not a manager, do as much as you can before bringing it up to a manager. This is the old adage of “ask forgiveness, not permission.” Obviously, don’t do anything that would get you fired but if you work for someone who is that big of a jerk, then you should probably look for a place where your passion and efforts would be appreciated.
As establishments reopen from COVID, staff are likely to face similar obstacles stemming from new safety and hygiene policies and standards. Before you regress into these old behaviors of just pointing to the policy to shut down the conversation, try to rethink your approach using the advice presented here.
I advised my mentee to patiently observe and begin having conversations about food waste. I encouraged her to consider where people are coming from and to ask thoughtful questions. To reassure everyone with small changes and positive reinforcement. And to not take no for an answer. If she continues to ask smart questions and demonstrate she cares, she will drive change. Already her general manager has shown he wants to empower her to reduce food waste, but he’s busy getting a new property off the ground, so I told her to just keep slowly progressing. One step at a time. Day by day. It matters so don’t give up.
