Very busy, but still time to be green

IT'S THE beginning of October, we are in between the motor show and the fashion shows and the place is heaving. All is back to normal.

We have received quotations and approvals for both the health club and the concierge desk, and work is about to start.

Two weeks ago we started to clean the columns and stonework in the lobby. This is all done at night and is quite difficult, because they cannot sandblast it.

We are due to hold one of our quarterly "all staff" meetings. Every three months or so we get together as many employees as we can to communicate major matters of importance, to us and to them.

This time, the main topic will be the environment, a subject close to my heart. Now we are under the management of Bass Hotels & Resorts, this is receiving a big push with the launch of a new environmental programme called Conserving our Planet.

Our hotel has a green team (like all should), which is led by Patrick, my assistant.

He and a group of six will make a presentation explaining the new programme. In short, all hotels should participate in the towel exchange programme and they should carry out a self-audit following a 100-point checklist (from the IHEI manual) and report results to head office.

Every year we are setting new targets for improvement. By collating all the statistics, we can really see where work needs to be done in the future. Naturally, the best scores are always achieved in those countries where the environment is high on the agenda, ie Germany, Canada and the USA, and they always do better than others.

We are all encouraged to help some part of the local community, to do some fund-raising for Unicef or other worthwhile causes and, to get the staff really excited, a world-wide artistic competition being held. The theme is: How can I make a difference?.

Other than the green show, my assistant will present the latest quality results, the HR director will announce the result of the annual staff survey, we will let them know about the refurbishments, and finish with the annual results (year end is closing right now).

The long service award will end the show and than we shall raise a toast to the excellent year gone by and for even better times to come. I've always been an optimist. n

DAGMARWOODWARD is general manager of the Hotel Inter-Continental Paris

Next diary from Dagmar Woodward: 16 November