Hi Anne, can you tell me about your professional development at Seminaris and how you managed to get to where you are today?
My journey at Seminaris Hotels in Nuremberg began in July 2021. At that time, my colleague Thomas and I managed a hotel in Gera together. One day, a tempting offer for a hotel in Nuremberg reached him. Since we are a super team, Thomas knew he didn’t want to explore this opportunity without me. So in March, in the midst of the turbulent Corona crisis, we set out for Nuremberg to visit a hotel that, due to circumstances, had been run down to bare essentials. Great first impression. There we met Jochen from Seminaris, who enthusiastically showed us where our journey with Seminaris could go. He talked about a turnaround in the hotel industry, new work, agile working and a strong focus on developing our own employees, who should also be actively involved in shaping the company’s philosophy and value culture. Our eyes and ears grew wide, our heart beat a little faster, in other words we felt the spirit and the desire to rewrite Hotel. We resolutely said “yes”, because having a workplace where we can grow professionally and personally also corresponded to our future vision for the industry.
At this point, it should be mentioned that Seminaris recognized very early on that the work of tomorrow requires a different approach or a different cultural model. Since 2018, the hotel group has therefore been on an agile transformation journey toward structures that promote personal and professional development. Our mission statement “We make people grow” is also based on this.
On July 1, 2021, Thomas and I finally took over the management of Seminaris in Nuremberg. In addition to my role as senior operations manager, I was interested in the complex transformation of the hotel group from the very beginning and wanted to make an active contribution to sustainably changing structures. Things became concrete as early as September 2021, when I became a member of the “Team Kopf” and began to play an active role in the transformation. Together, we developed fields of action based on the values of “Team Heart. I was then appointed to the overarching Trafo Team. As a first step, we began to communicate the importance of transformation to our own team from the inside, because not everyone was enthusiastic, there was resistance here and there, and some even parted ways with us. But there were many colleagues who enthusiastically shaped this path together with us, knowing full well what opportunities lay behind it for all of us and for each individual.
In the second half of 2022, I took the opportunity to participate as a “shadow coach” in the “Employees in Focus” project. The insights gained from this project have already led me into the development of the next project, the “Digital Coffee Gossips”, a kind of topic-based and cross-house exchange and mutual support, which became a matter of the heart for me.
With each subsequent Trafo sub-project and the experience and insights gained from it, I noticed my sense of what “new work” needs growing.
This sharpened my awareness of the importance of good employee onboarding, and the next project was born. Using our company as an example, it was important to me to work out how good onboarding should be designed in order to pick up new employees professionally and personally on the basis of our values and our mission statement. I asked myself what it would take to give commitment and motivation the best possible conditions right from the start. The resulting concept now offers room for individual design depending on the house, department and position. It was enthusiastically received, and the project participants, including me, enjoyed developing the process.
Today, I am part of a group developing a feedback framework for our Company, and I will soon waltz into our internal mentoring program “Dreams” as a mentor. So my exciting journey at Seminaris continues, marked by development, creation and growth.
How has Seminaris helped drive your professional development? What specific resources or support have you received?
Seminaris has made a lot of positive changes, as I have never experienced the hotel industry and hotel management in this way. With us, the employees tell us where to go and not a head office or a catalog of 300-page standards. That suits me very well, because I see only advantages for all stakeholders of a hotel in this way of thinking from the very beginning: guest, owner, contractors & employees. You yourself have also worked in different teams and I personally felt most comfortable there, where trust from the superiors was noticeable for one’s own work.
What special qualities or skills have you developed or improved during your time at Seminaris? How have these skills influenced your career?
Seminaris has made a lot of positive changes, as I have never experienced the hotel industry and hotel management in this way. With us, the employees tell us where to go and not a head office or a catalog of 300-page standards. That suits me very well, because I see only advantages for all stakeholders of a hotel in this way of thinking from the very beginning: guest, owner, contractors & employees. You yourself have also worked in different teams and I personally felt most comfortable there, where trust from the superiors was noticeable for one’s own work.
What special qualities or skills did you develop or improve during your time at Seminaris? How have these skills influenced your career?
During my time at Seminaris, I developed and improved a number of special skills that have had a lasting impact on my view of leadership and development. In my early days, I was given a lot of space for coaching and reflection, which helped me to adopt different perspectives, on others and also on myself. In particular, my role as an operations manager changed fundamentally. Since then, my focus has been 100% on empowering my team to be self-directed. In my leadership role, I now see myself more as a supporter when challenges arise or finding solutions to problems together. I used to be in more of a “second level” role, taking on tasks when someone was unable to solve them for various reasons. Today, the approach is a shared one. Most team members have come to understand that overcoming challenges together has more value for them than me simply taking over certain tasks and removing responsibility from them. Thomas and I have become more transparent in our decisions for Nuremberg House and, depending on the topic, sit down with colleagues from the departments to discuss paths, strategic directions and medium- or short-term challenges.
When I reflect on the past year, the thing that strikes me most is that neither Thomas nor I have often had to say “no.” This is because, through joint discussions and consideration of the facts, we always get to the point where the department heads and colleagues themselves recognize what is possible and what is not.
I would not want to go back to a role where I am the sole decision maker in my area of responsibility, even though the experts are in the operating departments. I now consider myself part of a decision-making process, occasionally raising points or conditions that should be considered. It may be that an idea cannot be implemented immediately for cost reasons, and that also happens. In such cases, we use our performance to transparently show when certain measures need to become visible in the figures so that they can be included in the planning. Despite our numerous projects and experiments, we are still a commercial company, and this balancing act is also part of the equation.
What internal company conditions or corporate culture at Seminaris contributed to making your personal learning journey and further development possible?
My personal learning journey and further development at Seminaris Hotels have been significantly shaped by various internal factors and the supportive corporate culture.
First and foremost, there is Thomas. who lets me do what I want to do and never objects when I want to be involved in yet another and another and another project His support and openness to my ideas have greatly enhanced my personal learning journey and have been and continue to be a valuable contribution to my professional development.
The entire Seminaris Group as a company plays an important role. The company has been willing to go down the path of transformation and is investing in the process both financially and by providing first-class human resources. These investments enabled me and others to actively participate in the company’s further development and to pursue innovative approaches.
Last but not least are my outstanding colleagues from across the Seminaris Group. They actively participated in the projects and were always willing to share their knowledge and experience. Particularly noteworthy was their openness to exchange, even when things didn’t go as expected at one point. The joint recognition of challenges and the willingness to learn from mistakes are an integral part of our learning journey and contributed significantly to my further development.
What do you take with you for the future?
I will take everything I have described with me as I continue my time at Seminaris, which from my current perspective is far from over, because so many great and exciting things are happening right now that I am looking forward tremendously to accompanying the further development in my area of responsibility. There is still so much to discover and learn. For me personally, too. Perhaps my task at some point (without wanting to define this point in time exactly: 5, 10, 15 years) will be to support other hotel chains in their transformation, because one thing is a fact: what Seminaris is doing is unique in the German hotel industry so far, but necessary for the entire industry.
