Victoria Inn Hotel and Convention Centre: staff reward program helping reduce turnover.

• Author: Strong, Graham
• Position: Five best places to work in Northern Ontario

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The Victoria Inn Hotel and Convention Centre in Thunder Bay has all the hallmarks of a well-run facility. Since its parent company, Genesis Hospitality Inc. of Brandon, Man., purchased the 182-room property in 1994, it has grown to become one of the premier destinations in Thunder Bay for business and pleasure. The hotel features a huge ballroom for weddings and conferences and its pool and waterslide for overnight or weekend getaways. Its ever-popular Chicago Joe's sports bar and restaurant boasts some of the best wings in town.

But you don't get to be "premier" without a lot of help from your staff.

That can be difficult in the hospitality industry, where turnover is so high. The solution? Build incentives to make the Victoria Inn one of the best hotels to work at in the city.

So far, it's working.

"We've decreased our turnover in the last three years," said Raymond Nadeau, general manager of the Victoria Inn. "A lot comes with valuing your employees and giving them recognition. Our rewards programs help build that loyalty and company pride."

GenPoints is one of those programs, and one of the most well received. Structured similar to an air miles program, employees and managers earn points that they can use towards many different rewards.

"They're not buying Victoria Inn items ... they can do anything," Nadeau said. "I buy Visa gift cards."

Staff and management earn GenPoints through performance, meeting sales goals, and through other milestones such as birthdays and work anniversaries.

Another way the company encourages recognition is a website and database system where employees and management can publicly praise staff.

"Our employees all have accounts. They can go on and send a peer-to-peer recognition where they say things like, 'Hey, great job today! Thanks a lot for helping me out ...' The employee that they're recognizing gets an email so they go onto the website to read the email and see who it was," Nadeau said.

Customer appreciation can be tracked this way as well. Any positive guest comments at checkout or after a banquet, for example, all get logged into the system for instant recognition. Both peer and customer recognition earns the staff member GenPoints.

The Victoria Inn also works hard to create an incredibly supportive work environment. As is usual for the hospitality industry, many of the Victoria Inn's new hires do not have experience. A comprehensive in-house training...