A Letter from the GM...

So what might a “kick-off” letter from the General Manager to the Green Team look like? Here are my thoughts on a good way to set the right expectations from the start:

Dear Green Team:

Thank you for volunteering for this important work. I appreciate your enthusiasm for this project and I will support you in to the best of my ability.

First of all – you need to know you are not alone. Adopting sustainable business practices in our hotel will take the commitment of our whole team – not just your green team. That will start at the top and I will ensure that it is clearly understood you have my support. Each of my direct reports will have specific responsibilities to ensure this plan is implemented. We will change job descriptions and responsibilities to ensure “green” goals are formally included in each employee’s job description.

This is a long term commitment, similar to our commitment to excellent customer service and quality management. We won’t be the perfect green hotel tomorrow but we will commit to continuing improvement. These are tough times but we will make what immediate changes we can to our business practices today to start on the path to sustainability.

Our changes must be driven by not only the desire to be good corporate citizens but by smart economics. We must adopt activities that improve our efficiency and reduce long term costs while doing the right thing by the environment. We must find ways to communicate our progress in ways that is meaningful and appeals to our customers and generates sales.

As members of the Green team I want you to be the “engine” of our change and there are a number of things I would charge you to do:
1. Working with the management team I want you to seek out opportunities to improve our systems and make us the most environmentally sound operation in the market.
2. I want you to ensure we measure our change and capture hard numbers that show the benefits of the program. We can’t manage what we can’t measure and those progress will be important to our team and our clients and stakeholders.
3. I want you to keep the energy of this “change” program high. I want you to ensure our team in-house is aware of the difference they can make and the progress we are making together.
4. I want you to keep our sales team up to date on any new business opportunities that being “green” may afford us.
5. I want you to ensure our marketing team has a constant stream of information they can use when talking to our clients and the media.

Thanks again for being part of this important effort. I look forward to working with you to make our hotel a better place !