Half a millennium of service

Monday 24 February 2020

This is a story of hospitality staff’s dedication to a second family.

Nearly everyone in a full-time job spends more time at their desk than they do at home.

While going home at the end of the day to a loving family is one of the highlights of that lifestyle, not so many people have a similar experience going in to work: to see their second family.

That is the environment Sarnia Hotels offer across their three hotels: an in-work family and Stephen King went to find out their secret.  

Picture: Awards ceremony and celebration (Picture credit Chris George)

Approximately 120 employees work across Moores, the Hotel de Havelet and Les Rocquettes Hotel, and all of them are welcomed into the fold of a business which puts a real emphasis on making sure its staff are happy.  

You just have to look at their staffing record. The business has so many staff that have stayed committed for decades of their lives, it recently hosted an awards ceremony and celebration. This saw 18 of them commended for their long service to Sarnia Hotels, and there are plans for another round of awards for those who have been working for 10 or 15 years.

Pictured: Danny Rodriguez. 

This is the sort of working environment many employees and employers dream of – a job with thoughtful and accommodating management and, on the flip side, a body of staff committed to their job and doing the best they can.

So, what is Sarnia Hotel’s secret? Karel Harris, the Managing Director, said it was the family-like approach they took to their staff that fostered loyalty, creating an environment that people simply didn’t want to leave. 

“It comes down to my dad’s [Andre Sendlhofer] attitude. If you try and look after your staff and make them part of your family, they will look after your guests, so you don’t have to worry about that anymore,” she said. 

“It is do as you would be done by. I have worked in hotels away and sometimes the [staff] food was awful and the [staff] accommodation wasn’t great, but it is little things like that, that matter. We try and make sure our staff do get nice meals, because if they don’t, how will they ever recommend the customers eat in the hotel. 

“It is not an easy industry to be flexible, but we accommodate what we can, and if we can we do.”

Pictured: Copenhagen Manager Luca Pori. 

No one is a better example of staff’s commitment to Sarnia Hotels than 71-year-old Danny Rodriguez. He is the longest-serving member of staff, having been working there since 1966 - 53 years ago. Now the group’s trusted handyman, or maintenance manager, he started as a kitchen porter at around 18. 

“We always think he was avoiding military service because he wouldn’t go back to Madeira for years, but that might be a myth,” Ms Harris joked. It says a lot about a business’s staff when there are myths about the longer-serving ones of them.

Sarnia Hotels was started by Mr Andre, who was supported Ms Harris’ mother and grandparents. The relationship between her dad and Danny was a prime example of the family-like link between Sarnia and its staff.

“I think Danny of all people was sort of adopted by my dad, he feels part of the family. I can’t imagine or remember a time when Danny didn’t work here. I think my dad could see he was very able, and he was the one who taught him some skills to move him out of the kitchen and into the handyman role.”

Pictured: Karel Harris and Davina Mansell. 

Mr Rodriguez added that it was “lovely people” who had kept him working for the same employer for so many years.  

“They brought me up from a baby,” he said, “I only had one job at home [Madeira], and then the other one was here. They are like a second family to me, there is no two ways about it. I have never worked for anyone else, never. The boss was like a father to me. I have great respect for the people and the family.”

While Mr Rodriguez has been at Sarnia Hotels the longest, he is not the only member of staff with a long and prestigious record. The idea for the awards evening came about when Ms Harris and Davina Mansell – Ms Harris’ right-hand woman, of sorts – realised how many staff they had working there with over 20 years of employment. 

Ms Harris said: “We suddenly realized how many people we had working here that had worked for so long, so we started totting up numbers and discovered that it was almost half a millennium – the number of years that people had worked.

“That was all started by the fact that Danny had been with us for over 50 years, which is an extraordinary feat really, and then we had Alan, who had been here for over 40, and we decided that we would do everyone from 20 years plus and we held a celebration and a thank you.”

To read the full article, including Alan Malin and Luca Pori's stories, pick up a copy of CONNECT in Waitrose, or click here. 

Pictured top: The staff at the award event.