Maria Razumich-Zec, regional vice president of The Peninsula Hotels since 2007 and general manager at The Peninsula Chicago since 2002, said she has had a reputation of being tough but fair, and always very aggressive when it comes to getting things done.
Sitting in her Chicago office today, however, she admitted that COVID-19 has softened her up and made her gentler. Her voice cracked as she talked about having to lay off team members last year with whom she had worked for 18 years. “You can’t help but become extremely compassionate during a crisis of this proportion,” she said.
That miserable experience even further brought out the personal best in Zec, who works for a hotel company known for its compassionate leadership. Not that she wasn’t already a strong leader with plenty of empathy, but she started calling and reaching out to her colleagues more often – sometimes out of necessity as they were often working remotely, as opposed to side by side, but more often out of concern and to see what she and the company could do to help those who might be out of work.
“Our whole life has changed, to be perfectly honest,” Zec continued. “It’s more about really being there for your employees, your colleagues, your friends, your family… It’s very important that we help those around us. This whole pandemic, for me personally, has made me certainly much more humble.”
The layoffs were a first for the hotel and Zec, who along with the director of HR, talked to all the employees personally. With the group’s benevolence, they continued to pay insurance through the end of 2020 and even kept some on the payroll as long as possible.
“By just showing the compassion and explaining to people that we’re doing what we have to do, and we’re looking forward to being back together again, they were so strong and understanding,” Zec added during a conversation last week with HOTELS.
The challenges of today also has made Zec very appreciative of all the little wins. “All the little positive things that happen – somebody that might get sick and survive, we bring somebody back because business is a little bit better, or even reaching out to the community. There are so many different things that are important during this pandemic to embrace, to be perfectly honest.”
The Peninsula Chicago closed on March 17 and reopened July 23, and remains opened today, whereas some of the hotels in its comp set have remained closed. That has helped drive some business at its usual luxury rate, mostly staycationers, special occasion celebrators and some extended-stay guests.
Zec, a native Chicagoan who previously spent several years in New York, including during 9/11 as GM at the New York Palace. She shared her experiences and her expectations with hopes of a rebound in sight.
HOTELS: How has your day to day changed?
Maria Razumich-Zec: We are working with a limited staff and we try not all be here together because of COVID, and to keep everyone as safe as possible… I joke that it used to take me an hour to get around the hotel and say hello to everybody, and now it probably takes me 10 minutes, 15 minutes. It’s a sad joke.
On the other hand, it’s all hands on deck because it’s a very limited team. So, in-room dining, if they’re busy, we’re all down in the kitchen helping out. We all deliver orders or send up amenities to the guest room. We do whatever we have to do to help each other. And I think that’s another really good thing. It’s brought down any walls that may have been there because everybody is there together helping each other.
H: How has your personal to-do list changed?
MRZ: Part of it is still the outreach every day. But now I don’t work out in person with somebody. Instead I’ve done Pilates classes via Messenger and weight training via Zoom. We’ve all adjusted. We sometimes do meditation as a group via Teams to relax and decompress a little bit, which in the past you normally would not have that amount of time in your day to do.
H: How else has your focus changed?
MRZ: The safety and security of our employees and our guests has always been the most important thing, and we’ve gone through all kinds of training on new protocols… We now go through thousands of gloves. We have white or clear gloves for when we’re touching something clean and we wear black gloves for cleaning. If it’s clean sheets, it’s clean gloves; if we’re pulling out dirty sheets, it’s black gloves. And that will be our future. I don’t see that changing, at least not for the next couple of years.
H: What are doing for yourself to get through the pandemic?
MRZ: I’m cooking now. I don’t really enjoy it, but I’m starting to like it a little bit. We recently purchased a house in Pinehurst, North Carolina. So, when I have that week when I’m not in the office, we’ve been driving there. It’s been a savior, to be perfectly honest, just to get away and decompress a little bit. Even though you’re still working, it’s still not as intense as being in the office every single day.
H: Are you finding meaning in your work in any different way?
MRZ: All those interactions are very important. The numbers are the numbers. You do the best that you can to mitigate your loss, while still doing the right thing for the hotel, for the company, as well as for the employees and the guests. It’s a balance, to say the least. I would love to be doing all kinds of projects, but you just can’t address everything and you have to balance it. You pick and choose your battles. And slowly but surely, we’re chipping away at things that need to be done, and getting ready for when we’ll be very busy again.
H: Who are your go-to people, your sounding boards?
MRZ: In the hotel, my go-to person has been the director of HR. Larry’s been a rock during this whole thing. He and I are the ones that have navigated through everything to do with the employees…
My husband obviously is a good sounding board for me. And I’m on this group of regional GMs that meet every two months. There’s like eight of us that talk about what we’re going through. Paul Leone [of The Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida] set that up a while ago and it has been very helpful to navigate through this crisis…
We’ve talked about best practices and the customer experience. That was an interesting one because we all thought guests would come to our hotels and not want the rooms cleaned, turn down or in-room dining. It was just the opposite. There are some people that don’t want you in their room whatsoever. But we find many more guests want the full experience. In fact, with in-room dining they want it to be an experience, especially now because they can’t go to restaurants.
I got an early indication of these things prior to us re-opening because some of these other properties had already opened. So, that helped as far as staffing levels and everything else when we re-opened.
H: How have you been able to draw on your past experiences to help get you through?
MRZ: Any time you go through anything difficult, you just have to push through it. We don’t always want to do it, but we just have to push through it. If I didn’t do everything I didn’t want to do, I probably wouldn’t do a lot. You have to get up every day and just say you’ve got to get it done, and just do it. That’s always been my mantra – just do it. Just make it happen.
H: If you were standing up in front of your contemporaries, what would your message be today?
MRZ: I would tell them to keep pushing forward – to give it your all, to be compassionate. It’s all about being together as a team. I always talk about how together everyone achieves magic.