Supporting hospitality through COVID-19

The second wave of COVID-19 has been gradually receding in most parts of the country. The situation, at its peak, engulfed us in an unprecedented way.  The impact was much more severe on the human side with many of our employees and their families being affected directly or indirectly. The struggle for medical facilities and widespread loss of lives caused high levels of stress and anxiety. While we can never fill the void created by loss of life, at Radisson Hotel Group, we took some timely steps to support our colleagues and society at large. 

We secured oxygen concentrators to help with the needs of our colleagues, their families and community. These were donated to various causes across the country and continue to be deployed at Moolchand Hospital. The Group launched a worldwide campaign, ‘Radisson Cares’ to raise funds in partnership with Red Cross in Americas, and United Way in Rest-of-the-World (RoW) for COVID-19 relief. 

Nothing can replace the value of human touch in these times. We set up a dedicated taskforce of 30+ volunteers that ‘adopted’ over 300 affected colleagues and supported them end-to-end through their recovery. These volunteers established daily connect, identified requirements ranging from meals, medical facilities and essential utilities, provided required assistance in a timely manner, and above all, offered emotional support in these testing times. We worked tirelessly towards creating a repository of verified resources in key cities to shorten waiting times and prevent loss of life due to information gap. 

Throughout the pandemic, our team members supported their communities by volunteering for over 20,500 hours, providing accommodation to health workers, meals to frontline workers and to those in need. The Group’s hotels and corporate offices raised significant support for charitable organizations who provide meals, shelter and a brighter future for at-risk children and youth.

At Radisson Hotel Group, we stand by the families of our colleagues who lost their battle against COVID-19. We have launched a well-defined and structured financial and medical coverage plan for dependent children (<18 years) of bereaved colleagues. The initiative is aimed towards reducing social, health, and educational uncertainties for minors and helping them achieve their ambitions.

We continue to work with authorities and partners to vaccinate our employees across the group – an enormous exercise considering our scale, but we truly believe that hospitality must be prioritized as the industry has responded as front-line support during the pandemic.

In these times of uncertainty, it was also imperative to give flexibility to employees to decide when, where and how to work. Radisson Hotel Group introduced Radisson FLEX globally, our new hybrid work model. This model combines the best of remote working with benefits of a modern and dynamic workspace thus allowing team members to continue going to offices for engagement and collaboration and also having the opportunity to work remotely to fit their needs and preferences. 

Health and safety of our guests, team members and partners continues to be our top priority. The world has been fundamentally changed by COVID-19, so it is critical that we deliver a clean and safe environment to all who walk through our doors, stay in our hotels, and conduct meetings across our hotels. 

In May we announced the extension of our partnership with SGS, the world’s leading inspection, verification, testing, and certification company recognized as the global benchmark for quality and integrity, and the continued global roll out of the Radisson Hotels Safety Protocol to further strengthen Radisson Hotel Group’s existing rigorous sanitation, cleanliness and disinfection program across its portfolio around the world. SGS has been a key partner to ensure our hotels are providing the best and latest health and safety measures, and we are proud to have renewed our partnership for a second year. 

We are always thinking of our guests wherever they are. As a tribute to their well-being, we have reintroduced #RadissonCares initiative where our in-house experts share their insights as an expression of our care towards our guests’ physical, mental, and emotional well-being. 

We believe that putting people and safety at the core of all our efforts is the only long-term collective solution that will help the industry emerge from this crisis. In the past one year we have been inspired by the way hospitality industry banded together to make a measurable impact to the community and prioritized safety of guests and employees. Our owners and partners have continued the good work on the ground, and we are truly grateful for their contribution. We are happy to play our part and leverage our expertise for the sustained future of this industry.