Few leaders at the top of their industries would admit having been mentally pushed to a point where they feared they could not do their job.
But Mark Hoplamazian, chief executive of Hyatt Hotels Corporation, the US-based hospitality group, says being honest about his own difficulties during the Covid-19 crisis has only drawn him closer to his colleagues.
“I have to admit to you, I’ve been through a number of really stressful periods that I literally couldn’t actually access that mindful moment I had come to rely on so much,” Hoplamazian, 57, a regular practitioner of meditation, says. “It was costly because at the end of that there is some measure of exhaustion that you feel.”
Among the darkest times were those when he realised demand at hotels had dropped “to almost zero overnight” and when Hyatt had to let go of hundreds of employees.
It was his team that saved him, he says. “I feel like there has somehow been this mutual support network where when I hit a period of time when I was under a tremendous amount of strain . . . people intuitively or because they are really observant, stepped in.”
As for many sectors, the pandemic has precipitated the worst crisis the hotel industry has faced in recent times — perhaps ever.
Hyatt, which has a large proportion of its hotels in once desirable but now empty city centre locations, has faced a tougher time than most in the sector. When it announced fourth-quarter results this month it reported a $203m loss, compared with a $164m loss at rival chain Marriott or a $7m loss at Wyndham.
Hyatt owns a greater number of its own hotels than peers such as Hilton and Marriott that tend to operate hotels for property owners under management or franchise contracts and therefore take on less risk. Hoplamazian says that this means Hyatt has been more exposed during the crisis but as a company is more reflective of the distress across the sector.
The group cut 1,300 jobs — about 35 per cent of its corporate office workforce — in June.
Hoplamazian says that this has “by far, no comparison” been the toughest year of his career but that he stands by the difficult decision to make job cuts swiftly. “We felt that it was much more humane and respectful if we forced ourselves to make the redundancies early and provide full severance and healthcare coverage . . . as opposed to hanging on in the hope that there might be a recall at a later date.”
During Hoplamazian’s 15-year tenure, Hyatt has prioritised employees’ mental health, with the result that more than 14,000 staff have been with the company for 15 or more years, but it has doubled down on the effort during the pandemic.
“We have for some years been very focused around our sense of purpose as a company . . . that sense of purpose and care has been what has allowed us to get through this with resolve and clarity,” he says. Previous efforts include funding research into mental health with the University of Wisconsin and establishing a travel industry panel to encourage more focus on wellbeing.
During the crisis, Hoplamazian has overseen the establishment of a fund for employees facing financial difficulties as a result of Covid-19, which to date has raised more than $15m, negotiated a partnership with the meditation app Headspace and created a platform where colleagues from across the Hyatt workforce share lockdown relieving ideas from workouts to kitchen cleaning.
It has designed an app in collaboration with US psychiatrists to help employees track their mental health and partnered with Cornell University to adapt mental health resources developed for healthcare workers for hospitality employees.
The company also runs a council of staff members to oversee employee wellbeing chaired by the head of spa operations at its Miraval resorts, who is also a meditation instructor.
“We’re really trying to get to the root causes and make sure that we are tapping experts in fields that are practitioners so we get it right,” Hoplamazian says, adding that this means the company has managed to stay “functioning at an extraordinarily high level all year”.
It could also serve the company finances well in the long term: a report published by Deloitte in January 2020, found that in the UK the annual cost to companies of poor mental health among their workforces could be up to £45bn because of absenteeism and drops in productivity.
A focus on wellbeing will pay dividends with corporate clients, Hoplamazian believes. Like many hotel companies, Hyatt is developing ways for businesses to hold “hybrid meetings” involving a mixture of video conferencing and in-person gatherings. The challenge is bringing “a sense of human connection” to the proceedings, he says, without mincing his words about how “fatiguing and dehumanising” our overuse of video calls has become.
“I would say it is by far the most important area of our thought as we look into the future.”
Pre-pandemic, business and group travel made up just over half of the company’s revenues and, although predictions vary wildly, few expect that it will return to 2019’s levels.
Hoplamazian had worked closely with Hyatt for 17 years as part of The Pritzker Organization, the investment arm of Hyatt’s majority shareholder, the billionaire Pritzker family, before taking the top job.
Despite saying that he was “pretty committed” not to move to Hyatt, which started life as a single motel on the side of Los Angeles International Airport, he was persuaded after stepping in for a stint as its interim CEO.
He took over full time in 2006, having helped to marshal the break-up of the Pritzker assets following the death of the family’s patriarch Jay, a philanthropist who established the Pritzker Architecture Award in 1999.
As a business person there was the intellectual interest of expanding Hyatt, whose North American and global business had just merged into one entity and had “under-realised” potential, says Hoplamazian. But he adds that it was the emotional draw of the people which led him to take the role.
“It’s always been the thing that has driven my major decisions in life. If it feels right to me and there is an emotional resonance and congruence that I feel, I do it.”
Hoplamazian is circumspect in his predictions for the travel industry’s recovery. He expects a resurgence in the latter half of this year with activity ramping up in 2022 and 2023 being “very close to pre-Covid levels”.
Even though days still extend over 13 hours, two-thirds of which are spent on video calls, Hoplamazian has energy for the company’s future. Hyatt is planning to increase its Miraval resorts as well as its presence in Asia and Europe.
Ever the optimist, he believes the company is stronger for the crisis. “I think, wow, we have changed how we do what we do a lot. We are much more agile, nimble and adaptive.”
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