By Business & Finance 
For the third year, The Westin Dublin has been named as one of the ‘Great Places to Work in Ireland’, by the Great Place to Work Institute, following an independent internal survey of the hotel’s employees.
Four out of every five members of the workforce (86%) agreed that The Westin Dublin is a great place to work, with 92% highlighting trust as one of the hotel’s best attributes. Benchmarked against other major medium sized organisations such as Diageo and Microsoft, The Westin Dublin ranked 7th, and was the only hotel recognised within this category.
Improving on its 2013 score, The Westin Dublin moved from 20th to 7th place, with the vast majority of colleagues demonstrating an invested interest in the success of the hotel, with one employee quoted as saying, ‘There is a warm and family like atmosphere here. The company has standards and initiatives for everything we do, but also ensures that we are not so standardised as to block personality, individual flair and growth’.
87% of the workforce acknowledged that The Westin Dublin facilitates and encourages them to take responsibility for the business as a whole. As a result of this, 77% believe that they personally make a difference at The Westin Dublin and in return, the hotel proves its dedication to its employees. “The Westin is a great place for recognizing potential and developing and promoting colleagues internally. The associates have a great team mentality and I am proud to work for this property,” commented one employee.
The independent study, undertaken by Great Place to Work, also found that 84% of employees felt that management within The Westin Dublin take a sincere interest in them as a person and not just an employee, with management also encouraging staff to balance both their work and personal life
Commenting on the achievement Fred Smits, general manager of The Westin Dublin, said: ‘This is the third year running that The Westin Dublin has been recognized as a Great Place to Work and, despite having moved up a category, we continually rank in the top 10 best workplaces. That said; I am not surprised in the slightest. The Westin Dublin is home to a fantastic team of people who work together to create a working environment that I for one, look forward to being part of each and every day.”
The Great Place to Work Institute assesses the practices in place in organisations under nine key areas: inspiring, speaking, listening, caring, developing, thanking, hiring, celebrating and sharing. They then benchmark these practices against other organisations in that country. The second key component of the assessment is an anonymous ‘trust index survey’ that gathers the perceptions of employees under five dimensions: credibility, respect, fairness, pride and camaraderie. Finally, there is a full analysis of open ended comments from employees.
