Plaza Athénée: innovation is not a luxury

Playing the modernity card: the Plaza Athénée has taken up this challenge in order to make tradition rhyme with innovation. Beginning of 2004, the Parisian palace, the Dorchester Group’s jewel, is progressively implementing its “Forum Créativité” (Creativity Forum), a tribune for stimulating its personnel’s ideas. Since then, a transversal dynamic has established itself within the hotel. From the director to the chambermaid and including the basic technician, the 550 collaborators of the 33 services were invited to participate in the Forum on a voluntary basis. Until now, 50 people have attended the “Ateliers Créativité” (Creativity Workshop). More than 120 ideas – for a non-negligible rate of 2.5 per person – came out of it, resulting in 24 concrete projects. Nearly all of them were accepted by the general management which actively supports this project. As the second season of brainstorming begins, Stéphane Sciertino, the head steward who invented the project together with Laure Plard, congratulates himself for its renewed success. “After the initial curiosity, I was worried it would wain,” he admits before being refuted by reality.The programme has been grown. The half-day of theory, required for all new members, is held each month, because there is demand. As the first results begin to be felt, the project’s promoter is expecting to see a new craze: “It reproduces. We will never reach 550 participants, but I give 5 to 6 classes each month. If I need to grow to 12 or 15, I’ll have to train another member of the unit to back me”. The Forum is thus set to go for another year. After reflecting on “je palace plazament”, the theme this year is “la ligne rouge” (the red line), based on the communication of the hotel and gifts. And there will be a little plus if Paris wins...