Goals: Clearly state your marketing goals. What did you strive to achieve using this piece or program?

Results: Which of your original goals did you achieve and how? How did you measure the effectiveness of the piece or campaign? Entrants should provide quantifiable results of their tactics or campaigns. (for example, click through rates or ad equivalency)

Project Analysis: Please provide a brief background on the project and your company efforts to demonstrate good corporate citizenship in the areas of community involvement, environmental, or socially responsible practices.

Objectives and Goals: What did organization set out to achieve in undertaking this project in CSR? What were the goals you set to measure your success?

Results: How did you measure the effectiveness of your efforts and what direct and tangible results did you achieve? Please be as specific as possible and share the full impact of your efforts in CSR.

Leadership: Please list the individual in a leadership role responsible for the project and how would you characterize their commitment to promoting corporate social responsibility in the travel and tourism industry?

Situational Analysis: Please provide a brief background on the initiative and the problem, challenge or issue you were seeking to address in the areas of developing emerging talent and engaging existing talent to meet the demands of your business.The COVID-19 pandemic has created unparalleled challenges for our industry, and we are firmly committed to supporting our Motel 6 and Studio 6 family through this period of uncertainty. In the early days of the health crisis, continuing today, we continue to “Leave the Light On” for travelers, and welcome guests where it is still permissible under the latest state and local mandates, and where we were/are able to operate safely and have the staff available to do so. With that said, it was and continues to be imperative that we keep the health and safety of our staff a top priority, especially at a time when the hospitality industry is faced with unprecedented uncertainty as the virus continues to slow down travel in comparison to years past.

Goals: What did your organization set out to achieve in undertaking this initiative? What obstacles did you encounter?We strived for and accomplished our goals in three key areas: 1) created a Clean@6 program focused on our team members and guests to help make safety a priority during COVID; 2) we provided “emergency time off pay” for front line workers with COVID or needing to quarantine; 3) if/when we had to furlough individuals we made sure to provide them a stipend and ensure they had their health benefits coverage and we paid their monthly benefits premium. As the country still needed to provide lodging to various front line workers – health care, truckers, etc., our goal as an organization was to continue “Keep the Lights On” while also ensuring we quickly pivoted to provide enhanced training and support to our team members with safety protocols, PPE, and new ways of operating. The ability to move quickly and ensure our organization was aligned on these new protocols required a series of new trainings and communication that we designed to be engaging yet taking the seriousness of a pandemic. We developed over 20+ COVID online trainings and instituted weekly calls with all team members across our system, along with over 400+ separate communications to engage team members and franchise owners. Through these micro-learnings, we reinforced key leadership and line level messaging to ensure we supported the frontline. We utilized virtual calls, newsletters, e-learning and recognition as a method to engage leaders and employees for following safety protocols. Given our population is also heavily Spanish-speaking, we made sure all of our communications and training vehicles represented the diversity of our team members and communicated in a way that would resonate with these audiences. Additionally, we put in place a campaign called “Super Heroes Wear Masks.” We highlighted team members who were following protocols of social distancing and wearing their PPE equipment so they could feel proud about a safe workplace, while also creating a clean place for guests to stay.

Results and Impact: What results had the greatest impact on your target audience? Please comment on the process and the outcomes. What measures were used to determine success?CONT: Fundamentally, our goal has been to keep our team members safe, support our leaders through navigating these changes and serving our guests during this difficult time. During this time our results and protocols have resulted in relatively low incident of COVID+ amongst our team members and our ability to support guests during their time of need. While during this difficult time we recognize some of our own team members may be in need, as a result, we had our Care@6 Team Member Relief Fund which is open to team members at any Motel 6 or Studio 6 hotels. It is an anonymous grant-giving foundation created to support team members in financial hardship due to unforeseen circumstances, including our current health crisis. This support gives our team members additional assistance that can be life altering and exemplifies how our Heart for Service extends to our team members, not only guests. In the unfortunate circumstances where we did have to temporarily furlough a small portion of team members for a short time period (90 days or less), we made sure to provide financial and health care support. As this occurred, we made sure our executives had conversations with every single impacted team member on our corporate staff-- they took complete ownership in these discussions, further emphasizing our commitment to people. Our leaders talked through 1:1 on how we would support them through this process. With a heart for service, we treated our people with respect and care, cornerstones of our values as an organization. During this period, it was imperative we genuinely lived and practiced these values as we supported our team members through an unexpected time. We increased messages from corporate to the properties, messages throughout the corporate-side and conducted CEO and Executive team virtual calls with our corporate teams, as well as property and franchise teams. We conducted corporate surveys to determine the level of connectivity corporate team members.

Situational Analysis: Please provide a brief background on the initiative and the nature of the issue you were trying to impact.

Goals: Clearly state your goals. What did you strive to achieve with this initiative?

Results: Which of your original goals did you achieve and how? How did you measure the effectiveness of the initiative?

Goals: Clearly state your marketing goals and audience. What did you strive to achieve using this piece or program?

Results: Which of your original goals did you achieve and how? How did you measure the effectiveness of the piece or campaign? Entrants should provide quantifiable results of their tactics or campaigns. (for example, click through rates or ad equivalency)

Entry TitleHealth Crisis Employee Response

DivisionTalent and Leadership Development: An HSMAI Foundation Honor - Talent and Leadership Development: An HSMAI Foundation Honor

CategoryTalent and Leadership Development: An HSMAI Foundation Honor