A large hall at Viceroy Hotel and Residences was filled to capacity on Monday and Tuesday, this week, when over 100 newly-employed workers underwent a day and a half of orientation in preparation for their immediate deployment in the various sections of the world class resort.

Members of the Executive Committee at the Orientation

The new employees are the “cream of the crop”, selected from among some nine hundred applicants who turned up recently at the Rodney MacArthur Rey Auditorium, to complete application forms and for interviews by Viceroy’s Human Resource and Managerial personnel.

A batch of the new employees

Their employment comes at a time when the already very large, billion-dollar property, which Viceroy is managing on behalf of its new owner, Starwood Capital, has been substantially expanded in the second phase. General Manager, Jeff David, congratulated the incoming staff members “for being part of a very, very special team.” He was accompanied to the opening of the orientation session by the resort’s Central Command, the Executive Committee, which comprises a number of top level persons including several Anguillians. “These, ladies and gentlemen, are our division leaders,” he told the new workers. “These guys run our show. These people hired you and are personally responsible for the welfare of our colleagues and the welfare of our guests.” The Executive personnel then took turns at introducing themselves.

Group of new employees at Orientation

Jeff David, a familiar face in Anguilla, who heads the Executive Team, is in his third period of service on the island. He first served at Cap Juluca about nine years ago; he returned to Anguilla in 2007 for two years to be part of the pre-opening team at Viceroy; and he recently came back as General Manager. “We have to be number one,” he told the new work force. “You are engaged in a very, very special property, not just in Anguilla or the Caribbean, but the world. When they [the architects] were drawing this from pencil to paper, they designed it to have world dominance… We were building this not to be the best on the island, but the best in the world.

Groups of new employees at Orientation

“The ownership has put in the money to build a fantastic place. It is absolutely our job to execute that – to be number one in the world. Hands down, we have a monumental task in front of us. Within five days from today, as Dorla [the Anguillian Human Resources Director] noted, we are opening up a hundred more units; and we are opening another restaurant which makes the number, five restaurants. We are going to have six hundred colleagues in season which will make us the second largest employer to the Government of Anguilla which includes all the civil servants.”

Section of the new villas

Mr. David said the keyword to the successful operations of the property was service. “It is a culture and every great operation has great cultures,” he stated. “Visitors return to Anguilla because of the people of Anguilla. We are trying to bottle that up and make it contagious…People are looking for a culture and it is our job, with the Viceroy brand, to start this culture and to have a mission statement.”
He said the mission statement was a set of rules broken up into twelve cultural standards called the Viceroy vision which was the employees’ rule book about how they should carry out their service.

“The fact that we are founded on quality and creativity, we are a team of passionate individuals,” Mr. David continued. “If you are not passionate about your work, you don’t belong in this room. Your passion got you hired and you have to do this day in and day out. It is up to you to execute that.”

The General Manager said the orientation would provide the new employees with a lot of stimulating information and that within the day and a half they should know everything about the hotel.
Mr. David told The Anguillian that the additional 100 rooms had brought the size of the property to 166 units or 344 bedrooms.

The new Bamboo Bar and Grill Restaurant

“We have a very busy festive season coming up and to grow a hundred more staff is quite exciting to get them up to speed,” he stated. Asked about occupancy levels, he replied: “I am not going to disclose the numbers for the paper, but I am going to say there will be very high occupancies, very healthy room rates and very influential individuals coming to the island. We have a lot of newcomers to Anguilla this Christmas so it is our first chance to retain them for future repeat business. We have quite a few groups between now and the Christmas season – incentive groups, large weddings, social and corporate gatherings. It will be great.”

In describing the upcoming tourist season as a very healthy one at Viceroy, Mr. David said that it would result in millions of tax revenues for Anguilla.

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