The Wurzak Hotel Group

Kelly Makino

Kelly Makino is currently a Vice President of People and Culture at The Wurzak Hotel Group. She comes from a rich background working in various roles at Tang & Company, Planned Parenthood of Orange and San Bernardino Counties, McCarron and Company, and NJM Inc. From 2017 to 2020, she earned a Doctor of Education in Leadership from the University of Southern California. She has gained expertise in various skills ranging from leadership and executive management to HTML, event management, and crisis intervention.

Can you share your journey and current roles and responsibilities in the organization?

As the vice president of people and culture at The Wurzak Hotel Group, my day-to-day responsibilities involve a group of tasks ranging from one-on-one meetings in the morning to handling troubleshooting and compliance issues to strategic collaboration in the afternoon with various department heads, ensuring effective communication and coordination. My team is committed to meeting deadlines strictly without delaying any task until the last moment. This helps us utilize ample time at the end of the day for creating planning and execution, keeping aside specific periods at the beginning of every week for forward-looking analysis and assessment of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The end of the week is prepared for urgent tasks and compliance matters; simultaneously, Fridays are dedicated to productive tasks, including policy building and proposal work. Our primary aim is to strategically schedule the most challenging tasks in the middle of the week, avoiding weekends from work-related stress. Nevertheless, despite this structured approach, we proactively remain on-call for emergency cases in the HR department, and I stay active on the phone for enhanced communication guiding my team. This is how we ensure the well-being of our team members so that they don’t feel burned out and lose efficiency in their tasks.

What are the emerging trends in the organizational culture development space, and how are companies adapting to the changing societal norms?

Many trends are emerging in the hotel industry; one of them is the need to work on-site in the hybrid and work-from-home model. Remote work is inefficient because of the necessity of frontline workers, so the other corporate employees are also expected to work on-site in solidarity to promote equity. Despite the technological advancements, the impact of building a culture at the office is way different than in a remote space. However, the outbreak of the pandemic has accelerated the importance of digital tools to facilitate remote culture-building, like virtual team activities and engagement methods like gif dance parties. Leveraging technology enhances creativity in fostering remote connections and facilitating inclusive communication for DEI initiatives.

Another major trend that has made a remarkable change in the sector is the sudden shift towards empathy, highlighted during the pandemic. This helped improve various aspects of organizational culture, encompassing benefits design, flexible scheduling, and performance management practices. At the same time, a rising need exists to embrace discomfort, conflict of interest, and dissent in building a more encouraging and inclusive corporate culture. With this shift, modern businesses are capable of adapting and succeed that aligns with the principles advocated by organizational theorists like Lencioni. So, the relationship between empathy, creativity, and diversity is the core of developing organizational culture and driving better business outcomes.

What are some of the promising advancements expected in the future realm of organizational culture development?

One of the future advancements that I expect in the business sector is a significant shift towards recognizing the need for social psychology, anthropology, and other related fields to comprehend human behavior in the organizational setting, going beyond business administration expertise. The need for scientific approaches to understand human behavior is equivalent to behavioral economics as a hybrid domain in the business context.

"Our goal is to foster a sense of pride and inclusion in our team by developing organizational culture. We prioritize individual contribution and give space to every member to think outside the box by correlating empathy, creativity, and diversity for successful business outcomes "

While there is extensive literature on data-driven research in leadership, there is a lack of empirical evidence. For instance, when I was pursuing my PhD, almost 127,000 publications were about leadership, but only 20,000 were the most credible. Similarly, when I published my paper on leadership development, it came out as the seventh publication, not in terms of qualitative data but in the quantitative aspect. So, I believe there is a necessity for data-driven approaches to leadership and organizational culture, including experts from diverse backgrounds. This emphasizes the need for data-driven decision-making rather than solely relying on subjective opinions. Expertise in anthropology and social sciences ensures a more effective and enhanced organizational cultural change.

Another important transformation that I think could reshape organizational culture development is the alignment of performance with organizational mission, vision, and values to attain desired outcomes. The performance reviews can be connected to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs for better inputs in employee branding to attract and retain top talents based on cultural fit. This change anticipates greater empathy in benefits design to meet the needs of modern workspaces in the hotel industry.

Are there any recent project initiatives you have incorporated at the organization, either in the HR space or for organizational development?

One of the recent project initiatives we have incorporated is an on-the-spot recognition program to bring the concept of manager micro-learning as a key focus area of organizational development. It shapes corporate culture, pivoting the role of frontline managers. We have completed one of the micro-learning exercises with the brand’s pillars assigned every week. Before incorporating the value, we discussed it in the morning, first by defining it and then discussing the ways to inherit the pillar successfully harnessing by a common language. These micro-learning conversations facilitate communication and build trust and camaraderie among the members. The team-based conversations and micro-learning approach have underscored the importance of building organizational culture with an emphasis on inheriting values explicitly to behaviors. Therefore, the morning huddle exercise has become a successful program for cultural development. For instance, it has improved time management, timely report delivery, and reduced turnover rate. To ensure a consistent outcome, it is important to revisit the method by putting ongoing efforts to maintain and enrich organizational culture in parallel to watering a garden on a daily basis.

What would be one key piece of advice to your peers and young professionals in organizational culture development?

A key piece of advice that I would like to give to my peers is to build their networking skills within the HR and organizational development domains. The HR department is very supportive and committed to offering valuable opportunities without constraints. For instance, individuals are sometimes hesitant to join professional organizations like the Society for Human Resource Management to afford membership dues, but the HR sector still encourages aspiring professionals to engage with these communities. Therefore, building networks enhances professional growth as the HR community is known for its welcoming nature in career development.

Also, people should not be arrogant about their job positions because growth is a constant change, and getting better each day leads you to the zenith. David M Kelley, the founder of IDEO, emphasizes that any solution to a problem of one field often exists in other fields, which I cannot agree more with. This brings forth the idea that it is significant to look beyond your business solutions, be flexible for new ideas, and think out of the box by leveraging crossdisciplinary insights for organizational development.