The gut feeling was replaced by hard data, which saw a return in positive results.
“We can teach our employees the skills they need, but we can´t change their personality. Personality is the most important parameter when deciding whether someone is a good fit for us. We need to find the people who think that it is fun to work in the way that we do.”
At Stay U-nique, a company that manages holiday homes in Barcelona, personality is key for whether a person will fit in in the company.
“We can teach our employees the skills they need, but we can´t change their personality. Personality is the most important parameter when deciding whether someone is a good fit for us. We need to find the people who think that it is fun to work in the way that we do.”
There is a very special atmosphere and lingua at Stay U-nique, and the average age is very low. At the same time, the concept of Stay U-nique is that the guests receive a personal service throughout their stay in Barcelona. All guests personal preferences are taken into account, and then their stay is tailored to them. The check in agent also take a selfie with their guests when welcoming them in the apartment.
We need to have fun
Both the customers experience and employee satisfaction are very important to Christian.
“We need to have fun together and look forward to getting into work every morning. That´s the only way that we can give our guests the best experience, by living it ourselves. We only hire people who will put their heart in it, and we can measure that with the MPA.” (Read more about MPA by clicking here).
Christian has now been using the MPA personality test for the last 2 years, but in the beginning, he still let his gut feeling have the final word.
“I couldn´t let go of my gut feeling entirely, so every now and then we would say yes to someone despite them not fitting in to the MPA criteria we had built. Several times my gut feeling was proven wrong and the MPA results right, they weren´t a good match” Christian explains. They now use around 10 different criteria for different types of people and roles that fit into the company.
Measurable effect
After starting to fully trust the MPA and use the new criteria, and setting the gut feeling a bit to the side, the company has become better at hiring the right people. The employees are rated and reviewed by their guests on the different booking channels, such as on Booking.com, where they can get a score from 0 – 10. In just 1 year, the average staff rating has gone from 8.64 to 9.73. During the same period, the total score of the guest’s entire stay has risen from 8.27 to 9.03.
“All of the people that we hired after using our new criteria perform extraordinarily well. One who was a 100% fit to one of our criteria has received nothing but 10/10 reviews so far, something we have never seen before, but all the new employees score very close to a 10 on average. This is largely attributed to people being a cultural fit, with the right personality but also training and understanding of our company values.” Christian finishes.
