Elevating Employee Engagement and Customer Service: Insights from Disney Institute Training
By Kendall Andrews
The Disney Institute, celebrated for its transformative impact on hospitality and employee engagement, recently hosted two groups from SEASIDE® that provided profound insights for our town’s businesses. The teams from The Dawson Group, and SEASIDE® Leadership team, had the opportunity to delve into Disney’s renowned approach to quality service and employee engagement. The training was a catalyst to shape our perspectives and plans moving forward.
Ashley Beecher, managing partner of The Dawson Group shared, “Our initial expectations of the Employee Engagement seminar were that we would hear in detail how Disney retains employees both locally and around the world. However, they took a broader approach and highlighted how they easily transfer cast members around various departments until they find a role they enjoy and flourish at.”
Similarly, Kevin Boyle, general manager of Seaside Community Development Corporation, reflected on his high expectations, saying, “Having studied the Disney service model for a long time and taken a few online Disney Institute courses, I had pretty high expectations going into the training. The actual experience exceeded those expectations. From the facilitators to the course material to the intentional ‘show’ pieces of the space they train in and the backstage tours, the training felt immersive and extraordinary.” The seamless integration of the training in how it felt like one big ‘moment’ and not a series of training modules stood out to Kevin. The industry standard for hospitality is the Disney way, and the entire training and experience made that even more concrete. Kevin said one of the biggest takeaways was the emphasis and intentional focus on internal customer service, rather than solely focusing on external customer service.
For Ashley, the core values of the Walt Disney Company stood out as the most significant aspect, “We heard time and time again about the core values of the Walt Disney Company. These discussions allowed our team to come together and create ‘thought partner’ moments where we solidified our mission at The Dawson Group.” Similarly to Kevin, Ashley noted the importance of employee involvement through the act of listening to your employees and allowing them to have an impact in their workplace. This reinforced the positivity their team has carried out with their own employees by giving them buy-in to menu curation and experimenting with new drink recipes. Ashley observed a reinforcement of existing attitudes by stating, “This seminar strengthened our team’s continued attitude toward providing a wonderful dining experience while hosting a pleasant, uplifting, and engaging workplace for all of our employees. Our staff is an extension of our family. We want them to feel that every time they come to work.” For the Dawson Group, the Disney training reinforced their already high standards. They believe that anything less than ‘completely satisfied’ is a failing grade. Ashley says, “Our team will never settle for less.”
Looking to the future, the Dawson Group plans to integrate a name tag system for employees, inspired by Disney. These name tags will highlight staff members that have been with the company for 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, etc. They will also use the new name tags as an opportunity to honor ‘employees of the year.’
The team from SEASIDE®’s leadership all agreed the key takeaway was a transformative perspective on service recovery. The phrase that the team came back to Seaside with, ‘It’s not our fault, but it is our problem’ sparked a simple perspective shift that challenges the team to consistently focus on service recovery with guests regardless of the cause of the issue. That was the group’s ‘A ha!’ moment. The leaders came back with a fire to evaluate their existing processes and systems, in an effort to enhance them by putting that Disney ‘magic’ to take their company’s culture to the next level. There are so many takeaways from the training, and the teams are working very intentionally to implement the elements they learned from Disney into their day-to-day and long-term planning. The key is to make sure that each decision has buy-in from all of the leadership and feels authentically ‘Seaside’ so we can continue to make Seaside a memorable destination for all of our guests, as well as our merchants.
The Disney Institute training offered invaluable insights and strategies that are set to enhance employee engagement and customer service at The Dawson Group and SEASIDE® as a whole. By embracing these learnings, both teams are poised to deliver exceptional experiences and maintain high standards of excellence in their respective fields.
