The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way Lori Kiel interacts with her team, the hotel industry in general and the broader world as a human being.
Speaking with Hotel News Now as part of our ongoing "Pandemic Reflections" series, Kiel, chief commercial officer for Orlando-based Kessler Collection, said one of her top takeaways from the past three years is giving herself room to be pickier in how she spends her time, both personally and professionally.
"I'm very hopeful that people are wanting to travel and be out more and get back to doing meetings because it's certainly important to the success of my company, but for me, I'm really quite okay with continuing to do virtual meetings," she said. "And I'm okay with it on a lot of levels. Outside of the pandemic and the mass shootings, the other side of it is, I find this very effective for me. I'm going to have a great conversation with you, I'm going to get off the phone, and I'm going to get back to work, and I can do 10 other things today. Versus when I have to get on a plane and go to a location then there's all of that in-between that is very unproductive."
Kiel said she's learned to give more flexibility to her team, as well, and because of that, she's skeptical that business travel ever comes back like it was before.
"I'm being forced to be a different leader. We're being forced to be a different company because at Kessler we really value that face to face," she said. "We value the fellowship of having everybody in the office. Pre-pandemic, we were not proponents of remote or hybrid work at all. Post-pandemic, I am only one of three in my office that are on the commercial teams, and you understand my commercial team in whole is probably close to 80 people."
Listen below for our full conversation with Kessler Collection's Lori Kiel.