Constance Ephelia staff complete leadership and management development programmes |13 April 2023

The graduates in a souvenir photograph

Eighteen staff at the Constance Ephelia Resort have been rewarded after successfully completing leadership and management programmes.

Seventeen employees completed the ‘Bridging the Gap Through Holistic Training’ (BRIGHT) and one employee completed the COMET training.

They were rewarded in a graduation ceremony held at the Port Launay-based resort yesterday.

Hilary Albert won the ‘Best project’ award with her ‘Mangrove Honey’ project.

The second best project went to Monique Sinon and the third place went to Sajith Velayudhan.

BRIGHT and COMET are leadership and management development programmes tailored, coordinated and managed by all Constance Hotels Resorts since 2011.

The resort also rewarded its staff for their 100% attendance throughout their training and 11 members were rewarded for their discipline.

Several distinguished guests graced the ceremony with their presence and they included the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Tourism, Sylvestre Radegonde; the Minister for Employment & Social Affairs, Patricia Francourt; the elected National Assembly member for the Port Glaud district Egbert Aglae; the director of the Seychelles Tourism Academy Terrence Max; principal secretary for employment, Veronique Bresson and the management of Constance Ephelia Resort.

Hilary Albert, the best performer of the BRIGHT Award, shared that this achievement means a lot to her. “I worked hard for that and early morning I had to knock at the doors of the Bee Association’s members to be able to write my project. The course definitely helped me in developing my own skills, the different steps in doing a project and also how to lead a team. We always have to aim higher and whatever comes my way I will take it.”

Hilary Albert joined Constance Ephelia during Covid time as a fitness receptionist. Then she discovered the sustainability department at the hotel.

“After the interview process with the manager, I embarked on this journey. We developed many projects and my project for my course was to develop ‘Mangrove Honey’ which is unique to Seychelles. Already many people contacted me to do a case study on that as they believe there are many medical benefits in mangrove. When tourists and students complete their mangroves tour, they receive a small flask containing the mangrove honey and in the future, if production is good, the hotel might consider to sell it. Beekeeping in Seychelles is a practice that is slowly disappearing but I encourage the young generation to venture in this field as it is quite rewarding. I am quite new in the organisation but this does not prevent me from undertaking projects.

For her special night, Hilary wore jewelry with bee designs.

The only COMET graduate, Leeroy Omath, has worked for the hotel for 11 years. He started taking care of clients at the swimming pool and on the beach. “After that, I became assistant manager of the restaurant catering for more than 300 clients at a time. My project was about creating a unique experience for the clients to have a barbecue on a small boat with the family. When you are at the level of assistant manager you have to look both at the clients and the staff. The course really helped me in sharpening my skills on that level.”

Samira Monthy, training manager at the resort explained that Constance Ephelia decided to restart the programme after the pandemic.

“The participants completed BRIGHT level 1 and they were committed. Even though there were challenges, they all completed their projects. I accompanied the participants and the ones in this group have lots of potentials and with perseverance they will be able to attain higher level of perfection within the organisation.”

After the graduation ceremony, the hotel’s general manager, Stephane Duchenne, explained that BRIGHT and COMET programmes have been developed by the Constance group and are meant for supervisors to take on additional responsibilities.

“Currently we have 750 employees and half of them are Seychellois. For an enterprise to keep functioning, we rely a lot on our employees and it is of utmost importance for us to give our employees the tools to perform at their best. This is why training is an integral part of our group and we have a training department that ensures the employees are enrolled on various training.”

To keep employees nowadays is a challenge as they have several choices at hand, noted Mr Duchenne. “At Constance Ephelia we have the Employee experience manager who has the role to have welfare programmes and regular events. We also have something specific at Constance Ephelia which helps the employees enormously – the Crèche. We cater for the children, have activities and also provide lunch etc. Our responsibility is to have people who want to work at the hotel and we are really proud of this service,” shared Mr Duchenne.

Minister Francourt also commended the hotel for the training programme. “It is a learning point for the Seychellois to work together with expatriates and when you give the opportunities to Seychellois they shine.”

Minister Radegonde learned that recently the hotel organised a thank you week for its workers. “This is something innovative as we do not see this a lot from private organisations or even in the public sector. We do not show tangibly that we appreciate the work of others. We still have a lack of Seychellois in management and senior management positions and with this training I see a start in the change and they have a good intention of taking care of their employees. Constance Ephelia is one of the successful hotels and I believe that Seychellois have a future in the hotel industry.”

Text and photos by Vidya Gappy