Courtesy: Vicky Karantzavelou | News Source: traveldailynews.com

LONDON, UK - Dakota Hotels, the modern luxury lifestyle brand, is announcing it is working with Perkbox, Europe’s fastest growing employee experience platform, to scale its employee experience offering to staff, as the company continues its expansion to key locations across the UK. 

The group has hotels across the UK in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Leeds and recently opened its fifth hotel in Manchester in May 2019. Dakota Manchester is a 137 bedroom hotel which has already reached the ‘Top 10 Traveller Ranked UK Hotels’ and is ranked number one in Manchester on TripAdvisor, just five months following its launch. 

Dakota is a user of the perks platform and has already achieved well over £15,000 in savings so far, having launched only recently. They have a log in rate of 77% at a company-wide level. Location wise, Dakota Leeds has the highest number of perk redemptions, followed by Dakota Edinburgh in second place and Dakota Glasgow in third. Popular perks on the platform include Caffe Nero, free mobile phone insurance and airport parking, as well as cinema and gym discounts.

Given Dakota’s recent expansion and the need to create a sense of unity amongst its team members, Dakota also recently launched Perkbox Recognition to allow its employees to recognise each other, both peer-to-peer and top down. This provides a way to recognise those who demonstrate the company’s culture - one characterised by enthusiasm and doing the simple things brilliantly, whilst upholding traditional hospitality principles. With over 300 recognitions on the platform amongst employees so far, Dakota has seen value from the tool. The brand has also been using Perkbox Recognition to digitally reward outstanding members of the team. 

Deborah Knight, Director of Customer Success at Perkbox says: “We’re delighted to be working with Dakota Hotels to provide a top notch employee experience for their members of staff as they continue their expansion across the UK. With the hospitality sector often demanding more from employees in terms of longer working hours and an ‘always on’ mentality to ensure happy customers - it’s wonderful to see Dakota Hotels making such an effort to reward and recognise their staff. This, alongside providing them with perks and benefits to make their time away from work as enjoyable as possible should lead to both happier employees and customers. ”

Samantha Hamilton, Group HR Manager at Dakota Hotels, says: “Delivering impeccable service to our guests is the foundation of our luxury brand and that can only be achieved by a happy, contented team. At Dakota we employ passionate people and we partnered with Perkbox as part of a wider strategy to ensure our team members are rewarded for their hard work. We’ve had great feedback so far and it’s encouraging to see it being used by our team members during their leisure time.”