Meliá Hotels International creates a cohesive culture across properties with Microsoft Viva and Microsoft Teams

With nearly 400 properties spread over four continents, Meliá Hotels International offers its guests enticing choices—stay near the famed Duomo di Milano in Milan, Italy? On the Mai Khao Beach in Thailand? Or at countless destinations in between? Despite its global scope, Meliá prioritizes closeness. “We have deep roots in our Mediterranean culture, and that means values like warmth and hospitality are part of our DNA,” says Christian Palomino, Global IT Vice President at Meliá Hotels International. “You can see that ethos in everything we do, including how we constantly look for new and better ways to delight our guests.”

 Often, delighting guests means providing amenities like beachside yoga classes and rooftop terraces, but behind the scenes, the business seeks to provide employees with the latest collaboration technology. It’s all part of a strategy to deliver a great experience for guests and employees alike. “We use Microsoft Teams to help our frontline employees gather information and deliver a more personalized response to our guests,” says Mar Fuster, Organization Project Leader at Meliá Hotels International. The company also uses Microsoft Viva to bring employee engagement tools into the Teams platform where employees already do their work. “Having all these functionalities available within a single platform elevates the employee experience too,” says Tomeu Fiol, Global Hotel Technologies Director at Meliá Hotels International.

Enhancing security while opening up communication

Today, employees expect workplace technology that reflects the simplicity of the technology they use at home, including intuitive user interfaces and simple sign-on procedures. “We need to deliver a modern workplace because it’s a great way to attract and retain talent,” says Fuster. “Especially for younger generations entering the workforce, the opportunity to use leading-edge technology is important. And, if we don’t give them the tools they need to communicate seamlessly, they’ll look for outside solutions.”

 With Teams, Fuster and her colleagues saw a way to bring employees a modern technology experience at work, while still maintaining the strong security that is vital for a global business. “We all know how important it is to secure documentation and communications,” says Fiol. “It was a key factor in deciding to implement the Teams platform.” In the days before Teams, Meliá employees used a variety of tools, including WhatsApp and Telegram, to communicate on the fly. Implementing Teams provides employees with an alternative to third-party collaboration applications and strengthens the company’s security posture. “You lose an element of protection over company data when people start collaborating outside of a controlled environment,” says Palomino. “We use Teams to encourage collaboration while maintaining security.”

A cohesive environment to boost efficiency and strengthen culture

Meliá uses Teams and Viva to overcome a persistent problem faced by large, globally dispersed businesses. “One of our biggest challenges is that we’re a multinational company and we want to foster our culture within all our hotels across the world,” says Palomino. That goal, to create a unified culture throughout hotels spanning multiple continents, only grew in importance as more employees began to work from home. “Today, many people start working for us without the traditional experience of coming into the workplace and getting immersed in the culture that way. We use Teams and Viva to communicate our culture digitally and share our values with employees through how we collaborate.” 

 Standardizing the digital tools that employees use across the business also boosts efficiency. “Before, every Meliá hotel did something a little different,” says Fiol about the collaboration landscape prior to Teams. “We’ve changed that and improved employees’ lives as a result. Now, everyone has access to Teams for calls, chat, and the ability to work on documents from anywhere, which increases productivity.” For example, when sharing information like a new manual or procedure, employees often used email—and found themselves contending with versioning challenges and overflowing inboxes as a result. “Now, it’s much easier to share employee training and other information via Teams, and we’re always sure that we have the latest version,” says Fuster. Frontline employees use Teams to quickly find manuals and guides that help them answer guests’ questions in the moment. 

 Accessing frequently used applications directly from within the Teams platform also helps Meliá employees be more productive. According to Palomino, that ability played a big role in the company’s decision. He says, “The ability to add frequently used apps and other solutions to the platform was one of the critical factors in choosing Teams.” Along with access to Viva Connections from within Teams, Meliá has added a proprietary travel solution to the platform to make it easy for colleagues around the company to connect and plan upcoming travel. “This platform capability makes Teams special and much more than a simple chat tool,” Palomino continues. Now that the company has fully deployed Teams for its workforce, including frontline workers, Meliá will continue to augment the platform with solutions like Microsoft Power Platform. “We look forward to adding more and more apps and resources to Teams,” says Fiol. “We foresee that adding tools like Microsoft Power Platform to Teams will dramatically change how we work.”

Creating new communities simplifying how information is shared

Through Viva Connections, Meliá has reimagined how its employees receive information about the business and made it easier for all of them to find manuals, HR information, and other company resources. “We pinned Viva Connections in Teams, simplifying how people access knowledge,” says Fuster. She and her colleagues found that by giving employees an easier way to access and share information, the business can tap into new insights that were harder to come by in the past. “With Viva Connections, each department has the power to share information without needing to involve IT to help them publish content,” says Fuster. “A lot of previously unseen knowledge from within the company has come to the forefront this way.” In addition to removing a bottleneck by empowering departments to share content themselves, Meliá is supporting a culture of transparency with Viva Connections. Palomino says, “It’s a newfound freedom for employees to create, design, work, and share so easily, and it’s one of the greatest benefits of using Viva Connections.” 

 Viva Engage, another component of Microsoft Viva, gained its own momentum as a powerful culture-building tool at Meliá. “We didn’t push the use of Viva Engage from the top down,” says Fuster. “Employees discovered that the tool was a great and natural way to share best practices, which ultimately improves customer experiences.” Those grassroots communities, including one dedicated to hotel receptionists, are now accessible via Viva Connections. “We’ve also created a Viva Engage community for new joiners that’s accessible from the Viva Connections app,” says Fuster. “It’s a place where people in the same stage of their career can connect and share experiences.” All these applications have found a common platform in Teams, which has underpinned culture building at Meliá since the business implemented the tool. “Teams is now the backbone of communication at our organization,” concludes Fiol.

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