LODGING LEADERS
143 | Artificial Intelligence for Labor Management with Nigel Beck
LODGING LEADERS
Nigel is CEO and Founder of When Labs: artificial intelligence for augmenting management, driving compliance, employee engagement, retention, and productivity.
Nigel’s passion for HR and management comes from over two decades of building and managing teams from two to thousands around the globe, and led to his acquisition of Kenexa, a human capital management company, the 6th largest acquisition IBM had ever made.
Nigel is a proven leader and innovator. As founding CTO of Footprint Software, a fintech startup, he engineered the largest retail banking system of its kind, building the fastest growing startup in Canada at the time, which sold to IBM. There, he architected IBM’s entry into Open Source software, making IBM the first major corporation to embrace Linux and Apache, and was founding product line manager for their most successful organic software product of the last two decades, WebSphere. Along the way, he founded one of the earliest commercial bot companies, liketribe, which used artificial intelligence and social graph data to provide personalized recommendations.
In This Episode, Nigel Reveals:
- The vision behind his company, Whenlabs, the problem they’re solving, and who they serve.
- What digital managers are, the benefit they offer hoteliers, and Nigel gives a couple examples of things a digital manager can fix.
- How their software connects within the existing technology at the property, how it works, how hard it is to use, and whether receiving direction by a digital manager feels inhuman to your staff.
- The cost for their services.
Resources & Links
Nigel Beck
When Labs
LODGING LEADERS
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330 | Youthful Perspective: Industry leader Bijal Patel mourns the loss of ‘an entire generation’ of hospitality workers
Bijal Patel, 31, is CEO of Coast Redwood Hospitality and the youngest chair of the California Hotel & Lodging Association. He’s made even more history at CHLA by agreeing to serve an unprecedented second term as the lodging industry emerges from the coronavirus pandemic. Patel is a third-generation hotelier. Being so steeped in hospitality at such a young age is not new for members of the Indian American hotelier community, but Patel fears the pandemic has drained the industry of emerging talent. Lodging Leaders spotlights Patel, who represents a leadership demographic that is fighting for the life of the hospitality industry as they watch their peers veer toward other career paths.
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329 | Ruff and Ready: ADA gives hotels a short leash when accommodating guests with service animals
Many hotels these days have made room for guests with disabilities. Hotel managers and staff should also know what the Americans with Disabilities Act says about accommodating guests with pets. During the pandemic lockdowns, a lot of people added a pet to their household and now they’re bringing Fido along on vacation. Hotel employees need to know how to cater to both consumers who are pet owners as well as guests who travel with a trained service animal. Episode 329 of Lodging Leaders podcast reports on how the ADA defines a service animal and how a hotel is legally obligated to serve a guest who comes with a dog or any other animal.