How daily habits built frontline momentum and elevated guest experiences across IHG in Indonesia

The art of designing an extraordinary guest experience.

“Till habits become a part of what you do every day, delivering consistent experience day after day may not really happen,” says Anil Pathak, Regional Director of Operations for IHG Hotels & Resorts. It’s a belief that has carried him from three hotels in 2013 to 35 today, and into projects expanding across the region.

As the portfolio grew, Anil looked for a way to move guest touchpoints out of the classroom and into daily operations, using technology to enhance customer experience. Atiom's easy-to-use, frontline-friendly platform enabled him to roll out the strategy quickly, just as he had originally envisioned it.

Learning that fits around the shift.

Anil came to the partnership with strategic touchpoints already mapped out. To support that approach, Atiom translated those touchpoints into structured, AI-enriched learning campaigns that employees could complete in just a few minutes each day. The flexibility of the platform allowed learning to fit around hotel operations rather than requiring dedicated classroom sessions.

Excellence became something teams chose to chase.

Anil was aware that mobilising a deskless workforce would look different from a typical work environment. Using Atiom was an opportunity to increase employee engagement by sharing ideas and best practices directly onto the platform and showing support for each other.

Anil knew the importance of building momentum through employee engagement and constant appreciation. Atiom was designed to serve this purpose, enabling leadership and teams to recognize success together on the platform. Teams can connect anywhere, instantly send words of motivation and virtual gifts, and earn rewards by completing daily bite-sized content. This helps turn daily habits into lasting momentum.

"It's exciting and challenging, and it becomes an entire game," Anil said. "You're also doing what you're supposed to be doing and you're also being appreciated for what you have done. I think that appreciation goes a long way."

The habit became their own.

One of the metrics that surprised Anil was how many team members were voluntarily engaging with Atiom on the weekend. "The maximum usage, which was an eye opener for us, is on the weekend. Continuity is important in learning and development, and this makes that possible. Our delivery of content has been exponentially increased," Anil said.

Through Atiom's analytics, hotel management could understand their scoring and what was behind it.

Getting the fundamentals right, every day.

Today, Anil has seen 40 of the top performing hotels in Southeast Asia and Korea adopt the platform, with his initiative expanding to over 80 properties across the region. "I think engaging our employees has been key. We see very highly engaged hotels, some of our hotels’ usage is as much as 130%, which means they are doing the content and repeating these habits consistently," Anil said.

For operations leaders like Anil, getting the fundamentals right every day creates the space to focus on bigger-picture priorities, from growing hotel portfolios to delivering on long-term strategic goals.

To Anil, it is about being agile in solving problems today while still growing toward a long-term vision. "You are staying relevant, solving problems, and also looking at the larger picture, the learning and development that happens based on the content that exists," he said.

A partner that understands the frontline.

Anil has found that it is about strategically using technology built by a partner that understands the psychology and daily work of frontline teams, rather than the technology alone. "It's the level of customisation, the level of client support, the level of transparency of idea generation and critical improvements to the platform," he said.