Get Travel Leaders Talking with Celebrity Cruises' Jo Rzymowska

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How have you been looking after your mental health and physical wellbeing over the past few months?

It’s hard to imagine it’s been more than a year, all of us thought we’d be here for a couple of weeks, literally. It’s been an incredible year in so many ways, and there have been so many moments that have been life-changing for lots of people personally, and obviously professionally for our industry. It’s been really, really tough.

I hate to say it but from a personal point of view I’m fitter than ever! That’s because I’ve been using drive time for fitness time. So I’ve become obsessed about closing my exercise rings on my watch. It’s quite an OCD obsession. I’ve always been to the gym. I was a big swimmer, so I’m really missing swimming. But every morning now without fail, I either do Zoom personal training or I do what I call the two bridges, walking along the River Thames at Kew. Not only do I do it because I know it’s the right thing to do, I do it because it genuinely helps me deal with the level of intensity of being on camera all day and being a square on a screen. And it gives me time to either listen to podcasts, which I do a lot, or it enables me just to have time to listen to the birds and the ducks and to think. I never tire of the river.

So time for yourself that you don’t get throughout the rest of the day is very important. It’s made me realise that when I wasn’t doing my personal training, I got up, got into the car, drove to the work, and sat in meetings pretty much all day. When I look back on it now I would have done only three and a half or four thousand steps only. That’s something now that as we return to the office, we’re really thinking through as an organisation. I’m absolutely going to still commit to making sure that I have that time every day.

What strategies have you been using to strengthen your personal resilience?

From my own point of view, I genuinely think it’s been having that thinking time. In the car I used to always be on the phone, whereas as I’m now walking at 6.30 in the morning there aren’t many people I can call at that time in the morning. There’s times when I’ve walked with [my partner] Lynne, which is lovely. But I’ll be honest there’s times when I say actually I just need to clear my own head and listen to a podcast. And she understands that. I will definitely take forward having that real, genuine time with me.

The other thing is the importance of listening and communication. And in this scenario you must communicate. Communicate, communicate, you cannot overly communicate. One of the things that I think that I’m very proud of about us as an organisation, from [Royal Group CEO] Richard Fain down has been the incredible communication, really, great communication via video messages that he does to our trade partners on a regular basis that we get great feedback from, because of his integrity and his authenticity and his knowledge.

From our own point of view it’s been about regular town halls and from my personal point of view, having sessions with our own EMEA halls. And then what I try to do is regularly meet with individual teams: the sales team; the revenue team; the marketing team; the continental European sales team. They’ve all got different challenges or different things that are going on. It’s important to listen, to listen to what they’re finding challenging. And if they want to from a personal resilience point of view as well.

One of the biggest things to me is that, even if the news is tough the best thing you can be is to be honest, and to give as much information as you can, and to then allow people to process that information - and to allow people the opportunity to talk it through. And I think one of the big things that we’ve all learned is to truly try and understand what’s going on behind the square. We call it Celebrity Squares, we’re all a square on a screen! But really understanding what is going on behind that is key.

What’s been your most challenging moment of the crisis?

Lockdown three has definitely been the toughest, without a doubt. Heading into winter was so tough. I mean, now spring is springing, the daffodils are out…it’s just beautiful to see and you feel better. The days are longer. One of the things that we did in winter was set winter working hours, and we had great feedback from that. We encouraged the team to make sure that during the day they took an hour to two hours off completely, and got outside. And then we didn’t ask people to make up for time. Everybody’s going above and beyond anyway. Those winter hours were really, really well received.

Winter hours, shorter days, longer nights, January blues, were tough. We knew what was ahead of us. Whereas the first time round, we knew less about what was ahead of us. This time it was another round of home schooling for lots of people. I’m lucky I haven’t got kids, I’m not homeschooling. And Lynne and I are in a situation where we’re very, very fortunate and I’m very conscious of that. Lots of the team are in a far more difficult position than I am. And this time around the priority has been home schooling, mental health and then how we work the business around that.

How have you been looking after your team? What steps have you put in place to look after their own wellbeing in this period?

Our employee resource groups have really come to the fore. We’ve got the LGBT group, we’ve got the network of women group, we’ve got the BAME group. So many more people have been getting involved in the mental health and wellbeing group, it’s been phenomenal. We’ve had incredible speakers that have come in virtually and the groups all cross-fertilise with one another, more people have really been getting benefits from that.

We’ve shared great books to read, great podcasts to listen to, great speakers that we’ve gotten throughout the community and that’s really brought the team together in the virtual world. Every cloud’s got a silver lining and there are lots of positives that we will take forward with us into the new world, about how we work. One is people genuinely have got to know one another better. There’s great collaboration across the brands three times a week, among myself, [Royal Caribbean vice-president EMEA] Ben Bouldin, [Silversea managing director UK & Ireland] Peter Shanks, and [Azamara commercial director] David Duff. We meet without fail every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and I meet with my team every morning. And that has been really, really powerful, the brands coming together, the teams working together and in times of adversity, I think that shines on through. And there’s a commitment that as we come through this together, we’ll be a lot stronger as well.

Will the experience change the way you run the business in future?

We’re working through now what the return to the office will look like the second time round – after we first returned to the office last summer for a very short period of time. Last year we put all of the social distancing temperature checking in place, everybody had to bring their own food and their own drinks as we couldn’t have the kitchens open. So we’re working through that again now. The other side is the flexible working. I was listening to research from Cushman and Wakefield recently and they said that pre-Covid 90% of people felt that they weren’t trusted working from home. And now 90% of people feel trusted at home – but now people can’t wait to see each other face-to-face.

There are so many areas that we are so much better at when we’re together – brainstorming, strategic planning, team building… it’s far, far better when we’re together. However there are other meetings that will probably be more productive based on the way in which we’re meeting now. I’ve never known people arrive on time for meetings in the way they do now, because people are waiting for you on a screen! Actually, we tried to start meetings at five past or at 35 minutes too, so we’re not starting on the hour…25 minute meetings or 15 minute meetings, so that we give time for people to stretch legs, go to the loo and then come back and grab a coffee because otherwise you can literally be, be back to back.

So we’re working through that now - what do we take back to the office with us that has been really good, and how do we structure ourselves so that we enable more collaboration, creativity, strategic thinking, strategic planning.

What positive lessons have you discovered about yourself, or the company, during the crisis?

It’s the sum of all these parts. I’ll be honest with you, I was very much a person that thought we needed to be in the office. I love people. I like seeing people. I get my energy from people. That’s who I am. I’m not an individual contributor. I’m a real people person. That’s what I love. And I love being with the team. So I thought I would really struggle with this a lot more than I have.

So what I’ve learned is flexibility and actually the joy of getting to know people more, getting to know their families more, getting to know their pets more. I mean it’s been puppy city, right! I happen to be a dog lover. We don’t always go straight into the business, but we have that genuine time of how are you doing? How are you genuinely doing, how’s this week versus last week?

And that to me has been a real learning. I’m very focused, I’m very driven and I’ve taken more of a step back. This is a roller coaster and we’ve got to hang on to it. It’s still going on now. Everybody’s doing their best. And we’ve got to make sure that we are cognisant of, as I said, what’s going on behind the screen and do what we can to keep people focused, keep them energised, but understand that not everybody’s in the same place at the same time.

For mental health resources visit TTG’s Mental Health Hub and look out for more Get Travel Leaders Talking videos being released each week.