🎧 Listen now:
• From Neuroscience to HR: Designing with the Emotional Brain in Mind [00:02:00]
Edina shares how her background in cognitive psychology shapes her HR approach—focusing on what motivates people emotionally, not just rationally, to create meaningful learning and engagement strategies.
• Why High Potentials Were Leaving—and What Changed [00:00:00 & 00:16:00]
A critical data insight revealed that top talent was exiting Radisson. This triggered a full revamp of their career programs, leading to better retention and more intentional support for high-potential employees.
• Frameworks Over Templates: Empowering Local Creativity at Scale [00:10:00]
With 1,000+ hotels globally, Radisson uses flexible development frameworks instead of rigid standards, balancing consistency with local innovation to drive guest satisfaction and team engagement.
• Linking Employee Engagement to Guest Satisfaction and Revenue [00:14:00]
Edina highlights the strong correlation between employee engagement and guest experience, using KPIs like guest review index and internal promotion rates to measure culture impact on business outcomes.
• Making Career Growth Visible: Career Month & Mobility Data [00:18:00]
Radisson launched “Career Month” to raise awareness, educate leaders, and encourage internal mobility. Integrated career conversations and tracking mobility data helped personalize development and improve retention.
Data's role in HR has evolved beyond conventional analytics, becoming integral in shaping strategic business decisions. Edina Szabo shares her experience at Amazon, describing the company's intensive use of data, even to the extent of calculating learning curves for employees:
“So we calculated optimal time for training. So not to overdo it, but not to underdo it either,"
Szabo explains. This meticulous quantification allows Amazon to understand productivity levels, plan workforce efficiently, and tailor training requirements accordingly.
In the realm of hospitality, this data-centric approach is mirrored as Radisson Hotels integrates robust databases and frameworks to streamline operations across diverse geographies. Szabo highlights the necessity of balancing frameworks with creativity:
“We created a robust program and after that, we gave six to nine months of freedom... a framework with ideas that hotels could implement depending on the needs,"
she states, emphasizing the importance of data as a foundational layer while allowing flexibility tailored to each hotel's unique culture and guests' expectations.
The broader implications of this theme are clear: data empowers organizations to optimize their workforce, anticipate needs, and refine training modules to sustain growth in dynamic environments.
Radisson Hotels champions a culture where talent is not just recognized but actively cultivated. The use of structured career paths has emerged as a pivotal element in employee satisfaction and retention. Edina Szabo shares their innovative approach with Career Month, an initiative designed to bring transparency and intention to career progression:
“Career months helped us to be intentional about this... here are some of the stories,"
Szabo recounts, illustrating how targeted programs can bridge the gap between employee aspirations and organizational goals.
This aligns with a common challenge seen across industries: the desire for employees, especially high potentials, to have clear, articulated paths for growth. In tackling this, Radisson leverages developmental programs thus addressing previous pitfalls where high-potential employees felt stagnant and left the organization.
The hospitality industry, while traditionally more people-focused, is increasingly adopting technological innovations without losing its core values. Edina Szabo underscores the importance of balancing these facets at Radisson Hotels:
“Radically different. Probably what I enjoy the most about hospitality is that it's genuinely people-focused... but it's somehow treated differently,"
She articulates, highlighting the nuanced approach Radisson takes by integrating technology while preserving a guest-focused ethos.
Hospitality's unique challenge is to extract the benefits of data and technology without eclipsing the personal interaction that defines a memorable guest experience. Szabo elaborates on using Guest Review Indexes alongside staff engagement scores, revealing a direct correlation, thus ensuring that technology complements rather than replaces the human touch.
This intersection differentiates businesses that thrive by maintaining their essence in an era of technological disruption and positions them competitively to meet modern expectations.
Reflecting on these discussions, it's evident how leveraging data can unlock enormous potential across various business facets, from optimizing training to enhancing guest experiences. By prioritizing human-centric approaches while adopting data-driven innovations, organizations can create resilient, adaptive, and thriving workplaces. Edina Szabo's insights remind us of the profound impact of understanding and applying these key principles in the world of HR and hospitality.
"Data tells you whether you are achieving those results or not. Simple as that." — Edina Szabó
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Edina SzabĂł
Edina Szabó is the Associate Director of People & Culture for South-East Asia Pacific at Radisson Hotel Group, where she drives talent development and employee engagement strategies across the region. With over 13 years of experience spanning hospitality, renewable energy, tech, and education across Europe and SEAP, Edina is a recognised HR leader, recently named one of Asia’s Top HR Leaders 2024 at the 13th SpeakIn Asia Dialogues.
Guided by a strong foundation in cognitive psychology, Edina is passionate about learning design, leadership development, and organisational transformation. She has a track record of implementing innovative people strategies at global companies, including Amazon, where she led regional learning initiatives in Italy and Spain, and Radisson Hotel Group, where she has held multiple leadership roles in People and Culture.
Edina is dedicated to transcending traditional HR strategies to enhance organizational performance and employee well-being, with a passion for cultivating corporate cultures that foster both success and individual brilliance within teams.
Dorothy Yiu is the CEO & Co-Founder of EngageRocket, one of Asia’s top EX & people analytics platforms. She brings over a decade of experience in human resources, technology, and business strategy. Before co-founding EngageRocket, Dorothy was the Regional Head of Operations for Gallup, where she oversaw more than 100 large-scale consulting projects globally.
Recognised for her leadership in HR and technology, Dorothy was awarded Leader of the Year at the HR Vendors of the Year Awards 2024 by Human Resources Online. She holds two degrees from Singapore Management University under the Lee Kong Chian Scholarship and was named an SG Digital Leader by IMDA in 2024. She was also NTT’s Women of the Future nominee in 2022.