Reflections on fairness, hospitality, and the work of building a People First® culture
By Dr. Pham Ha, Founder, President and CEO of LuxGroup®
A guest remembers the welcome on board, the guide who tells a story well, or the colleague who notices when a plan needs to change. Behind each of those moments is another experience the guest rarely sees: what it is like for that colleague to work here.
I have been reflecting on a series of difficult workplace situations: an employee whose performance falls short, a capable person overlooked because they are quiet, a frontline team excluded from a decision, and a worker who is afraid to report misconduct. The details differ, but each situation asks the same question of a leader: Does the way we treat people support the promise we make to our guests?
At LuxGroup®, our purpose is Delivering Happiness®. We lead with HEARTS™, place People First®, and believe that Luxury is Culture®. These ideas guide our ambition. Their credibility depends on what happens when commercial pressures, individual needs, and a manager’s judgment pull in different directions.
As founder, I cannot assume that stating our values is enough. I have to ask whether a Luxer in any brand or location would recognize them in an ordinary working day—and in a difficult one.
A manager’s decision is rarely about one person
Imagine a colleague who is struggling to meet the requirements of a role. It may be tempting to see the decision as a choice between being compassionate and protecting performance. In practice, the manager has responsibilities to several people.
The employee deserves accurate feedback, an opportunity to explain what is happening, and a fair assessment of their work. Their teammates deserve to know that missed responsibilities will not quietly become a permanent addition to their own workload. Guests deserve the standard of service we promised them. The business needs to use its resources responsibly so that it can continue providing jobs and serving customers.
A good process starts by naming the gap precisely. What work was expected? What happened instead? Did the employee understand the expectation and have the training, time, and tools to meet it? What support has already been offered?
Those questions can reveal a skills gap, a problem with management, or a poor match between a person’s strengths and their role. A move to another team may be the right answer if there is an actual vacancy and the work suits the employee. The receiving manager must understand the performance history and have a genuine reason to believe the colleague can succeed. Moving someone simply to postpone a hard conversation would be unfair to both teams.
If improvement is possible, a performance plan should help the person improve. That means clear goals, practical support, a reasonable period, and honest reviews of progress. Calling a plan an opportunity while privately treating it as a route to dismissal damages trust.
Compassion matters throughout. So does clarity. People cannot make informed choices about their future if we conceal what we think about their work.
Fairness has more than one audience
I find it useful to test a people decision in three ways.
First, what has the employee reasonably been led to expect? If managers have repeatedly praised someone’s work, a sudden poor rating will be difficult to understand. If a temporary role was presented as a route to permanent employment, the company should be clear about whether that route exists. Formal promises matter, but regular practice also shapes expectations.
Second, was the decision reached fairly? Relevant criteria should be explained in advance and applied consistently. The employee should be able to offer their perspective. A manager should be able to explain the reasons for the outcome, including when the answer is disappointing.
Third, who receives the opportunities and who carries the burdens? Promotions, training, desirable assignments, difficult shifts, and extra work are all distributed somehow. A team may appear harmonious while one group repeatedly receives visibility and another absorbs the inconvenient tasks.
These questions have changed how I think about performance. Results remain essential in hospitality. Yet a rating tells us little unless we also understand whether people had a fair opportunity to achieve those results.
The quiet colleague may be the stronger colleague
One bias I watch for in myself is the assumption that a confident interviewee will perform better than someone who speaks more quietly. Confidence can help in some guest-facing situations. It does not, by itself, tell us how well a person listens, solves a problem, learns a craft, or treats colleagues.
First impressions can also be shaped by a candidate’s age, accent, appearance, university, or similarity to the interviewer. A manager may experience these impressions as instinct rather than bias. That makes them particularly important to question.
At LuxGroup®, the practical response is to define a role’s requirements before evaluating candidates, ask comparable questions, and look for examples of how people have performed. Managers should invite colleagues to challenge an initial view and then examine who receives opportunities after hiring. If the same kinds of people are repeatedly chosen for visible projects, our process deserves scrutiny.
Inclusion also means examining who can participate in decisions. Frontline Luxers often know most about the moments that matter to guests, yet shift patterns and distance between locations can keep them out of meetings. We can ask for their views before a service change is final, provide ways to contribute outside a meeting, and explain what we did with their feedback.
Being invited to speak matters. Seeing that one’s knowledge can shape a decision matters more.
Speaking up must be safe when the news is unwelcome
Hospitality depends on trust. A crew member must be able to raise a safety concern. A guide should be able to say that an itinerary promises more than can be delivered. Any colleague should be able to report harassment or misconduct without fearing that their career will suffer.
Leaders also need to hear concerns about workload, training, guest promises, and decisions that affect local communities. We will not agree with every suggestion, but listening requires us to consider it seriously and respond.
As LuxGroup® grows, I see a need for more consistent ways to handle reports and misconduct across our brands and locations. A group-wide disciplinary framework should make clear how concerns are investigated, who is responsible for decisions, how outcomes are recorded, and how consequences are applied. Seniority should not determine whether a standard is enforced. Luxers also need confidential reporting channels and protection against retaliation.
A policy alone will not create trust. People will watch what happens when an influential person is involved, when evidence is difficult to assess, or when speaking up inconveniences the business. Management’s response in those moments becomes the culture others learn from.
Our responsibility extends across the experience
LuxGroup® brings together specialist teams in travel, cruises, hospitality, food, and culture. We also work alongside people and businesses beyond our permanent workforce. The form of someone’s contract may differ, but their contribution to a guest’s experience is real.
That calls for clear expectations about responsibilities, safe working conditions, and respectful ways to raise concerns. It also asks us to consider whether the people creating value can share fairly in opportunity. A guest experiences the journey as one whole; our responsibilities cannot stop at an organizational boundary that the guest cannot see.
The same thinking connects employee fairness with our wider commitments to culture and place. We cannot credibly celebrate Vietnamese hospitality while overlooking the people who practice it. We cannot speak of meaningful cultural encounters without respecting the artists, guides, makers, and communities who make them possible.
Make the promise observable
I want LuxGroup® to be judged by more than the language on our website. We should look at whether Luxers receive useful feedback, whether opportunities reach people across teams and locations, whether concerns are resolved, and whether workloads are sustainable. Guest feedback and business results belong in that picture too. The measures should prompt better questions and better decisions.
There will be moments when no option satisfies everyone. A leader may have to decline a promotion, change a role, or end an employment relationship. The responsibility is to understand the facts, examine personal assumptions, explain the decision, and act with dignity.
That is the leadership I want to keep learning and practicing. Leading is serving—and accepting responsibility for the conditions in which others work.
A guest may never see our review process, hear a colleague challenge an unsafe plan, or know that a quiet Luxer was given a chance to lead. But those decisions shape the people who welcome them. If we want every journey to carry care, culture, and happiness, we must make those qualities real within LuxGroup® first.
