With a career spanning 25 years, Michelle Ashcroft is a veteran in the travel industry. Starting as an exchange student at 15 years of age in Germany, Michelle fell in love with travel. She particularly enjoyed experiencing another culture, and her passion to explore the world grew from there.
“I was at Uni, completing my arts degree and sidelined into travel. I have never looked back. I started as a junior consultant, and loved learning the destinations and product, and looking after people. I always knew I wanted to be the best that I could be and held myself accountable. I remember back in those days the budgets and targets didn’t really mean a lot to me as a young person, new to the industry, so when I received my first budget with lots of zeros, I created a strategy to look after every client that sat in front of me and hoped that my budget would work itself out, and it did and then some”.
What followed for Michelle was a promotion to Branch manager overseeing a team of 20, then into a HR manager role, then onto Marketing manager, General Manager of Sales and in 2013 she became the General Manager for the entire business.
It is easy to see after a few minutes of speaking with Michelle, her passion for real authentic leadership is at the forefront of her mind. Travel is a passion for Michelle, but her connection with people, developing careers, connecting people to what they are good at and seeing that lightbulb moment demonstrates she is a big believer in culture. “If you get the right culture fit and you engage that person by connecting them to their role in success, then you can teach them any hard skills. I have always believed that there are two things you can’t teach a person. One is drive and the other is passion. That is what we recruit on. I am passionate about connecting people to an industry that they love and can thrive in, and build relationships with their team, customers, and suppliers, for mutual success for all”.
Asking Michelle about cutting edge developments within the business and over the last couple of years, Michelle comments that she is very proud of how Phil Hoffmann Travel have navigated and responded to the challenging environment, with the opportunity to now thrive. Michelle explains that PHT is the largest independently owned travel agency in Australia. They opened the first cruise office in Australia, and have a large footprint across South Australia, looking after retail travel, corporate, conferencing and events as well as group travel.
“Throughout the pandemic, we developed an opportunity for every single one of our staff members to upskill through training. Throughout that period, we took a medium approach to what our recovery would look like. We felt like if we took too long an approach it would affect cashflow, and if we looked too short term, we would be under resourced throughout recovery, knowing there would be pent up demand. It was a challenge to keep our workforce engaged, motivated and passionate about their work, when everything we love about the industry was gone; we went from passionate, highly trained travel specialists, who connected people to the world, to cancelling everything we had worked on the year before, refunding all our earnings, whilst navigating a volatile environment and supporting our clients who wanted assurance and answers, often to questions no-one knew the answers to (like when will this be over?!).
Michelle describes the approach that PHT took. They defined their value proposition as an employer and focused on the ways they could encourage staff to stay. Their focus was on the engagement piece meaning they were emotionally connecting to the company, their clients and their people. “We upskilled every staff member, some are still doing this as we speak. We offered them a minimum Cert 3 or 4 Certificate, even a Diploma, depending on what they wanted to study in order to keep them passionate and offering them a value add for themselves, and their career development”.
Along with career development Michelle has also set a focus for staff on wellbeing and sustainability. “Our approach has been that if we look after our team, they will look after our clients. There is a big focus on wellness with a number of activities and workshops that encourage support and an opportunity to bring people together. During COVID-19 we are proud to say that we didn’t make any employees redundant, we made a decision that everyone across the business was going to share the pain of a reduced salary and hours, for maximum retention. There was some natural attrition but where possible we found extra work for staff in the community so that they could find a balance for their income”.
“When holding company conferences or leading an induction, I always talk about the fact that profitability is actually the outcome of getting the foundation right. If you only focus on the numbers, you will miss the path to reach that success. We openly share our formula with our team, starting with our foundation, which is culture plus engagement plus innovation = sustainability. Culture is about values and what you stand for but just as important, what you won’t stand for and what measures you make decisions against. If someone in our business is underperforming my number one question to the manager is are they a culture fit. If the answer is yes, we will work to support them because they may not be in the right role or have the right training. If they aren’t a culture fit then nothing will work”.
“We have a long-standing leadership team which has 27 members who are at all levels within the business. We also have a future leaders program. The average tenure of our leaders ranges from 10-15 years, right up to 30 years. Experts talk about work/life balance, but I believe in work life integration. We all stand united and strong together to get the job done, and when adversity comes, ‘you stand next to your mates in the trenches’. However, we have always taken a flexible approach also around personal lives and commitments, calling it ‘swings and roundabouts’. That’s what creates balance. We have managed to recruit 60 people since June last year, and with a continued focus on our EVP, word of mouth continues to drive much of this growth. We want our employees to love coming to work, and there is no better way to build a reputation as an employer than that. They share the energy they feel working at PHT”.
The travel industry has a reputation of being volatile and therefore resilience is something that businesses have had to strengthen. Whilst COVID-19 has certainly been our biggest challenge, we have overcome adversity before. There have been pilot strikes, there was September 11, the Ansett collapse, SARS and the GFC to name a few.
Michelle states that all of these challenges require the same approach. “PHT always want to be the voice of truth for travel in South Australia, regardless of what issue it is, you have to be honest about what is actually happening, so people can respond in an educated manner. Whether it’s airlines, refunds or terrorism, you have to show your people and your customers that you will respond with integrity. You cannot buy loyalty, and this is something we are proud to have built with both our team and our clients over 33 years.
Reflecting on her experience as a Syndicate Member at The CEO Institute, Michelle shares that she wasn’t sure what to expect at her first meeting. “Paul Preiss ensures the right people are put together, and that new members are the right fit for the group to add value. I walked into my first meeting super prepared and wanted to listen, observe and get a feel for the energy of the group. I was made to feel very welcome amongst an inspiring group of amazing leaders. I genuinely trust every single member of the group, the camaraderie, the journey we are on together as leaders, the support and the advice is priceless. After 26 years in my industry, you can start to become quite insular, it was what I didn’t know, that I was looking for. I wanted to expand my network and experience outside of my own industry. The advice, experience and genuine care is there, no matter what you are going through, or what challenge you are facing, and the support has a ripple effect to our business. There is so much experience in the room from people of all kinds of industries and we all bring something unique to the table, even on a personal level. I am always learning and inspired at the end of a meeting”.
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