Tourism office in the canton of Bern

Seven-day weeks during the season, long working hours and high customer expectations: working in a tourism office can be very demanding, particularly in the high season. So, if an employee is off sick, everyone feels the effects.

Portrait photo Marina Wyssen

Marina Wyssen, Acting Manager

Company
Adelboden-Lenk-Kandersteg Tourism, Berne
Year founded
2018
Number of employees
11

Everyone has a contribution to make

I don’t want our people feeling like everything is dictated from the top down. So, staff are also given the chance to lead our team meetings now and again. The idea is for everyone to participate and have a chance to bring their inputs and ideas to the table.

Marina Wyssen at the counter of the Adelboden tourism office.
When my employees bear the brunt of guests’ frustration, it’s important to me that we discuss this afterwards.

I want to identify problems early

Conflict and disagreements are inevitable. It's important to me that each employee has someone they can turn to. They need to know they have someone to talk to. As a manager, I like to be able to identify and address disagreements and conflict early.

Digitalisation requires a lot of attention

A lot of communication now takes place via videoconferences. And, I've noticed that some employees are struggling with the digitalisation of our work. We need to see that everyone is on board with digitalisation. That's why we've tackled this issue with our employees on an individual basis.

I want to look at health across the business

I’m increasingly aware that we tend to look at the issue of health on a highly individual basis – with reference to individual people and incidents. But we rarely discuss it in terms of the business as a whole, and I'd like to do more of this in future.

We discuss challenging customer situations together

Contact with guests and customers isn’t always easy: they often come to us with problems that we cannot help with directly. Sometimes, in cases like this, people can take out all their frustration on our employees. If the situation is unfolding face to face, a second employee might be able to offer support, but this isn’t an option over the phone. For me, it's important to discuss such incidents together after they've been resolved.