Yes!

Kelly Mahlangu is Executive Housekeeper at the Radisson Blu Hotel Sandton, Johannesburg, and heads a team of 66 people who take care of the property’s 290 rooms and 11 penthouses. Her life is all about “Yes I Can!”. Her passion for her job and the perfection with which she does it make her smile as originally she had completely different career plans…

When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a teacher – like many members of my family. To be a teacher or a doctor meant something special in South Africa at that time; it was a good job to have. To work in a hotel did not yet earn the same respect. Especially within the black community, people considered it more as a temporary or part-time job without any long-term prospects.

It was purely by coincidence that my very first job was that of a waitress in a pizzeria – I needed to earn some money when I left secondary school. And I really liked it! Serving people was something I was good at, and I could see that the hospitality business offered a lot of career opportunities. I attended a course at Cape Town’s International Hotel School and worked at two smaller hotels before I joined the Radisson Blu Waterfront Hotel in Cape Town as the Executive Housekeeper, and later Johannesburg’s Radisson Blu Hotel, Sandton in the same position.

At Radisson Blu, I discovered our unique service philosophy Yes I Can. Obviously service was important at the other hotels where I worked, – but not to such an extent, and not with such an emphasis as at Radisson Blu, where Yes I Can! is the strongest and most powerful tool.

Yes I Can! is the engine that keeps me going, challeng­ing me each and every day. It is not only the vision of Radisson Blu but also my own personal mission and way of life. Here in Sandton I was already part of the hotel’s pre-opening team, working with the Human Resources Manager, responsible for recruiting my own team, and I even trained some of my staff from the scratch. They had never worked in a hotel before. I like to share my knowledge and to empower people. I encourage them to take decisions and even make mistakes – as long as they learn from it.

In my job, you have to be positive, you have to be a fast thinker, and you always have to have a plan B. I remember when South Africa’s former President Frederik Willem de Klerk stayed at our hotel. He arrived 24 hours earlier than originally announced – and we all had to pull together quickly and decisively to work some magic and have his suite perfectly ready! If I get the chance one day, I would like to share my experience with even more people and join one of our company’s task forces to assist with our new hotel openings in South Africa.

South Africa, well, Africa as such, is the region I like the most and where I want to progress my career. But I also have a little big dream of taking a trip to Europe one day, to Spain. During the Football World Cup, the goalkeeper and captain of the Spanish national team stayed at our hotel – he was such a nice, friendly man that I really would like to visit his country.