Sierra Leone News: Local Employees of Radisson Blu Hotel Accuse Sales Director of Intimidation

By Alusine Sesay

Local employees of Radisson Blu Mammy Yoko Hotel in Freetown have accused the Sales Director Daniel Sekoni, a foreign national, of bullying and intimidating local employees at the hotel, which is greatly affecting the moral of the workforce and the general working environment.

An ‘anonymous letter’ detailing the sales director behaviour was sent to this media.

Bullying is the intimidation of an employee by physical or verbal violence, abuse or humiliation. It includes being picked on, being unfairly treated or blamed for incidents, being routinely overworked and consistently denied career or training opportunities. It is a behaviour that happens privately or in front of colleagues of clients and in any form of communication. Employers should have zero tolerance for intimidation or bullying.

Almost all departments in the Hotel are having issues with Sekoni due to his hostile behavior towards local staffs, according to the local employees.

The local employees have urged management of the hotel to replace him to ensure a sanity in working environment. They claimed that there have been series of unrests and uneasy with a threat to protest due to intimidating behavior of Sekoni.

The entire Front Office staff complained that he is always embracing them in front of guests with threat that he will sack them all.

The local staff cited an incident that prompted the Front Office to complain to their head of department. “There was a huge check-in on that evening, while the staff were busy checking-in guests ,he [Sekoni] came to give irrelevant directive, so, the staff have to tell him to wait until they are done checking-in the guests because the guests come first. At this point, he became angry, and as always he started raining abusive languages on the staff. He banged front office desk while shouting and threatening to dismiss staff,” they claimed.

They accused the sales manager of bullying a female staff who is working at Front Office. “This issue has been raised on several occasions to the HR office, but no action is taken to remedy the situation,” they said.

The local staff also accused him of almost beating up one of the chief engineer of the hotel for no just reason. They said that the incident has led to a very bad working relationship between Sekoni and the entire Engineering Department.

“He [the sales director] nearly fought with the Assistant Financial Controller because of an issue of payment that the account department had with a supplier which does not relate to him or his department at all,” they said.

They explained that a lady supplied wine to the Hotel. “The Hotel has a one month payment policy. The lady came for payment when it was not due. The account staff explained the procedure for payment to her, but she was not satisfied with that and threatened to use her influence to get her payment. She then went to Daniel and explained her situation. Instead of asking what the issue is, Sekoni went straight to the account department and started shouting on top of his voice in an abusive manner. It was at this point that the Assistant Financial Controller intervened and explained to him what had happened, but he did not listen. He insulted the Assistant Financial Controller and nearly had a fight with him,” they said.

They said that Sekoni is the second signatory to the hotel account, but the Account Department find it very difficult to fully operate when the General Manger is away, as it is very difficult to catch him to sign cheques or any other relevant document. “You will come to his office on several occasions and he will be nowhere to be found in his office,” they said.

The Account department views this as very unprofessional. “As the SOP states staffs should be at their office of work during working hours and not in their rooms,” they said.

They also accused Sekoni of being too aggressive and hostile to staff of kitchen and Food and Beverage Department. “The above complaint against Daniel should not be treated lightly. The working relationship between local and foreign staff with specific reference to the above issues is very bad,” they said.

The local staffs have demanded that the sales manager be replaced to ensure a peaceful working environment.

Radisson Reward is a program undertaken by the Hotel to keep and maintain loyalty of their guests by awarding rewards to their guests who enrolled for the program. There is an incentive for staff/hotel who exceed the mark of registering guests for the program.

“This has never been made known to the staffs since its inception. The staff are forced to register guests and insulted if the registration is not done. If the staff had known earlier that there is a reward for exceeding the mark of registration, it would have served as a motivational tool to them. Hotel receiving benefits for exceeding the pass mark of registration was only made know to the staffs in April this year. So if there was such a benefit since five years or more, why not tell the staffs about it rather than insult them for not registering guests for the program,” they said.

The staff said they have channeled their complaints to the general manager of hotel to see how best these issues will be resolved, but nothing seems to have happened.

The Sales Director Daniel Sekoni denied all the allegations. He said the allegations are orchestrated to smear his reputation after working in Sierra Leone for many years.

The General Manager of Radisson Blu Mammy Yoko Hotel, Mr George said he has not received any complaint from local staff against Sekoni since his posting to the hotel three months ago. He said that the allegations are tailored to stigmatise Sekoni.