Robertson Stewart

My experience as an employee and manager has now stretched over a period of nearly 40 years, during which time I've had numerous opportunities to learn. Arriving in France in 1992 and not speaking a word of French I managed to work my way up from cleaner to General Manager of some of the biggest Luxury Hotels in Europe (three of those hotels with a thousand rooms or more). ​ During the course of my career I have led teams from a handful to several hundred. I now teach management to Masters and Bachelors students in both English and French at reputed management schools in Paris France. I also coach and mentor executives and managers on an individual basis. Last but certainly not least I also run a training company with my partner in Paris. ​ I live in France between the west coast (Vendée) and Paris but tend to spend the majortiy of my time in the capital due to my various work obligations and activities. My greatest interest and passion is for people management and the way that this is evolving and what it is evolving towards. I started writing in 2019 following a discussion (actually an arguement!) that I had with various people regarding what was more important; the way that customers were treated in service industries or the way that employees were treated in those very same organisations. This discussion set me to thinking about the importance of companies taking a more employee centric view towards the way they were running their business. In other words being less "customer centric" and being more involved with the way they were managing relationships with their employees. Over the last years I have also taught a lot to my students about the importance of building internal value (for the employees) before external value for the customers (putting so to speak the "horse before the cart" and not behind it!). ​ All of this is what led me to writing my first book Employee Power which talks about why there is so much need today for a paradigm shift from customer to employee centric management. In the book I explain why it is that Employee Relationship Management (ERM) should always come before Customer Relationship Management (CRM). Not only that but I also explain in the book how to harness this power that I call employee power in order to create sustainable competitive advantage.