Sales executives of Harborside at Atlantis on Paradise Island have levelled accusations of racism, disrespect and non-professionalism against their project leader William Brinkerhoff, appealing to the parent company, Starwood Vacation Ownership, to rectify an “oozing open wound.”
The festering conflict between the sales team and its management escalated with the recent firings of the General Sales Manager Lillian Hepburn Johnson and the Assistant General Sales Manager Nadeen Lowe, who had backed employees in their complaints.
Frustrations reached a pinnacle last month, with the workers resorting to industrial action; staging a sick-out.
“There is without a doubt a terminal sickness permeating this organization,” said one sales executive during a lengthy meeting called to air lingering grievances. “The extreme moral decay visible can only be the results of the trampling of basic human values. This has resulted in feelings of distrust toward the project director, experiences of disrespect and racial discrimination from the project director.”
Harborside is a multi-million dollar timeshare enterprise, a subsidiary of South African hotel mogul Sol Kerzner’s Atlantis project.
During a lengthy meeting between both sides on January 31, salespersons expressed their concerns about what they labelled as racially slurred remarks, allegedly from Mr. Brinkerhoff, dishonest business practices, reduced income opportunities, a toxic working environment and fraudulent work permits.
Mr. Brinkerhoff was quoted as saying: “I am here to put all of the inmates back in their cells and show them who runs the asylum. I need another 15 work permits because Bahamian people find any excuses not to work and Starwood has no time for local culture.”
The workers claimed that what has resulted is a keen level of uneasiness. The salespersons also expressed concerns about accountability, indicating that they were never informed how bonuses are calculated. They also called for the establishment of Harborside’s own Sales Recovery Team and cited a lack of trust in the project director.
The Bahama Journal contacted Mr. Brinkerhoff for a response to the accusations but was told that he was “in a meeting,” and that all press enquiries were to be referred to the Public Affairs Director Ed Fields. “I am not aware of such a problem at this point, and where there is such problems we have a grievance process through which we handle all staff issues,” Mr. Fields told the Journal on Friday.
The former General Sales Manager who lost her job after she supported members of their sales team in their claims, is reportedly credited with leading her team to earn $32 million in net budget in 2002.
Given three promotions within the last 14 months, Ms. Hepburn Johnson was the first Bahamian General Manager at the three year old Atlantis Timeshare.
Frustrated and incensed, members of the sales team chose not to keep their anxieties with management private.
On February 1, seeking a higher power, the disgruntled workers, wrote to Joy Theiss, Starwood’s vice president of human resources, laying out their list of concerns.
“The General Sales Manager has expressed our concerns to the Assistant Project Director on several occasions, and so have we. He seems unwilling to assist us in resolving issues as well. Further, we have always bee aware of the lack of respect by the project director for our management team,” the leader reads.
During the sales executive meeting at the end of January, one sales representative pointed out that “we are no rogues attempting to bring Starwood to its knees.”
“We are not attempting to engage in a fight with Starwood that would result in unnecessary loss of revenue. We are skilled sales people of Bahamian decent who want to embrace this Starwood culture.
“We love our jobs, many of us view this as a career, and we enjoying working for this company. However, we feel that Starwood does not acknowledge that they are also benefiting from this relationship. We may not have been exposed to a corporate culture of this magnitude…This has been perceived as weakness and ineptitude,” the sales executive said.
The Bahama Journal
