ATL Standard

This past Friday, notice arrived at Hotel Indigo Atlanta Midtown to immediately shut down its food and beverage operation and furlough 11 of it 20 associates.

Those furloughed at Hotel Indigo Atlanta Midtown join a growing list of thousands of associates have been furloughed from their jobs at locations run by Remington Hotels, a nationwide hospitality chain, due of COVID-19. 

Officials with Hotel Indigo Atlanta Midtown say the furloughs are necessary, but painful.

Remington Hotels President and CEO Sloan Dean III.

"We are a 'company team' and fully understand that this action is necessary," Gabriele Webster, General Manager, and Jim Flanagan, Hotel Controller at the Hotel Indigo Atlanta Midtown, said in a joint statement provided to ATL Standard. "Turns out, Remington was ahead of the pack, as many food and beverage establishments have since ceased or curtailed operations temporarily, due to the social distancing initiative."

It was only the beginning as Remington Hotels and other employers across the world faced unprecedented challenged posed by COVID-19.

The first employee Webster and Flanagan had to furlough was one of their "star Associates," identified only as "Makeda, a guest focused and sales-motivated mixologist."

Makeda previously gave notice last month that she would need to take time off to donate one of her kidneys to her brother but on Wednesday, March 11, advised Webster and Flanagan that the proceedure was pushed back because of the COVID-19 pandemic.  

"We were relieved, as we were dreading doing without Makeda for six weeks - although she insisted that she would get back much sooner than that," Webster and Flanagan said.

Friday came with a world of changes and Webster and Flanagan broke the news to her that she would be furloughed.

"Not pleasant for us," the two said in their statement. "We described the situation, and how it will affect her, as the hotel was closing the food and beverage operations temporarily."

Makeda said she understood and then announced she "would do any job in the hotel, please consider her for staying on," Webster and Flanagan said. "She, like so many others, lives paycheck to paycheck."

But there was no other job for her as she was one of thousands being furloughed.

"It was very difficult to advise her that there was no other positions available," Webster and Flanagan said. "We did promise her that she would be among the first associates to be called back to re-open our operation."

No one at this time knows when that will be.

"Remington Hotels is struggling in the face of the coronavirus," Remington Hotels President and CEO Sloan Dean III said in a statement.

Remington Hotels, founded in 1968, is a hotel management company that also provides providing property management services. Its hospitality wing manages 86 hotels in 26 states across 17 brands.

The chain has been hit hard by COVID-19, which has sunk its business to "beyond depression levels" and Remington anticipates losses this year in the hundreds of millions, Dean said.

Remington Hotels expects hotels that it manages to run at 90 percent lower occupancy levels in April 2020, compared to the same month last year, Dean said.

"Most all of our 6800 associates are furloughed," he said, adding that the entire situation is a "disaster."