This story is part of NPR's ongoing series about social entrepreneurs — people around the world who are dreaming up innovative ways to develop communities and solve social problems.
The social experiment at the Soria Moria hotel is the brainchild of the Norwegian couple who founded it in 2007. They came up with the idea partly as an antidote to the side effects of booming tourism in Siem Reap, as visitors from around the world began flocking to the ancient temples. Investors from Korea, Japan, China and other countries were building hundreds of hotels in a town that was a sleepy backwater only a decade ago, with dirt roads and houses made of palm fronds. Those hotels were providing urgently needed jobs, but they often required employees to work long hours for little pay or benefits.
"The thing is, I don't like to talk down other hotels. But I know there are cases where employees are being exploited," says Kristin Hansen, 33, the Soria Moria's co-founder. Hansen and her husband bought a long-term lease on an existing hotel after they fell in love with Cambodia. They changed the name to Soria Moria, which comes from a Norwegian fairy tale about the search for a castle and happiness. Hansen says they wanted their hotel to be a model of the right way to treat employees.
"Sometimes they don't even pay employees; they just bring in poor people from the countryside to basically work day and night for food and accommodation. No salary," Hansen says. "There are many, many horror stories like that here."
An executive from the Cambodia Hotel Association says he has heard similar stories. But, he says, most hotels treat employees fairly.
Hansen and her husband wanted to treat their employees better. So they began paying double time after eight-hour shifts; they provided almost four weeks' paid vacation, paid maternity and paternity leave and generous health insurance. They have also paid for staff to attend college and graduate school.
Then, a few years ago, Hansen and her husband started thinking about selling the hotel and moving back to Norway. They realized there would be no guarantee that a new owner would treat the Soria Moria's employees the same way.
"And this started in my mind to form an idea that by the time we leave, we must make sure we hand over this to our staff, to our employees," Hansen says. "Because they helped us build the business, they should have this. Not somebody else."
Majority Ownership Turns Over To Staff
So three years ago, Hansen called the staff to the dining room.
" 'Would you guys like to be partners in the business?' That's what I said. There was kind of no response, and like, I think they thought we were joking. And then they got most of all scared," Hansen recalls. "Most of them are from farmer families; they've grown up living under the poverty line, living on less than a dollar a day. So to suddenly become a business owner, it's a big step."
Hansen and her husband pushed the employees to take that step. They turned over majority ownership on May 1, 2011.
Here's how the ownership system works: Hansen and her husband formed a new company on behalf of the employees, the Soria Moria Educational Development Program. Then they essentially gave that company 51 percent ownership in the hotel. Employees earn shares in the new company based on a formula.
Full-time employees earn 1 ownership point for every dollar's worth of salary they make. They earn 2 ownership points for each month they work at the hotel. Managers also get bonus points.
That means a room cleaner who has worked at the Soria Moria for years could accumulate as many ownership points as a supervisor who has worked at the hotel for a shorter time. All the employees elect the board of directors, which in turn appoints the top managers.
Day to day, the Soria Moria runs pretty much like a normal hotel: The managers tell employees what to do.
But the staff is paid more than average for Cambodia — between $75 and $300 a month. And the employee owners get part of the profits. This past spring, each employee received between one and almost three months' extra salary from profit sharing.
Hotel guests eating dinner in the dining room say they don't know the details of the Soria Moria's ownership structure, but they love the hotel's spirit.
"You can see they are not exploited, and they are working for their own. And that makes lot of difference," says Joachim Pilzecker, from Germany.
A British guest loves the hotel so much, he wrote a song about it.
"There's a hotel you'll never forget," Mike Bishop croons. "They all work together for times you will treasure, Soria Maria forever."
A Transfer Of Power
Hansen and her husband have discovered that it's one thing to give people power on paper; it's another thing to help people who have grown up poor and powerless to start behaving like they have power.
Some employee-owners, for instance, talk about Hansen as if she were a benevolent monarch.
"Kristin treat us like a family. Kristin love us and trust us," says Phhov Tol, as she mops a guest room. "Kristin always told us that everyone is the owner of this hotel, it's not her, so everyone can make decision." Tol pauses. "I'm not quite sure I'm smart enough."
According to the hotel's ownership rules, the employee-owners vote on any decisions that involve spending more than $1,000 — such as buying a new refrigerator or building a swimming pool.
And sure enough, when the staff started voting on decisions a couple of years ago, they basically rubber-stamped whatever Hansen said.
"Cambodian people, they don't think they have the right to make decisions," says Ny Sandayvy, an interpreter who helped with this story. "Especially women. Because before, they never make their own decision. Most of the decision is making by their parent or husband," Sandayvy says.
Learning To Make Decisions
Hansen saw this problem, too, so she sent the staff to Possibilities World — a management training center in Siem Reap — to learn how to make decisions.
During a recent afternoon session, about a dozen of the hotel's employees gathered around a conference table. "Today's going to be really important," said trainer Noem Chhunny. "We're going to learn accountability, responsibility to the whole team, not just individual success."
Over the next few hours, Chunny led the group through a series of games, using props like ropes and hula hoops, designed to teach teamwork and trust.
One of the hotel's receptionists said she was learning not to get angry and defensive when guests complain, but to focus instead on solving their problems. A waiter in the hotel restaurant said he had learned that he should face conflicts instead of running from them.
"Last week I have a fight with a cook. Until now, I don't talk to him, and [he] doesn't talk to me," said Yuk Chhork, through an interpreter. "But now I realize that I have to change."
Later, Chhork followed up and talked things over with the cook.
But if there was one moment when the staff realized they do have control, it was probably their confrontation with Hansen over the staff vacation trip.
Every year since they bought the hotel, Hansen and her husband would close down the hotel for four days during slow season, and they would take the staff to a resort — all expenses and their salaries paid. But last year, Hansen was worried they couldn't afford it because the world economy was shaky, and the hotel's reservations were down.
So she called the entire staff to the dining room where she first asked if they would like to take over the hotel. And Hansen urged them to hold off on the trip.
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