July 15, 2026
From Worst to First on Glassdoor Ratings: James Ferguson, Wurzak Hotel Group on EX Lore podcast
When James Ferguson moved from general manager to Director of Culture at Wurzak Hotel Group, he was stepping into a role that had never existed at the company before. There was no orientation, defined values, nor a shared sense of what “good” looked like across its properties. What there was, instead, was an extremely low Glassdoor rating of 2.5.
A few years following on from Ferguson’s role change, that rating peaked to 4.8, and now sits steady at 4. In the latest episode of EX Lore, a new employee experience podcast from CXM, Ferguson tells host Becky Norman exactly how that happened, and what other employee experience leaders can take from it.
Watch the full episode below or on Spotify.
Building a Culture From Nothing
Ferguson notes that the starting point was ground zero. “It was very clear that we really didn’t have a culture,” he says. Hospitality businesses, he explains, are often so focused on serving the guest that the foundations get overlooked entirely. Without a clear sense of shared values, people fill the gap themselves, for better or worse.
He started by establishing clarity. Before any programme or initiative, Wurzak defined its pillars and what each one meant in practice. That groundwork then moved through three phases: awareness, education and activation. Each one of these was designed to stop values becoming, in Ferguson’s words, “part of the decoration.”
How On-The-Spot Recognition Changed Things
The turning point, Ferguson says, came with a programme called Wurzak WOW: an on-the-spot recognition scheme in which recognition cards are reset every Friday. Nothing carries over, meaning leaders and team members alike have to earn valued-aligned recognition again the following week.
It is a detail that speaks to a wider argument Ferguson makes throughout the conversation, and one that will resonate with anyone tracking the current data on recognition. Research from Reward Gateway and Edenred in 2026 found that 57% of leaders believe employees frequently feel recognised for their work, while only a third of employees say the same. Ferguson has seen that gap first-hand, and traces it back to a common misconception among managers.
“There’s this illusion that… I’m paying you, you’re doing your job. I don’t need to recognise that,” he says. His counter-argument is built on a sports metaphor he returns to often in his new book about the difference between celebrating touchdowns and celebrating first downs. You’ve got to recognise the small wins along the way.
A Book Born From a Cancer Diagnosis
That book, Seek the Good and Celebrate, released on 5 May, examines the internal habits and values that sustain a leader long before any culture or recognition programme gets built.
The inspiration for this book is deeply personal. Just months after his first book came out, Ferguson was diagnosed with cancer. It was during that experience, he says, that the mission he’d spent his career searching for externally turned out to have been inside him all along.
He built a leadership model around the acronym CONFETTI, covering eight habits from celebrating often to nurturing trust, which he shares best practices for in the episode.
The full conversation goes into detail on Wurzak’s recognition tracker, how the organisation drove up its Glassdoor rating, and the strategies Ferguson uses to hold managers to account for recognition.
EX Lore is CXM’s podcast series for people leaders, exploring the real stories behind better employee experience. Subscribe and follow on Spotify and YouTube.
