Community is often a word you associate with the people and places in which you live and play. However, community can also be built with those who surround you in your place of work. For the last 14 years, Azurayah has been a part of the Burke Williams community. She has worked as a Massage Therapist, Massage Manager, Manager on Duty, and General Manager. Seven and a half years ago, Azurayah stepped into the role of General Manager to lead the team at the Burke Williams San Francisco location. Thanks to Azurayah and her team, she has been able to create and build a sense of community within the spa as well as build relationships with the businesses and residents of San Francisco. These relationships have provided Burke Williams in San Francisco with the pleasure of continuing to transform people's day through the last few years - a luxury many businesses have not had. Read below as Azurayah describes how the team at Burke Williams in San Francisco serves each other and their city, by embodying the values that Burke Williams has built itself on from the beginning.
Name: Azurayah Light Joined: 2009
We are awesome, of course! LOL. Here in San Francisco, we are a big family. We are always helping each other out, jumping in to support each other and picking up where one has left off. The team really has each other’s interests in mind. Our employees love to attend our team events as well as have their own get-togethers outside of the spa, which really shows that they enjoy spending time with each other.
For 7 years, San Francisco has participated in the Burke Williams Adopt-A-Family program. During the holidays we work with a family and help pick out items that they need. Pre-Covid, our team would go shopping together to pick out the gifts. It was so much fun to do that together! However, now they are only accepting Gift Cards. We have chosen to work with the Raphael House which supports homeless and low income families that are local to the area.
In addition to working with the Raphael House, we often support our employees' kids with fundraisers through their schools or one of our many members and the causes they work closely with.
We are in the industry of service, and I feel it’s always important to give back. Our employees do that daily just by working at Burke Williams. Going above and beyond, by paying it forward to the less fortunate, is just who we are as a family and a team. I am a strong believer in what goes around comes around. I know personally how it feels when someone helps me out for no reason other than just being kind. I love the opportunity to be able to do that for others. The best part is when kindness comes as a total surprise.
We have a lot of fun events throughout the year. During the holidays, the managers always enjoy feeding the staff the week between Christmas and New Years. The holidays are always so busy, and we want to create a stress-free environment for our staff to come together and breathe for a bit; reconnect if you will. It is one less thing that they have to stress about.