OSLO, Norway — As the European hotel industry starts to rebuild, the widest gap between operations and service is staffing, with many of those coming into the industry noticing their companies seem slow to change.
Yana Kyrylyuk, a hospitality student of the Breda University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands, said at the recent Hospitality Sales & Marketing Association International Europe that she and many of her peers “want to contribute and work for purpose-driven companies that want to make change.”
Such ideals go beyond pay, mental wellness and life-work balance, which other hoteliers participating at the conference said are equally important and definitely are on the discussion table as the pandemic looks to be abating.
Michael Wierling, director of human resources for Northern and Southern Europe at IHG Hotels & Resorts, said staffing considerations in the industry must change going forward.
“The majority of hotels have definitely worked with very long-established setups … [and on] to the way we incentivize, recognize and even reward colleagues at hotels,” he said.
This approach has shaped the culture at many hotels, but this is now changing.
“Many hotels have started to break up the way we work, but certainly not fast enough,” Wierling said.
More members of younger generations of hoteliers are those “who work with a purpose,” questioning the status quo, he said.
“The pandemic has seen human resources focusing on flexible working policies and working-from-home arrangements, which have become much more common today,” Wierling said, adding IHG added some of these ideas in 2019 and embedded them across its portfolio.
Such ideas will broaden the talent pool, as will the elimination of standalone departments.
“We no longer work in, or can afford to work in, departmental silos, so departments and teams have merged, mainly for pragmatic reasons, which provides unique opportunities,” he said.
“We even see this in sports nowadays. If players are in isolation, the bench players get their chance to shine,” he said, adding this provides new talent a chance to take leadership roles earlier than they might otherwise have done.
Leaning to Leadership
Hotel leaders have had to roll up their sleeves, and this has brought property teams closer together than ever before, he said.
Kyrylyuk said mandatory courses on leadership need to be part of all university curricula.
Susan Meinl, owner of employment, talent and facilitation consultancy Susan Meinl Consulting, said an understanding of leadership can help better align employees with their company's mission.
“It is a motivator when you see where a company is going, where a leader is going, what is the mission and the vision of the person you are actually working with,” Meinl said.
Emile Schelfhout, chair of HSMAI Europe Student Council and a student at the ESSEC Business School in Nice, France, said his internships were organized locally, not in collaboration with regional or international offices of hotel brands.
“It could have been such a good connection to keep me engaged with the company and brands, and that simply did not happen,” he said.
Daniël Groot Koerkamp, a student at the Hotel Management School Maastricht, recently interned as rooms division operations trainee at the Pulitzer Amsterdam hotel. He said the highlight of his internships was the appreciation that came from being listened to and asked for his opinions.
But finding internships and permanent roles are difficult, Schelfhout said.
“[They are] such a challenge, and you just start automatically exploring different industries because sometimes it is just so difficult to find that job in the industry you love,” he added.
Hospitality-focused talent might not enter the industry, while the pandemic also has seen the industry lose valuable team members, Wierling said.
Independent hotels and smaller chains have felt the pinch more than most because of the idea the industry is less stable and because of closed borders stopping the flow of talent across Europe, he said.
Training and Flexibility
Other initiatives to engage potential employees include free online hospitality training, Wierling said.
“Hotel companies provide a great deal of training and development these days and certainly the trend goes to providing a lot of it virtually where you cannot get all learners and colleagues together in a classroom, even more so for social-distancing rules and also pragmatically,” he said. “[IHG brand] Even Hotels’ morning briefings are these days online."
“Purpose-driven companies” still must have the guest in the center, Wierling said.
“No doubt the [hotel] industry has some strong parameters and stigmas. … Anyone in working in the industry needs to be clear that it is all about service. We are creating experiences for guests, and if that is not fueling you with energy and pride, to be honest then [the industry] is not for you,” Wierling said. “Not everyone starts at the bottom, but you have to learn the soft skills. But the industry is all about ‘we,’ not ‘I,” an industry that gives as much as it takes, and where workers choose to be and stay because of the camaraderie, the team-ship and the culture."
He said IHG is trialing new flexible work patterns in mature markets, with the idea of adding them elsewhere, but that employees always will be asked to do their share of shifts that some might not see as ideal.
“Well-being is also something that we did not speak of before the pandemic,” Wierling said.
“There are a whole range of new initiatives and benefits the hospitality industry offers from more flexible working hours to more modern benefits to even free days off for volunteering activities,” he said.