Networking/Inside Profile

WORLD TRAVEL MARKET 2011 - INSTITUTE OF HOSPITALITY LEADERSHIP SEMINAR

Profile Managing Director Liz Hartstone joined industry leaders to look at the changing nature of the hospitality workforce. Leader was there to watch and learn.

This year there was even more reason than usual  to look forward to World Travel Market 2011, held at Excel London from 7th – 10th November. Liz Hartstone, Profile’s Managing Director for London would be sharing centre stage with industry heavyweights, discussing the future of hospitality leadership and recruitment.

Organised by the Institute of Hospitality (Ed’s note: see Institute of Hospitality: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow in Leader 9) the interactive seminar, held on 9th November, was entitled ‘Human Capital – a look at the changing nature of the Hospitality Labour Force – managing the labour market’. The hour-long session was one of a series planned and hosted by the IoH to highlight a range of critical business issues facing the industry.

As the recruitment expert on the panel, Liz sat alongside Peter Lederer, Chairman of Gleneagles Hotels Limited, Guy Crawford, CEO of the Jumeirah Group (Ed’s note: see Gathering Speed in this issue of Leader) and Sean Wheeler, Area Director of Human Resources for The Dorchester Collection. Panellists took it in turn to express their views and field questions from the 100-plus audience and seminar chairman, IoH CEO Philippe Rossiter.

Views from the panel
Below is a summary of some of the ideas shared during the lively panel and audience discussion:

• Companies have to make sure they use the skills that young people have today, which are very different from the skills of the past. It is likely that a 40-year old has a different view of management from a 25 year old.
  
  
• Training has to be a lot more individualised. More and more, individuals want and expect tailored training plans based on their skill sets.
  
  
• New technologies are very useful tools, and companies should adapt and use them in ways meaningful and familiar to their staff (sometimes texts trump e-mails as a mode of communicating with employees).
  
  
• The age of the ‘generalist’ has gone, with skill sets getting narrower. The way to reach the top is to have a specialism – e.g. a person who knows restaurants should run restaurants.
  
  
• Global companies with their own company ‘cultures’ have to train people to behave the same way across borders, in different countries.
  
  
• Although there has been improvement over the years, General Managers today have to understand the needs of owners and understand such management-critical areas as strategy and account management.
  
  
• Financial acumen has been growing. In the last few years, it appears that job candidates have become much more financially articulate and astute.
  
  
• Mentoring programmes, such as the Oxford Brookes Bacchus Mentoring Scheme, have gone a long way to improving students’ knowledge and skills required by industry, affording some mentees the opportunity to work in the industry
• Some companies are going out of their way to attract older people into the industry. In the UK, the hospitality industry still has difficulty attracting young people.
  
  
• As much of industry growth will come from the budget sector, thought should be given to how this will affect the industry’s demand for skills.
  
  
• If the industry really wants the brightest and the best, it has to start paying them properly. A qualification from university means that the person should not be treated as if he or she didn’t have any qualifications. The industry has to create great career paths with good salaries.
  
  
• Companies have to listen to staff as much can be learnt from them – what their aspirations might be for their children, for example. How well a company treats its staff has a huge impact on their motivation and how they treat customers. ‘The quality of external service will never be better than the internal quality service.’
  
  
• Values and a positive attitude are still more important to some companies than industry-specific skills, as the latter can be taught.
  
  
• The key is to empower people – to inspire and engage them to become in turn, more involved and engaged. It also makes good business sense.
  
  
• The industry should be recruiting from everywhere, not just hotel schools but business schools. Hotel schools have to wake up to the fact that if they don’t provide what industry needs, they may not be around for long (Ed’s note: seems like a subject for another debate!).

To find out more about the IoH Leadership seminars at World Travel Market 2011, visit the Institute of Hospitality website at www.instituteofhospitality.org. You can contact Liz Hartstone at liz.hartstone@pmsr.com.