Hospitality careers need to be embraced fully and industry newcomers should eat, sleep and drink hospitality, as Olivier Jacquin of Mangalis Hotel Group explains in this TV show.

Hospitality careers require patience

I grew uh, for the past 25 years with big hotel chains, then I learned from them, and I gave the maximum of my capacity. My advice should be to be always keep an eye open to what's happening in the world. You should eat hotels, you should think hotels, you should absorb our hospitality industry like a coffee in the morning, or a uh whiskey on night. You need to be connected, 24 hours in our industry. It's a fantastic industry, it's a demanding industry, it's moving a lot, you see all the movement in design, in the operation, the way of thinking, the distribution changed a lot for the past 5, 10 years, and we need to adapt permanently uh, our skills, but I would say that if you feel yourself, here in the middle of your body, that hospitality is one of the key sector, you should jump into that. I have not a special advice to give, but just to stay connected and give your patience – it's a patient business, you know, we don't send rockets on the moon, we do hospitality business, we build hotels for sure, but at the end of the day, we operate hotels to make the guest satisfied to sleep well, to eat well, and to come back at home and to propose these clients to come back again on the site, and to make him loyal to the brand and to the continent we sell that's the most important, to make our guest happy.

Browse more videos by the Hospitality 250 experts and find more insight into hospitality careers and other hospitality topics.

Developing talent is a core part of any business and what companies are looking for in a new hire is changing. Remy Merckx looks at recruiting digital skill into a company.

Developing talent with digital skill

We are not, not digital by nature, we have to become digital in order to keep up in this business. So, it’s hiring new competencies, bringing people from outside of the industry – hotel industry has been historically very close in the way they hire people. You know, you had to work for different hotel companies before allowing yourself to work for another hotel company. Is that a good model? Probably 10 years ago, today we are very happy to bring people from outside who work for companies like Coca Cola, or to work for more technical companies or agencies. It brings a completely different vision also to the hotel industry and I hope that we’ll have good results in the way we are going to develop this industry moving forward.

Keep browsing Hospitality TV for more TV shows and briefings on developing talent, recruitment, looking after staff, and digital competencies.

 

Hospitality careers success can hinge on the company you choose to work for, as Daniel Ruff of Wyndham discusses in this TV show.

Hospitality careers advice

So, for me I think the most important decisions that I've made in my career are really around the people I've worked with and for. I think, you know, companies are fantastic, and you have to believe in a company's vision, but ultimately you're working for great people, and I think the most exciting thing about joining Wyndham is I really believe that we're a company full of great people, and it's been a fantastic first three months for me, to really jump into that and see it first-hand.

Browse more videos by the Hospitality 250 experts and find more insight into hospitality careers and other hospitality topics

So while consumer behaviour changes, it doesn't change in the way that people necessarily predicted a few years ago. We've actually see an increased call volume in our call centres at the same time as an explosion of activity on our digital sites and on our apps, so I think that's an interesting thing; you can't put all of your eggs in one basket these days, because the call centres are becoming more of a customer contact centre and doing a lot of things that are less traditional. At least in the Wyndham world, we're find ways to use these customer contact centres more innovatively than have been used in the past.

I just saw this morning on the television here in Berlin, a whole transmission on, a new concept of, working only with icons, so we don't have a language any more, but we work only with icons, which would help to have all the language issues worldwide eliminated in one go. But this is very much the new generation, I mean everything is, with pictures, everything is visual, everything is, short and fast, you know, I mean what we see in the span of attention is not too high, not too long, so you need to interest in them and involve them in a very short period of time. I think visuals help a lot there. And I also support the creativity of the young generation, there's a lot of creativity and imagination, and if you try to, to limit that down to words, it’s not in line with how they function. So that's what we see, and and it means that in our curricular at our school and our university programs, we work very much with simulations, and er, interactive courses etc, so to really involve them directly and give them the chance to, to, work on their creativity. And we see that happening, and because, I mean, our students yesterday, that one against it was Cornell, it was really based on a sort of really creative imagination of how the world could be if you look into the developments of an Airbnb and all other kind of of Uber's etc that is going on. If you look into, into this development, they find a sort of very easy going answer, it's not complicated. And I think this is one of the skills of the new generation.  

I think what they are is, is offering consumers this choice. I might be willing to stay at a, a mainstream hotel whilst I'm at work, but equally at weekends I might fancy something differer. I might fancy going and staying in a hostel in a European city with my family, and I might not necessarily want to have that full service experience. I might be very comfortable to stay in a, in a hostel with my family and not necessarily need a dinner and bed and breakfast offering; I might be just happy to go and sort myself out. And I think also, the offerings in terms of some of them are a bit edgier for example; maybe that's something that I might be interested in exploring and I think this, this is the, this is what it's all about now, it's about choice, and I think then in terms of the safety from a banking perspective, if these are well managed propositions, if they've got sustainable cash flows, sustainable business models, this is exactly something which a funder would want to explore.

I think a lot of it is just an entirely new approach aimed at the millennial’s, which is lets make it fun, lets make it communal, you know the old style hotel, with the elderly concierge in his slightly battered jacket, whose a little bit hard to approach, and a bog standard room that, you know, has one bit of standard art in it. I think all of these things are going away now. People do want, perhaps a bit more buzz in the public areas, a bit more genuine comfort, in the bedroom areas, you know, it was Barry Sternlicht who started this with a "heavenly bed" and a "heavenly shower". And suddenly people are realising, you know "what do the guests actually want?" you know, they want, good mattresses, good pillows, good duvets, good showers, ok, but then when they come down, they want a bit of life and I think most of the modern brands are creating this kind of community feel, which is much more kind of modern and with it.

Developing talent and hiring the right staff is a very important part of running a hotel. However recruitment isn't always given the attention it deserves. Nicolas Mayer looks at People vs Products.

Developing talent takes effort

If you look at the efforts that we spend in selecting new napkins, versus the efforts we spend in selecting a new front office agent, you will see that much more management attention is done on the napkins, than on the front office employee. So in the asset game, you will go through a purchasing and request for proposals, you will order samples, you will test them, you will give them to your laundry to test wash, and eventually you will go into negotiations, and then you have napkins. Most recruitment for a server at your breakfast café if at all an hour of management attention is spent on it. Since we all inherently realise what the impact of a good employee can be, or what the damage of a false hire can be to you, it is still very surprising to me that we don't focus more energy resources and management attention on the recruiting on the line staff. People that are gems, of course have a lot of opportunities, and they have a lot of ways to move, not just for money, but they will often move to places where they feel they are going to be more appreciated, so this is, again, a question of celebrating someone's achievement, a team member that is a gem, and gets acknowledged as a gem, and that gets celebrated for it, and that goes through a regular course of you know, of your promotions and training, but not an accelerated one, just a normal one, will tend to stay much longer.

The Hospitality Channel is very interested in approaches to recruitment and developing talent. Look out for the next 10 industry experts to be announced as part of Hospitality250.

Workplace culture is beginning to incorporate more efforts to improve the wellness of staff. In this TV show Nicolas Mayer discusses the benefits of napping.

Workplace culture and employee wellness

We have a room in the office which has you know, ten recliners or eight recliners and we encourage people to go take naps. So we have a room in the office which has you know, ten recliners or eight recliners and we encourage people to go take naps. Now, new joining team members find that rather strange, you know they say 'I can't take a nap, you know, I can't go tell my boss, Boss, I'm going for a nap now' but that's exactly what we want to do. We actually had to kind of be role models, and start napping as partners in order to show our teams that it's okay to take a nap. Scientifically it's proven, and I can also prove it from my own, where I can contribute from my own experience, these power naps, you know, 20, 25 minutes when you need them, they are fantastic, and the purpose is not to send you back to work you know, a lean mean working machine, but it's just to get you balanced again. Continue in your work, you will be a little more productive in your work, but then equally important to me, send you home back to your family and friends, not as a wreck, but as someone that certainly has worked a good day, but is still there, physically, mentally and is able to you know enjoy and partake in his family life, and his friends' life, and his sports and whatever, so napping is fantastic. I can highly recommend it.

Take a look at our briefings for more discussions about good workplace culture and wellness in tourism.

Hospitality service, be it good or bad, will be what a hotel is remembered for. In this TV show Nicolas Mayer discusses how good service is a home away from home.

A focus on hospitality service

Many industry participants I believe sometimes have lost focus on the fact that service has at least an equal part to play to product. In provision of services. So very specifically, hospitality has come out of a service orientation where the building was important, but it was never the key. So you had lots of inns that were not so glorious but great service, whereas it has too much shifted now into an asset game, with service being left to the side. Ritz-Carlton, in the 80s, in the 90s mainly in the 90s, did something very much right, and I think it has been adopted by many other ones, sometimes even improved, but looking back at Ritz-Carlton and saying what did they do back then, why did they do it, what was George Schultz's motivation back at that time? I think from there you find many of the seeds that has now seeped into many other companies that do it right. Ultimately service is attention and time from someone that is taking care of me when I am away from home. And I think that is a very important element, I mean, even very seasoned travellers have a certain residual, let's say loneliness when you are travelling, right? You are away from home, you are away from your family, you are away from your, you know, familiar surroundings and as you arrive in a new place, very psychologically intuitively, you are looking for experiences that make you feel welcome and warm, to say you are safe here, you're welcome here, you're appreciated here, and in that space is where service happens. It's probably not very complex from an intellectual perspective, but it is never the less very difficult to get it right because it's long term, and it's consistent. You know, if you built a building, you have to have a one-time effort, get it right. Providing service and making sure you have a team, a workforce within your hotel, that consistently provides this kind of service, means that you have to be on it every day.

The Hospitality Channel is very interested in hospitality service, operations and staff. Look out for the next 10 industry experts to be announced as part of Hospitality250.