Author: Gil Mulders, Chair of the HSMAI Region Europe People & Culture Advisory Board and Founder of the Talent Network
Little did we know when we created the HSMAI Europe People & Culture advisory board just two years ago that our world would experience so much change. Our conversations have always been focused on Attraction – Selection – Development and Retention of the best talents in the business.
The “WHAT” hasn’t change, we still need to attract the best, select for passion and attitude , develop and retain. However the “HOW” and the “WHY” have evolved dramatically with the health and economic crisis that follows.
The diversity of background within our board, ranging from Operation, HR, Learning and Academia in large and smaller organizations allowed us to re-think and challenge the traditional pre-COVID approaches and also to temper the post-COVID knee-jerk reactions we have seen in the business.
We covered each of the above aspects of People & Culture in hospitality and asked ourselves the following questions:
- How do you attract people to an industry that has been hit the hardest by the economic downturn ? Are hotel schools making the appropriate adaptations to help their students secure the best jobs in what remains the industry that employees the largest number of people in the world? How do you keep your best talents from jumping ship?
- Which are the skills and competencies that you need to run a successful business during a storm ? Which of those need to be developed or acquired?
- How can we keep employee engagement up when we need to downsize? What is the role of mentoring?
More questions then there are answers, however we have kept supporting HSMAI members and the industry at large with tools to guide attraction, selection and on-the job leadership development. We supported the creation of the Excelling at Customer Centricity Virtual Class, supported the Mike Leven Mentoring Programme and together with the HSMAI Europe team and HSMAI Foundation, are bringing together CHRO from the industry in a virtual round table to expand the conversation
If you’d like to know more about the HSMAI Europe People & Culture Advisory Board, please get in touch with HSMAI Region Europe at postbox@hsmai.eu