A training programme to unearth the UK’s next generation of hotel GM’s and improve the industry’s appeal is being launched. Louvre Hotels Group operates seventeen Campanile Hotels and one Premiere Classe hotel in the UK. The group has announced it is opening its ‘Fast and Curious’ training programme to its workers in the UK for the first time.
The course will see hospitality workers undergo three weeks of intense training to gather the knowledge required for the roles, focusing on accountancy, revenue, recruitment and social media.
Candidates will then be sent out on a series of experiences starting with six months in their current hotel before moving on to a larger hotel for three months. Another three months will then be spent overseas, before returning to undergo a six month trial as a general manager in the UK.
The expansion into the UK comes after Jin Jiang, the parent company of Louvre Hotels Group noted the success of the course in France, which has generated around eighty general managers since it began in 2009.
The ‘Fast and Curious’ programme expansion also comes at a time when there are industry-wide concerns about EU nationals returning home because of the UK’s impending Brexit.
In a report from the British Hospitality Association last year showed that sixty per cent of its members cited receiving no or little British applications for vacancies as the main reason for employing EU nationals. Reporting also that members had concerns over a skills gap should EU workers have to return to their country of origin.
Rooms Divisions Manager Kathy O’Hare from the Campanile Hotel in Manchester, and Deputy General Manager Jessica Evans from the Campanile Hotel in Wakefield are the first duo to take part in the ‘Fast and Curious’ programme.
Rinske Bakker, HR manager for Louvre Hotels Group in Western Europe, says the hotel chain is on a mission to improve the perception of the hotel industry in Britain.
Bakker expanded by telling us:
“Our industry needs to be doing a better job at selling itself to attract the best workers for longer. However, this is easier said than done as a sizeable proportion of our UK workforce originates from the EU, so we equally need to be ready to react if a lot of them were to leave the UK.
The starting point for us is to make the industry more attractive to prospective workers not just from the UK, but from across the globe to ensure we attract a high calibre work force.
If we can demonstrate to current and potential workers that they can develop their careers with us, we stand a good chance of helping hospitality to improve its image and prevent them from leaving the industry.
The ‘Fast and Curious’ programme is a springboard for those that are passionate about their job and ambitious about their long-term career.
This course has a proven track record in France of taking receptionists and waiters into general managers within an 18 month period, so we’re excited to be expanding this opportunity into the UK.
During the three week training programme participants will learn the basics of how varied life is as a general manager. This includes how to read invoices and influence their hotel’s profit and loss, setting price strategies using market research, how to interview candidates for job vacancies and manage people, and utilising social media to promote their hotel.
Hotels nowadays are looking for general managers who are flexible and capable of operating across different strands of work – be it managing a workforce craving more autonomy, improving profit or marketing the hotel on social media – and this new course reflects that.”
For more information about the ‘Fast and Curious’ programme click here