Accor is gearing up to meet the employment challenges that will come with the largest hotel development boom in Australia and New Zealand for two decades.
The addition of over 130 new-build hotels for the hospitality industry in the next five years will see a vast increase in demand for skilled labour, resulting in a major challenge for hotel groups to attract and retain top talent.
Accor currently employs over 10,000 employees across Australia, and anticipates it will require a further 2,000 staff to meet the needs of its own development pipeline of 14 major new-build hotel projects.
The situation is even more pressing for Accor across the wider Asia Pacific region, with up to 10,000 new employees required to fill roles in new and existing hotels over the next three years.
“The next five years will see a vast battle for talent within the Australian hotel industry,” said Accor Pacific Chief Operating Officer, Simon McGrath.
“We not only have to increase our numbers, but increase the skill levels if we are to meet the five-star service standards that will be required in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
“As the company expands there will be considerable career and mobility opportunities for current staff, and Accor recognised some time ago the imperatives of ‘growing our own’ by establishing a registered training organisation – Academie Accor – as well as introducing programs to substantially increase the number of women in senior leadership roles and significantly develop our level of Indigenous talent.
“Developing senior management positions that can enhance service and performance standards will be critical, and we are committed to growing not only hotel general managers but also the Top 5 high-performing executives in each hotel.
“We have the best range of industry specialists in our executive team and believe that our success is due in part to the consistency of our team. We are pleased to announce two promotions within the Development department, which ultimately is spearheading Accor’s rapid growth and the creation of thousands of new jobs in the hospitality and tourism economy.
“Accor is also very focused on finding and developing new talent to fill new roles, and we believe that with our regime of training and development programs, and strong commitment to diversity that we will attract a new breed of hospitality professionals over the next five years,” McGrath said.
Accor’s high performing executive team is headed by McGrath and Vice President of Development Pacific, Lindsay Leeser as well as highly regarded industry leaders such as Scott Boyes, Chris Sedgwick, Adrian Williams, Matt Young, Gillian Millar and Dino Mezzatesta.
The average tenure of Accor’s high performing executive team is 9.5-years which spans a variety of roles from Operations to Finance.
The Accor Development division led by Leeser and his team, including Brett Forer and Daniel Aldred, are focused on fostering relationships with new and existing partners to drive the Group’s growth. The team has signed on average one new hotel per week since January.