How IHG is tackling challenges in a competitive hiring market

Focus on the candidate journey.

“Hospitality is inherently competitive”, says Mitch. Coupled with a traditionally transient workforce, we face a multitude of recruitment challenges. There has been a significant shift in our recruitment approach, focusing particularly on the candidate journey and their experience with us. As a company, we’ve had to actively sell ourselves to candidates, highlighting not just the salary but also the benefits of an inclusive and interactive workforce.

Equip recruiters to deliver a positive candidate journey.

Mitch continued, ‘upskilling our hiring managers and recruiters with the right tools to ensure a positive candidate experience, regardless of the outcome, is vital. This is also crucial even for those who aren’t successful, as their experience with us still matters.”

In the past five years, we’ve navigated a pandemic, Brexit, and now the cost of living and inflation crisis. We’ve really had to re-evaluate our offerings to ensure they align with the needs of our current and future employees.

Act fast to secure the right people.

The hospitality recruitment landscape changes almost daily. Securing the right candidate often comes down to ‘time to hire’, a key focus for IHG.

We continually revise our processes to stay innovative and act swiftly. We strive to contact all candidates within 24 hours of their application, and every candidate receives feedback, whether successful or not. Ghosting candidates is something we avoid at all costs.

We’re aware that many of our candidates are also our guests or have connections to our hotels. Therefore, ensuring a streamlined candidate journey is paramount.

Ensure employee benefits meet candidate’s needs.

IHG recently conducted an in-depth review of each brand’s benefits, asking, “Why should people join our company?”

“Every candidate wants different things”, Mitch explained. We widened our benefits packages to ensure they were fit for purpose, looking at workplace flexibility policies, learning and development opportunities, career progression, and how we can tailor our offers to meet individual needs.

Remove bias from your recruitment process.

A diverse and inclusive workforce is essential to success at IHG,”. Mitch continued, “It’s really important for me that applicants from all backgrounds feel accepted and welcomed into our hotels. There really should be no barriers to a candidate’s path to employment.

Regular unconscious bias training for our recruiters is essential. Before posting any role, our recruiters discuss it with hiring managers to ensure a diverse and fair hiring approach. We also use tools like the Gender Bias Decoder to remove bias from our job ads at the start of the process.

Once on board we have a ‘Room to Belong’ policy that’s a really important part of our culture. This policy ensures all our colleagues feel valued, included and safe, recognised for being their authentic selves and able to do their best work.

Appreciate the benefits of a diverse workforce.

A diverse workforce brings new ideas and creativity to teams. From an HR perspective, it broadens our talent pool, which is always a plus. Embracing D&I ensures employees feel valued, leading to better retention. Our diverse guests need to see themselves reflected in our staff. This alignment is critical for excellent guest experiences.

Look at all the ways you can improve retention.

Pay Fairly

Over the past few years labour turnover has been high across the industry. We recognised the need for investment in retention. Competing with other hotel companies, restaurant groups, and other industries means we must pay fairly. All our hotels pay above the minimum living wage. Employees need to feel valued when they join a company.

Be flexible

Flexibility and work-life balance are among the most important benefits candidates look for. At IHG, we overhauled our job requirements to allow our people to balance work and home life. Five years ago, chefs had ridiculous working hours. Now, the industry has adapted, and chefs enjoy flexibility, balancing demanding roles with life outside the kitchen.

Invest in training and development

At IHG we invest in our employee’s growth and development. As a result, we rarely go to market with supervisory or management roles. We believe the talent should already be in our hotels, ready to step up.” Identifying our top talent and putting the right plans in place to give them opportunities and retain them is super important. As a global company, we offer our employees the opportunity to move to different locations, experience different brands and work in various countries, which helps to retain talent within IHG.

Top tips for recruitment and retention heading into 2025?

• Invest in your people: Invest in managers and recruiters, the systems they use, and understand the importance of getting it right. Recruitment is costly and requires constant investment in resources, training, and development to attract top talent.
• Create a positive candidate journey: Like dining in a restaurant, a bad candidate experience can harm your brand. Offer the best possible experience for candidates and new hires. At IHG, this includes an overnight stay with all meals to experience guest service.
• Utilise technology: Candidates use sophisticated AI to find the right role. Other industries are ahead in using AI, and hospitality employers must recognise and adopt these tools to improve recruitment processes.
• Challenge perceptions of hospitality: It’s the responsibility of everyone in hospitality, from five-star hotels to local pubs and fine dining restaurants, to make the industry an attractive place to work.

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