Engaging The Next Generation of Hospitality Talent

Good morning. If you spend some time in a community, you can pretty quickly identify the leaders guiding that community forward. Here in San Francisco, Michael Pace, General Manager of the iconic InterContinental Mark Hopkins Hotel at the top of Nob Hill is one of those people.

Today, we’re learning from Michael about what he’s learned and is doing to engage the next generation of people who will join us in providing hospitality.

Engaging The Next Generation of Hospitality Talent

with Michael Pace, General Manager, The Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel (IHG)

A few selected excerpts from our conversation:

The narrative to change: “The biggest issue that we've had for years is the reputation that in hotels you work really hard, really long hours, you're underpaid, you're overworked, you're always working on the weekends when your friends are off. Now it’s different.”

Hospitality provides global opportunities. “I work for IHG and we've got more than 4,000 hotels worldwide. I could be working in America today and in Holland tomorrow.”

Learning from his 25-year-old daughter: “There's more of a blending of what we used to call work-life balance. Working from home and not having this defined 8-5 Monday through Friday mentality.”

Planning for promotions: “One of the things that we came up with post-Covid was that every leader should have a one-page document of their career pathing and their training needs. The top section is, what do I need to do to be an expert in my job? And the second part is, what do I need to do to become an expert for my next job?”

We need to reach people earlier: “We need to go to the high schools and say, do you know what hospitality is? Do you know what the hotel job is? Do you know you can earn X amount of money if you were a chef in a hotel kitchen? I learned this from my daughter when she was in high school and she said, ‘Dad if it wasn't for you working in a hotel, I wouldn't even know what hospitality means.”

Listen to our conversation now

From our community

Hospitality Daily is a community of creators and doers. Some cool things for today:

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• Allison Chambers hosts a conversation on how sustainability can benefit hotels on the LowKey podcast

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Stories I’m reading

• Trends: Hotels in the 2030s: Perspectives from Accor’s C-suite (by Aurélia Bettati for McKinsey & Company)

• Trends: Disrupting the Norm: The Uberization of Everything and Its Implications on the Hotel Industry (by Alan Young on LinkedIn)

• F&B: Bo knows coffee: Legendary two-sport athlete ties up with Graduate Hotels (by David Eisen for Hotels Mag)

• Tech: How One Resort Owner Anticipates Generative AI Will Launch Hotel 'Golden Age' (by Sean McCracken for CoStar Group)

• Design: Space as a Service (by Susie Arnett for hospitalitynet)

• People: Hotel Hiring Spree Pays Dividends in Customer Satisfaction (by J.D. Power)

• Investor: In Challenging Times, Hoteliers Should Welcome New Investors, Viewpoints (by Thuy Tran for hospitalitynet)