WE ❤️ HOSPITALITY - Peter Marks

The last year has been terrible for the hospitality sector. Most businesses have seen extreme financial challenges and its reputation as an employer has been severely affected.We are now hearing from many, many of our clients about their fears for the future from staff shortages to skills gaps and top mid-senior talent moving to other sectors.Krishnan Doyle is sharing his conversations with service industry leaders and operators on all that is good about hospitality & catering with the purpose to improve the sector's reputation as one of the largest employer worldwide but also as a great place to develop your career.

How did you get into hospitality?

Just by accident like so many.  I had bar experience and needed a job to get me through whilst l looked for a career and so I took a job in a local nightclub on a trainee scheme….it went well enough in the early days partly by luck for me to say this is fun and I got the breaks early enough to get me hooked

Do you think it is important to have studied hospitality to be a success in the sector?

No, I don’t have so many of our employees started their careers with us while studying at university and more often than not with a hospitality related qualification. Not that I have any problems with those of course because they are a great launching pad.  Was there have been hotel management courses for decades there are now a lot of more relevant broadly based qualifications to be had that can be a real help. 

Which leader / figure inspired you and why?

A former MD of Northern Leisure Clive Preston. He was very shrewd, fantastic with people and came across as your favourite uncle but was the sharpest guy in the room. He went on to succeed with Amber Taverns amongst others and only retired fully in his eighties.  All his businesses succeeded, and everybody enjoyed working with him

What keeps you in the sector and why to you enjoy working in it?

It’s a great business, energetic, always reinventing itself and improving and the people are generally great, and all get on even at every level if they are competitors 

Tell us about the development / training that you give to your teams and management

In Operations we train using the CPL platform up to manager level and are developing the Rekom Leadership Programme to take the talent to the next level.  We promote the advancement of the support teams and the HUB head office to continue to train in their specialisms. We are also keen to promote from within including taking operators that want to become support specialists recently taking operators into the Finance and HR teams

What advice would you give to those starting out in the sector?

It is hard work, but it is also immense fun and rewarding.  No two days are the same and you will never be bored.  It is also a fabulous meritocracy, if you are good and work hard you can advance your career continually-there are few barriers that do exist in some sectors

If you could go back and tell yourself one piece of advice as you started your career, what would it be?

 Find a company that loves its people as it will make a world of difference.  I have been lucky in that regard, but I know others that get sold the dream to then live to regret it as they didn’t do enough research.

If you would like to take part as a leader in this thriving sector, get in touch with Krishnan (krishnan@corecruitment.com)