WE ❤️ HOSPITALITY - Stewart Moss

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?

I finished school and went straight to catering college, I always wanted to be a footballer but that never happened so hospitality was always the next choice, my Nan inspired me to cook from a very young age. 

How did you get into hospitality?

In my teens, I had the enormous fortune to secure a weekend job in a hotel just down the road from our house, this hotel was stunning and the place had a real elegance to it; I loved working there…the buzz, the pace, the camaraderie….and I was sold. The rest, as they say, is history!

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

Not at all. Don’t get me wrong, I am sure it can be helpful and there are so many superb courses out there…but I think if you are inherently good with people, ‘hospitable’ of nature, willing to put the effort in and hungry to learn; this industry can offer you an unrivalled opportunity to grow, explore, and find your path as you work.

Which leader / figure inspired you and why?

My Grandfather, for so many reasons! In his career he was a manager of many who looked after those under him as well as he did his own family and who loved nothing more than planning his next trip away; he’d take the entire family away regularly to the coast etc... but his big enjoyment was always to plan the frequent trips that would see him taking my Grandmother away to an upper tier hotel; I grew up hearing of these wonderful places with names like ‘The Savoy’ and would be enthusiastically told what one should order in each of their Restaurants! There are far too many lessons from him to list, but the one I ‘hear’ often to this day is, ‘Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today.’…which I am very sure I will have repurposed as my own advice at some point over the last twenty years of leading teams. Ironically enough he ran factories, my Grandfather…but he’d have been a phenomenal GM!

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

Quite simply, I love it: working in this industry has given me everything I have and where else can you start at the bottom and work your way up to become an Executive?  Everyone also says this too…but they say it because it is true: the variety and the buzz would be difficult to find elsewhere, I think?

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

The training on offer at Cedar Court Hotels is constant and ongoing, we really do invest in our people. We deploy a variety of online platforms and tools to deliver a wealth of learning modules and we are progressive enough to be currently having some big discussions about how to be an even better employer / company…and what would that great company ‘look like’ in the next ten, fifteen, twenty years? I have been especially impressed with how my colleagues have looked after their remote teams over the last year…and more so with how those people have then been welcomed back into the business - I think we have really stayed true to our core beliefs.

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

As I outlined above: put the effort in, be hungry to learn and grow - also, start building your social prominence swiftly. Get yourself noticed. 

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

Trust your gut – it is usually right and your ‘network is your net worth’.

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