Claire Jollain: Appealing to the next generation in hospitality

Claire Jollain

Our students now, with their hospitality skills, they know how to interact with clients in a luxury boutique, but even in a bank. And, of course, this industry offer better work life balance, better salaries than the hospitality industry. It’s the hotel industry who should rethink about how am I going to make myself attractive for the next generation.

Sebastien Leitner

Welcome to The Turndown. This week, I want to introduce you to Claire Jolout. She’s the Assistant Dean at Swiss Hotel Management School. You could argue it’s another hospitality school and we’re going to talk about the future of hospitality etcetera, but you know, truth be told, this is not about hospitality schools or hotel management at all. This has became a conversation around event management, management styles, and how to overcome headwinds, how to prevail. It came a conversation around customers and customer relations and what it means to to service. So I can’t wait for you to discover Claire, and I promise you there’s some really, really cool stories in this episode.

Claire, welcome to The Turndown. It’s a pleasure to have you here. Thank you for joining the program.

Claire Jollain

Thank you very much for welcoming me. It’s a pleasure, an honor.

Sebastien Leitner

Oh, no. The honor is all mine. Claire, I wanna dive right into it and, I guess, ask you the the the ominous question. What is keeping you up at night these days?

Claire Jollain

Nothing. I’m a very good sleeper.

Sebastien Leitner

That’s excellent. And You’re calling us from Switzerland. Right?

Claire Jollain

Yeah. I’m from Switzerland, and I’m a good sleeper because, I’m almost I mean, I will be will be forty five, this year. And, I am in charge of two campuses of two, schools international school in Switzerland, overviewing five hundred students, managing directly forty five academic and administrative people. And I just realized that to do that, I need to be emotionally stable, because you my schools are boarding schools. We are dealing with students coming from all over the world, fifty overall, fifty different nationalities. So plenty of, emotion, plenty of conflict, potential conflict also. And, also, among our staff, we have a lot of different nationalities, different type of, you know, background, and you have also the daily life.

And what I’ve noticed is that in order to be good at my job, I need to have a self discipline, a very important self discipline, meaning that I go to bed early, earlier than in the past, and also wake up earlier. And I do my thirty minutes of, you know, stretching, yoga, things like that. And that is very important. I just realized that to be able to maintain this rhythm and also to be able to take good decision and not decision that are, you know, based on stress, based on anger, based on, you know, sadness or whatever, you need to have this discipline. At least, I need to have it. So, I’m trying to manage to sleep well, and I’m I I need my eight hours per day.

Sebastien Leitner

So what time do you go to sleep, if I may ask?

Claire Jollain

Ten PM the latest. Sometimes, nine Okay.

Sebastien Leitner

Okay. And then the yoga stretching happens at what time in the morning?

Claire Jollain

Six AM. Okay. Okay. Yeah. One is one of the thing that I hope I, just woke up and I you know, one of the thing, I don’t switch on any telephone. Because if you start to switch on the telephone, you are, you know, taken by the the real life, and this is really my forty five minutes of not being connected with anyone on the planet, including my girlfriend and my son was sleeping.

Sebastien Leitner

I should do the phone thing. I should leave the phone. Yeah. I do I do a similar routine in the morning, but I do have to walk my dog because, she will put her nose into my face and say, I wanna go. But, yeah, I I I catch myself looking at the phone after the dog walk before stretching and doing, like, you know, fifteen minutes of of yoga because we sit on a chair all day, and that’s usually not a good thing.

Claire Jollain

Yeah. And one of the thing is we spend too much time using our brain and not enough our body, and all the emotion are linked with your body. And, and, I mean, this is quite recent that I don’t switch off switch on the telephone, because, of course, like a lot of people, my alarm clock is on the telephone. Right? So I have my telephone close to me. Sure. And but that’s when since I’ve started to do that, I can see really that I’m way more I’m quiet, you know, in the morning. I’m not starting to think about, oh my god. Because if you open your telephone, you are going to look at your at your emails, you have your WhatsApp, you have plenty of things, notification, and so on. And then you’re not you’re not anymore with you. You are with somewhere somewhere else. So, yeah, that’s, that’s what I’ve implemented, and it works pretty well.

Sebastien Leitner

Claire, I wanna rewind the clock a little bit. How does Claire get to the role that you’re occupying now, taking care of five hundred students, boarding students? Right? Help us understand your trajectory up to today.

Claire Jollain

Yeah. That’s, even myself, I’m I’m I’m surprised. It’s really fun because I had lunch with a friend I mean, the no. The sister of a good friend of mine who we went to school together. And, so I did the same school then it’s, her brother. And it’s a business school in France, Good reputation. So from any perspective, I I worked, very well in high school. I did my job national, you know, competition to enter this business school.

And, my goal was to work in marketing. And what happened is that I was part of the, not the students union, but, you know, in France, you have what we call a bureau des eleves, which is a you know, people are students who are ambassador for the others and organize a lot of things. And I start to organize a lot of events, even the welcome seminar with, with a lot of students, and we were fifteen friends, organizing events, party, excursion for five hundred students. And this is how I discovered that I was doing events planning. I didn’t know that it was that name.

And it was about, like, twenty, twenty two years ago, something like that. At that time, there was no school, about events. You know, there was no master in events, something like that. And I did one of my internship, in, in events for a car company, and I love it very much. And so I started my career not in marketing, events planning. And, first in different companies, and then I had my own events agency. And I worked during ten years in fashion show, film festival in Cannes, organizing web seminar for companies worldwide, a lot of weddings also. Yes.

And, and I loved very much that that, that industry. Activities or, you know, events, and I I like to to do things with a sense. I’m something that I was feeling that I was impact impacting positively people’s life. A bit less with a passion show to be very honest but but all the corporate events and the the yeah. The the private events supposedly that. And after well, yeah, ten to twelve fifteen years walking like crazy on on evening, on a weekend, on a bank holidays and because, of course, you organize things when people are enjoying their time off, so you’re organizing for them.

I just wanted to, to, yeah, to start a family to, you know, to have a a different work life balance. I was lucky because, I met my, my my boyfriend twenty years ago, and he so we we we stick together during that time when I was all over the world, and we decided to move to Switzerland, because we were French and we were based in Paris, and we wanted to to to explore a new country but not to go far from the family. And this is how I step in in the hotel school in Switzerland as an events teacher. So So I started as an events teacher in Cesaris Colleges, in Switzerland. And I start also to train myself into education because I knew about events. I knew about marketing, but I didn’t know about how to teach to people.

So I started to to to study that. I got a new another master. So I got a master in marketing and now master in education. And in the meantime, I got my first position as a program manager. So I was in charge of the hospitality program for Saint Aritz. And then I moved to another school, in Montreal, called Hotel Institute Montreal. I became assistant dean there, and then three years later, I moved to Swiss hotel management school as an assistant dean. And now I came back to HAM, that, they’ve been converted into a business school. So I’m in charge I’m the dean of HAM business school in Montreal and the assistant dean of Swiss hotel management school in Coissure Montreal, which is really in the same city, but, yeah, ten minutes apart. We have the two campuses. So that’s that’s the story, you know.

And, when I was speaking to, the sister of my friend at lunchtime, she told me the same question. How come you move from Evans to here? And I said, oh, here is the same thing about impacting people’s life. Education is all about that. It’s helping one or five hundred. It depends on the day Is this students to grow, to build their confidence, to develop their own potential and what they want to become, and and to put this hospitality touch, which for me is very important.

And that is why people, will, also, like, I felt when I was doing events is to find a sense, you know, in what they are doing. They seem they feel meaningful. When you are hosting someone, we’re taking care of a stranger in a hotel, or you’re organizing an event for this person, or each school, an international school. When you give to someone, you receive twice more.

Sebastien Leitner

Wow. I I kinda wanna stick around events before we go into, education. Right? Because you have such a wealth of experience and and understanding of this. And I do think, especially in hotels, events is a is a big component of why people travel, right, or why people stay in hotels, why, why they’re going places, why they’re attending a conference or convention or, you know, a film festival, which you like. As you sort of think about the events that you’ve hosted, that you’ve organized, etcetera, what were maybe some of them that went completely sideways where you’re like, oh my god. Nothing was out of control. And, you know, I I wanna start maybe with with a bad experience where you’re like, this was the worst event ever.

Claire Jollain

Yep. I have a I do. I’m sure you do. I’m sure you do.

Sebastien Leitner

So, you know, in in light mouth. No.

Claire Jollain

I’ve I’ve I have two, event that came to my mind. One was not a real real fun one. At that time, I was working for a company that was providing tents, infrastructure, you know, also furniture, lighting, and so on. And we were working So rental equipment? Yes. Exactly. Exactly.

And it was I think it was during the film festival. Yeah. So I was based on this in the French Riviera. And during the the Cannes Film Fest Film Festival, you have plenty of things that happening all over the place. And, so we were all over the place. And at that time, I had the there was within my company, I was not, the the boss. I was one person in charge of, of events, you know. My boss had a conflict with the team who was in charge of, you know, setting up all this big structure and thing like that. And it was tough conflict.

And what happened is that the person who was who was in charge of setting up everything decided not to show up. And so we had to find solution with but as we were already, you know, not understaffed, but there are so many events at the same time, so many things to set up. And I was working for a very prestigious events agency in Paris, and I’ve worked with them before. So I had excellent relationship with them, and, and it was really a catastrophe in term of find in term of logistics. Internally. It was not because of them. It was also because a person who I mean, the project we had to set up was maybe too ambitious. And at that time, we have a lot it was everything was outside. We have to set up a stage on a swimming pool. I mean, it was and it was windy like crazy. So first of all, the the the condition were really bad. And secondly, we have this internal conflict.

And, I remember it was crazy, and I was always you know, I’m I’m very optimistic person, especially for in events. You need to be optimistic, and you need to be solution driven, not focusing on oh my god. Oh my god. You need to find a solution. Find a solution. But in that in that moment, finding a solution finding a solution, I will I have to face the fact that there was no solution.

And, I think I was still quite young. I should be twenty five or twenty twenty seven, something like that. And I was I start to panic. And I remember I called my father and I’d and I I was in my car and I was I was saying, what I’m going to do? And I was almost crying, you know, because it’s normal. In events, you always have to cry. You know, when I have my students coming back and crying, they say, oh, well, welcome to the world.

And I remember, he told me, okay. Now you are going to get out of this car. You are going to face your client, and you’re going to to say to your client that you’re not going to make it because your client needs to sign a plan as soon as possible. And even if it’s not your responsibility what is happening because you are just the one in between, you must go and and face that. It’s at least what you that your client deserve, you being honest. So I did that. And the client was furious and, of course, he was upset against me. And I think he’s still upset against me, which I’m not very happy with because it was not my fault. But, of course, it will be a few years later. You are the image of this moment telling me this, you know. So that was, yeah, not not a nice moment, but I believe that I learned something from that.

I learned, first of all, to face client and to face with a bad news, a very bad news. And even if it’s not my responsibility, but at this moment, the client doesn’t care about whose responsibility is. He needs to find a plan b and also to to now as I’m in charge, I’m a manager, to take care of your staff. And and not to let especially when you are in you know that you are going to be a very intense, period of work and you need to make sure the people will follow you, that’s important. So it’s important to clear the problem before or or to tell them to we will clear after, but not to let the client and the reputation of the company, but also the reputation of the other people like me. You know, my own reputation was, was impacted by that. So that’s the the the bad very bad one. But the sunny one, not that funny, but,

Sebastien Leitner

Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. Before you go to the next one, what was the plan b? Did they have to cancel the event? What happened? Like, how

Claire Jollain

To be honest, I don’t know. To be honest, the client was so furious that I just left the place. It was in a very beautiful event hotel. Sorry. In France, five star hotel, beautiful facilities. So I believe they decided and and once again, the weather was really bad. So even if they do have managed to do something outside, I believe they have to to do a plan b inside in any case.

Sebastien Leitner

But I was I didn’t know what exactly they did. You were not part of that. Asking, to be honest. I was pushing into. Okay. You had a funny example.

Claire Jollain

Yeah. That’s funny. In I mean, at the beginning, it doesn’t look very funny neither. I was, organizing a seminar on the French Riviera for the cosmetic brand called Nuxe, and they were, inviting all their sales representative worldwide. Okay. So we have two hundred people more or less. And it was a long time ago, so there is no disclosure. I can I can continue on that?

And the goal was the first day everybody arrived from different countries. People are jet lagged, so we’re going to do something very cool by the beach, you know, relax, flip flop, you know. Really not, very relaxed. And was supposed the second day, we were supposed to have the one conference, the workshop, the gala dinner. Nothing went was going well. And, my client told me, don’t, we need to leave by eleven PM the latest because, you know, some people coming from Japan, they are jet lag. And that’s okay. No problem.

So a few minutes before I leave, and I went to see the the best driver to make sure they were there. And, and then at that time, I received a call from the marketing manager who stayed at the hotel because she was seven months pregnant. And she said I need to relax, be ready for the day after. And then she called me and she said, oh, I’m happy to have you on the phone because I’ve tried to call all my colleagues and nobody is answering. I said, yeah. Well, they have having champagne by the beach, so I’m not surprised. Because in events, you know, it’s only the event planner who doesn’t drink, but all you have are drinking.

And, she she told me, well, there was a BONBO alert in our hotel, and and I’m, I’m in the street in Pigilots, and I don’t know what’s going on. So I said, okay. First of all, how are you? She said, I’m okay. I’m a bit shocked, but it’s okay. I said, in front of the hotel, I knew there was a small hotel with a few rooms. I say, you go directly to that place, secure a room for you there because I don’t want you, you know, to give birth to your baby. It’s a bit too early for that. So I will go there and I will deal with the rest. She said, what are you going to do? I said, don’t worry. I would find a solution. And that time, I had no solution, to be very honest.

And I remember me and the communication manager, I think she still remember that part. I came to see the communication manager with a big smile on my face And I sat close to her, still a big smile, and she and she asked me, are we going back to the hotel? I said, well, not yet. And I went to her.

And, to make the story short, we couldn’t go back to the, to the hotel with all these people. And when I arrived so I said, okay. I’ll let you with some of my team members, and I go to the hotel. I need to speak to the director to see how it goes. Hopefully, it was, it was a Pullman. So it was a car group. And first of all, when I arrived, it was, you know, the police know you can go you cannot go. And I said, well, I need to speak to the director of the hotel And the police, no way. No way. And I said, what? Brother, Whether you let me speak to the director of the hotel, whether I I have two bus I mean, four bus full with two hundred people, and I will put them in front of you. It’s okay. Go speak to the go and speak to the to the man.

And the what we figure out is, first of all, we need to we need to know if we have to let the people wait by the beach with a bit more champagne and within one or two hour, it will be sorted out or we have to wait. And and we had to wait because they had to send the dogs, you know, to check the world’s jet. And I think it has changed, but at that time, the dogs and the owner were in Marseille, which is two hours by car from Nice from Cannes.

So there was, I said, okay. We need to find a solution. And we found a solution with, we call another, director, but of Ibis. So, you know, Ibis, it’s a premium no. Even my premium is a three star hotel. So not the same range that Puma and, of course, it didn’t have enough bedrooms, single bedrooms for everybody. So we end up with bringing everybody to that hotel, organizing the room, the way we can. Of course, with some people we don’t know each other. It’s a flip flop, no pajamas, nothing. But and two people were a bit stressed, but at the end at one AM, everybody was sleeping. And we reorganized everything.

Sebastien Leitner

At the new hotel. New hotel. Exactly.

Claire Jollain

I mean but I was thinking, you know, oh my god. People would be super upset tomorrow morning because, of course, it’s not a woman, you know, and what an experience to start. My client, they will never walk with me anymore. And the day after, we organize everything. We start a bit later in order for the people to go back to their their bedroom to, you know, change clothes and brush their teeth. And then the day went very smoothly. We did a gala dinner. Nobody was saying anything, And we conclude the event the day after, nothing.

And the year after, I was again doing this, seminar with mostly the sales one in another location. And this time, they came to see me, some of them, and say, are you going to plan something fun like the Bombardier, like last year? I say, what? Of course, they knew that I didn’t plan it but they say, honestly, the way you find a solution you you find a solution, you you we saw you are doing your best to help us, you and the director of the hotel. I mean, we couldn’t complain. It was not your fault.

And I like to share this story with my students because it shows that even if there is something big that you can’t control, always try to do your best. Always show that you are caring for people, caring for their well-being, for their safety, and you are doing your best. People can’t complain about about that, you know. They can complain about the person who did it because, of course, it was a tech alert. There was no bomb at all. You can complain about this person, but you can’t complain about people who are trying their best. And it was a good also lesson for me because I just realized that, that people, they are smarter than we think sometimes and they don’t they go beyond what is obvious. Oh, we have an issue. We cannot sleep in our bedroom. But say, oh, wow. This girl, she managed to find an hotel for all of us at one AM. Well done.

Sebastien Leitner

Nice. Nice. That’s a great story. I wanna talk a little bit about what you’re teaching in your schools. Right? And especially, you know, there’s been so many things happen in the last five, ten years. Right? Like, everyone is talking about AI. I still wonder at times why, but, okay. Fine. Let’s talk about AI. Right? Everyone is talking about labor shortages, about digitalization, about, god, what happened to us? We had a phone that was invented by Steve Jobs that changed the life, how we communicate, how we engage, etcetera. So, you know, the traditional, I guess, way of managing hotels, the traditional ways of booking and and and and and shopping for travel has changed significantly in the last twenty, twenty five years. So I’m curious what trends are you observing with changes to the curriculum? Like, how how is your school adopting to the changing landscape? And I know it’s a it’s a mouthful of a question.

Claire Jollain

But I would say that, especially, if we think about, we think about SHMS or Swiss hotel management school, for me, that is a real hotel school. We didn’t change that much, to be very honest. Correct. It doesn’t mean that we are old fashioned or maybe we are proud of being old fashioned, but our students, they still learn, how to serve. Yes. In our fine dining restaurant, they still go in the kitchen to learn how to, you know, the safety measure in the kitchen. So that’s the the the starting point of their journey.

And, you know, they they learn the first thing they do, they have a a pen and a paper, they draw the table, and they identify the lady first. So that has not changed and it will not change because at the end when we think about luxury hospitality, we think about taking care of people. And it could be fun to be taken care of by robots from time to time but, at the end, people love connection with human beings.

However, of course, we have, we are teaching well, for example, we are using CloudBets for, the the check I mean, the checking and the online system. We are teaching artificial intelligence. We have robots in Leza, in our campus in Leza, where students learn to to do the programmation and to interact with the robot and to see at least we have this robot is to teach them a few things about it, but also to challenge it. Do we need it? When do we need it? Is it something fun? Yeah. But there. People love novelty. So but once they have seen it once, then after what? Are you going to be amazed every day when you see the robots in the corridor? Maybe not. However, if someone is smiling at you every day, that will make your day every day.

And this is a bit what we have in our in our philosophy. Our our values are be a role model, learn the rules before breaking them, and be a product really. And to learn the rules before before breaking them, it’s all about that. It doesn’t mean that we are not into technology. We are the only auto school in the world that is is Apple distinguished. So we do are speaking about Steve Jobs. We have we give iPad to our students as Susan is they arrive. We have we’re using plenty of app, but we always go back to the basic go back to the basic at the beginning.

It’s like, why are you doing that? What is the extra value for the client? Is it going to make your life easier because and then you save time to interact better with the client? Or is it going just going to save time, but then you don’t interact with the client? Because at the end, you you need to be customer focused in the hospitality.

And speaking speaking about labor shortage, yes, there are some routine, some, jobs that can be, optimized by the technology, not sure if it’s artificial intelligence, but the technology, let’s say. Alright. And that will help people to save time to do their real job. That, I fully agree with. And then, of course, it depends on the level. If you go in a business trip, in, you know, economic hotel, you might be don’t want this personal interaction. You just want to check-in and check out by yourself as quick as possible. You’re not here to make friends. You’re not here to have a great time. You’re just here to sleep because you have your next meeting very early the next day and that’s fine for you. You know?

And in that sense, even for the staff who is in who is working in that hotel, it’s maybe not very fun, not very fulfilling to interact with this type of guest. So, yes, technology can help at that level. However, if you speak about luxury no. Luxury, it’s human being. It’s connection.

It doesn’t mean that you don’t use artificial intelligence. So we have a course at HAM Business School in our luxury specialization called high-tech and high touch. And I feel this is something very important, the high touch. And what is interesting is with this the fact that we are using so much the technology. When you have people who are available to speak, to smile at you, we are even more amazed.

And, and there are skills that people are losing step by step. COVID didn’t help for sure. And that’s why how students in hotel school are more and more demanded by other industries and that goes also with the labor shortage. Because the thing is that the hospitality industry, I will say, the hotel industry needs to improve, the, let’s say, the work life balance, the working condition to stay or to become attractive. Because our students now with the hospitality skills, they know how to interact with clients in a luxury boutique, but even in a bank, we are working a lot with the bank sector now.

And, of course, this industry also better work life balance, better, you know, salaries than the hospitality industry. And I think what more than the education that need to rethink, it’s the hotel industry who should rethink about how am I going to make myself as an industry attractive for the next generation.

Sebastien Leitner

Lots to unpack, but I I I think sort of in paraphrasing what you just said, the rest of the, I guess, business communicate community has discovered hospitality schools as a source of great talent, number one. Right? We did. And it is a lot of the social skills that are taught at these hospitality schools that are attractive to them, allowing them to source, I guess, a quality employees. And, and because they’re willing to offer higher salaries or greater compensation, better work life balance, suddenly hotels and hotel companies are competing with other industries for the same talent.

Claire Jollain

Exactly. So they were already there was already a labor shortage. But Sure. Now, it’s getting, I would say, worse. So let’s say the best profile or the, highly demanded. Yeah.

Sebastien Leitner

So let’s fast forward. Right? I mean, you and I probably travel quite a bit. I I don’t recall the last time that I actually went to a gate agent to check-in. Right? Like physically check-in. Like, I don’t remember that. I I was recently traveling from Montreal to Europe, via the US and I didn’t even have to show my passport anymore to anyone because it was completely biometric. Like, the the the, customs agents, they took a picture of me and knew exactly who I was, and I was basically kept through. How soon until, I guess, the role of the front office will be completely different from what it used to be. Because I I I feel like we used to train, especially in hospitality. This is how you check-in. This is how you, you know, administer guests, a registration card. This is how you enter the guest preferences and data. A lot of this is moving to the Apple device that you mentioned. Right? We’re right. And you as a consumer, traveler, we are in control, and we’re communicating directly potentially with the hotel, what we want, how we want it, etcetera, etcetera. Is that going to continue to evolve in your opinion?

Claire Jollain

Yes. But, if you look at once again, for me, it’s using the technology is not end. It’s just a tool to make the customer experience better. And if the customer experience is not good, then you will start losing clients.

And, for example and this is not with hospitality. In France, in the supermarket, you have all, you know, this automatic machine that you do everything by yourself, you know. And I like them very much because when I go to the supermarket, you know, I want to make it as quick as possible. I’m not here to interact with people. I just want to do my stuff and to you know, it’s not a place for me of interaction.

However, in France and now, there is a new trend opening places where it’s called in French, it’s called the the blah blah place. So basically, blah blah means chitchatting and you have at that place, a a person who is taking care of your item but also is here to talk with you because you have some people who are alone at home and, you know, maybe they don’t work, they are retired, and a plenty of reason. And they want when they go to the supermarket, it’s an opportunity for them to interact with people.

Okay? I personally interact too much during the day. I just want to not interact with people. And maybe this is the thing, when you travel in a hotel, in a in an airport, you might you might want to interact with people, you know, you want to make it as quick as possible because you are travelling a lot. Okay? But for other people, it’s maybe one trip of their life, and, you know, this is where they want or they are afraid is the first time they’re not used as an international airport. They want to be taken care of. You know?

And this is why we need to take into consideration that everybody has different reason why they go to that place to identify that and to offer that to offer both option. For the person like me at the supermarket that who doesn’t want to interact with anyone, go to the automatic one. For the person who want to interact with someone, because it might be the only person that’s that would be in interaction of the day, go to that place.

And for hotel, it’s something. But the luxury hotel, I noticed more and more also the way that they are welcoming. They are using the technology, to save some time to properly take care of the people. And instead of, you know, welcoming, for me, it’s more about also the designer. We have this design specialization at SHMS on purpose because, you know, when you arrive and you have this big desk and you already you have a barrier between the people, you know. You are welcoming with a screen and a a table. So it’s not very welcoming.

When you welcome friends at your place, you don’t welcome them through a screen or through a table. Right? You are opening the door, say hello, I’m happy. Let’s go in the sofa and have the apparel. Right? Is it more or less something? In a luxury hotel, you have some hotels that are changing that, that are taking care of people. And, yes, they have the iPad in the by desk by, you know, with them, but they are really interacting. And I believe this is something and they can see it also if the person they have in front of them, really needs a proper welcome because it’s a voila. It’s expectation or if the person wants to make it quick.

And you as a hospitality professional, you can see that. The computer can’t see that so far. We see. But this is where I really believe that the technology, if it works to improve the customer experience, yes. If it doesn’t work, in for the customer experience, it’s better to have a human being.

Sebastien Leitner

You’re referring to reading the body language of a traveler to understand, you know, how to treat and engage with that customer. Is that fair? Yeah. I I know we’re running out of time, and I could probably continue for another hour. But I do wanna pick up on one thing that you said, which is about work life balance. Right? And I think that’s that’s that’s something that hospitality has for probably decades not known to be great at. Because travel happens three hundred and sixty five days twenty four seven. Right? It doesn’t happen just on weekdays, or it doesn’t happen Monday through Friday, nine to five. Right? Like, travel happens pretty much everywhere. What can hospitality, in your opinion, do in order to create a better equilibrium or, you know, balance, if you will?

Claire Jollain

For the employees, you mean? Yeah. Yeah. A work in progress. Okay. I think I think first, there was a misunderstanding of this new generation when we believe they don’t want to work on a weekend. It’s not true. We just they can be very, hard worker. We can see when we organize events, when they have to organize events, you know, and we organize, you know, service events. You know? We have ambassadors coming. We have the TEDx conference. So it’s it’s really big things. They are they are working day and night, you know, because they are passionate about what they are doing.

So I believe one of the thing one of the first thing, that the hotel should do is to explain to the person what is the job, but not be hard skill, you know. But, for me, for example, as a client, the most important person in a hotel is a person at the reception. It’s a person who is going to welcome me. It’s a person who is going to say goodbye to me. It’s a person if I have an issue, I’m going to call. I don’t care about the general manager. I don’t care about the marketing manager. I don’t care about the finance manager.

So let’s paint a bit more the light on the people who are on a daily basis with clients, who are the ones who make the reputation of your place? Because without these people, your finance manager will file will take care of nothing, you know. So this is also a change of mindset. Okay? It’s really to put the light on the people who are on the frontline. And I think this is something and when you put the light on these people, they feel also empowered. They feel important. They feel proud of what they are doing, And then they can do the extra nine.

The second thing, I believe is that, yes, if you are asking people to walk on a weekend, you need to actually compensate in a in a nice way. So maybe you don’t make them work on all the weekend, and you have to give them a plan about what is going to happen for me within six months, within one year. Might change, but at least there is a plan. Because one of the things that scare the most people is to and especially this generation is to be stuck in one place. And if they don’t see what they can do after, that they will be worried.

If you tell them and I’m okay. Sometimes they are not very patient. They need a bit to learn about resilience. But if you tell them within six months, we are going to to review your schedule, your position, your benefits, why not? And this is once again, I believe, and I’m not the only one saying that, a few years ago, mister Baden from Accor said that that he said that we we we didn’t take care of our our our employees, you know, and we are paying back now. That’s reality.

So, yeah, I would say this put the light on the front line, first of all, Then secondly, training the people and and also giving them a proper plan of evolution. And I believe and that doesn’t go into what we are doing because we are doing, we are training people here, on a bachelor or master level, but I think there is a a room for training people with maybe lower education, but will be very happy to enter this industry. And it’s it used to be the the case and it’s still the case in many hotel that you have people who are starting like housekeeper or maintenance and step by step, they are trend and they are growing up. We just need to go back to that and also to encourage the hospitality leaders to share their passion.

You don’t go to the hospitality because you are going to be wealthy. No. Can’t be rich. Yeah. Except the minority. You know? People are going to hospitality because it’s the same thing they want to feel that it can impact someone’s life. Because they are looking for a sense of meaning. And this generation, the Gen zed, is also something very important. They have value they are values, ethics are very important for them. And if you are showing that to them and you are showing how, they are taken care of by the by the employer, but also how they can impact the others. They will follow you to the moon.

Sebastien Leitner

Why don’t we end on this on this note? I think this is a great way of wrapping things up. Claire, thank you so much for joining me today, for sharing your insights, your experience, your wealth of, I I don’t know, stories that you probably have. We could probably continue for at least another half an hour, but thank you so much, and I look forward to seeing you at some point.

Claire Jollain

Yeah. Thank you very much, Sebastian. And I hope that next time, you will be with me, in Switzerland, and we will have have lunch or dinner at our fine dining restaurant, and then you will see the new generation passionate about hospitality.

Sebastien Leitner

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