
Accor will invest £5m in staff development by 2015, including a new training centre in London and an internship scheme, to support its growth plans.
The group – which has 185 hotels in the UK – also aims to create 3,500 jobs here by 2015.Thomas Dubaere, managing director of Accor UK and Ireland, said: ‘Now more than ever, finding and developing talent is vital to achieving our ambitious growth strategy. This is why we are making this significant investment.’He added that the ‘vast majority’ of Accor’s senior managers started as trainees at one of its hotels.The new training centre in London will be called Académie Accor and is claimed to be the first of its kind in the UK, with ‘exceptional teaching facilities’.Meanwhile, Accor has teamed with Babcock – the UK’s largest work-based learning provider – to develop the hotel group’s apprenticeship scheme which has encompassed 250 people in the last eight years.This year, the Management Apprenticeship Programme will employ 100 people aged 18 to 24, giving them on-the-job training and a national qualification: NVQ Level II or NVQ Level III.The aim is to develop future managers required to support the ‘ambitious’ growth of Accor’s network in the UK.Accor’s Student Placement Internships scheme will be formalised, with a view to recruiting ‘high potential’ candidates following the completion of their studies.Accor UK has also launched an ‘In to Work’ programme named ‘Hospitality Futures’ with the charity Springboard.It will offer 25 young unemployed people aged 18-24 a starting job in the hospitality industry.Philip Addison, Accor UK and Ireland human resources director, said: ‘Our new approach aims to discover and nurture potential talent from as wide a pool as possible – from teenagers struggling to find employment to graduates from the UK’s best hospitality courses.’Accor is present in 92 countries with more than 4,400 hotels and brands such as Sofitel, Pullman, MGallery, Novotel, Mercure and ibis.