Worldwide Hospitality Awards

Created in April 2020, the Accor All Heartist fund aims to take care of people (individuals, not corporation nor businesses) who are in distress due to Covid-19 multiple impacts, both personal and professional.

At the dawn of the worldwide pandemic, in April 2020, Accor took steps to support its Heartists and partners with the creation of the "All Heartist Fund." The priority of the fund is 300 000 collaborators working worldwide in or under Accor brand umbrella: The Heartists.
The fund aims to support people who are in distress due to covid-19 multiple impacts, both personal and professional. Since its creation, the fund has been entirely financed by Accor SA (it was not fed by outside funding from Heartists partners or 3rd parties).

The fund has received at its creation 25% of dividends for 2020 fiscal year, representing 70M€ global allocations. At least 50% of the funds must be devoted to Accor collaborators. As of September 2021, 29M€ has already been allocated to fund more than 95 000 requests worldwide.

GOVERNANCE
The governance of the fund is decentralized. Therefore, applications are evaluated, according to the list of eligible criteria decided centrally, by the local All Heartist fund steering committee deployed in each Hubs.
8 operational Hubs are currently existing: Northern Europe, Southern Europe, North America, South America, Great China, South East Asia, Pacific and Middle east (and India).
To beneficiate of the allocations, Heartists may apply directly through their manager using a special form request. The manager will then send the request to the Hotel’s General Manager or the functional VP.
Once the application is sent a selection and prevalidation/validation are operated at the local fund Steering Committee comprising the CEO of the hub (Comex member), local Human Ressources and finance representatives.

All the requests above 10k€ concerning the heartists and individual partners need to be approved by the central committee. Concerning the covid-19 frontliners, the central committee needs to approve all the requests above 50K€.
For these requests above the mentioned limits, the All Heartist fund Central Steering Committee reviews applicants’ requests on a regular basis. This Committee evaluates then requests opportunity / validity together with the local fund Steering Committee and finally takes the decision of granting.
For the requests below the above-mentioned limits, the local fund steering Committee is empowered to locally take granting decisions.
All financial grants are paid through Hub local finance, divided into the different categories and monthly reported to the central AHF Steering Committee, which is following the cash consumption level of envelops granted to each hub per category, according to the evaluation of the overall requests received monthly .
The central steering committee makes a monthly reporting that allows to discuss and re-adjust the funds’ repartition between the different categories for the best. To do so, the steering committee is monitoring, tracking budget and fund consumption. Once the steering committee has gathered all the information, in agreement with the General management, it can decide to re-allocate funds to Hubs that has been totally used.
Before and after every potential fund re-allocations, the central steering committee tracks expenses to see if they are well justified and needed.
The fund has already granted more than 94 000 requests, allocating already 29M€ worldwide. 95% of the allocations are dedicated to the first two categories: the Heartists.

BENEFICIARIES
The fund has for ambition to help four different types of beneficiaries, split into five categories, the last one created in April 2021.
1) The main beneficiaries of the fund are the Heartists. They are collaborators worldwide, working in HQs and/or under Accor umbrella Hotels, heavily impacted by the covid-19 crisis both economically and physically.
The two first categories are related to the Heartists:
- Heartists facing financial distress due to Covid-19 unemployment (impactful income falls and strong difficulties to support nutrition, education, health, safety, housings). The fund helps them to ensure nutrition, education or housings financials needs.
- Heartists facing health problems (strong difficulties to finance hospitalization due to covid-19). The fund finances covid-19 Hospital expenses and in case of death immediate allowance or a lumpsum individual grant.

2) Accor individual partners are individuals in business with Accor (not businesses nor corporations), directly or through a venture, suffering personal financial hardship due to Covid-19 business disruption.

3) The covid-19 frontline fighters are on-the-field professionals. They are individuals engaged in Covid-19 frontlines, fighting against the pandemic or its consequences.

4) The last category created concerns students seeking for an internship during or right after the COVID lockdowns. The fund financially supports hotels to encourage them to offer qualifying trainings.

The fund is intended to continue to support Heartists as long as they will be significantly impacted by the COVID consequences.