In our special Hospitality ON issue on hospitality management schools and trainings, we unveil human resources programmes from hotel groups. Here's our interview of Iñigo Capell executive Vice President & Global, Chief People and Ressources Officer for Radisson Hotel Group.
Who and/or what ideas are behind this programme?
People are Radisson Hotel Group’s biggest asset. Over the past months, our team has shown remarkable resilience, commitment, and an unfailing Yes I Can spirit and, most importantly, kindness and generosity towards the local communities where we operate and live.
Shwetal Randive, Global Senior Director, Learning & Development and Employer Branding, heads the learning initiatives at Radisson Hotel Group. As an international hotel company, it has been essential for us to provide accessibility to learning opportunities and continuous personal development for all our team members globally by strengthening existing learning formats and by experimenting and establishing new strategies to meet the business expectations as part of our five-year strategic plan.
The programme is constantly being adapted so we can stay on top of team members’ needs. We achieve this by sending regular pulse surveys and update our training offer accordingly.
If partnerships outside the company are involved in this programme, what types are they?
Any partnership will be driven internally through our in-house learning and development team, mainly via internal experts who facilitate training sessions, but also external partnerships whenever relevant. To date we have two key partnerships: Typsy (for hospitality and operational skills) and Illustra (for virtual training delivery). We also work with EHL to help us design a tailored luxury service culture training programme for our Radisson Collection brand. Training instead of Trainer certified by EHL, offers an excellent professional development opportunity and recognition to be the training ambassadors.
How sustainable is this programme?
Radisson Academy is extremely sustainable as it is a selffunded model, relying mainly on internal expertise. At Radisson Hotel Group, we have a high number of leaders with diverse backgrounds and profiles to foster peer-to peer learning. Online and virtual engagement is preferred when appropriate as highlighted by the fact that the online training completion rate increased by 5 times compared to October 2019. Scalability also plays a key factor trailing design.
To what extent is this programme part of your employer brand communication strategy?
Developing talent is one of the five pillars of Radisson Hotel Group’s Employer Brand pillars as well as an integral part of our culture beliefs. With strong internal equity, Radisson Academy acts as a key motivator for talent to join Radisson Hotel Group.
What are the KPIs measured and their results or trends? Number of people trained, career development, etc.
Our team rated their Radisson Academy Online experience a 4.9 out of 5 satisfaction score. We experienced an increase in completion by as much as x5 times during the period April-October 2020 compared with 2019.
As of the end of 2019, we have over 50,000 hours of training time available across 82 subscribed hotels on Typsy, 451,240 total skills credits earned, and 43,499 total certificates awarded. Through our COVID-19 support plan, more than 16,000 hours of training time was logged.
Are additional/complementary steps being considered?
Our learning and development training programme is constantly evolving with pipeline of advancements in progress in the lead up to 2025. We are currently experimenting with virtual reality trainings for service and behavioural skills, as well as “Fast Track Hospitality”, a new training programme under development to onboard team members without a hospitality background efficiently.
