INTERVIEW - ANTOINE SOOTS, HEAD OF HUMAN RESOURCES FOR FRANCE, BENELUX AND SWITZERLAND REGIONS, CYCAS HOSPITALITY: "IN FRANCE, WE'RE REALLY AT THE START OF OUR DEVELOPMENT"
Cycas Hospitality, which has been managing hotels since 2008, is continuing to expand across Europe and has big ambitions for the years ahead. |
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INTERVIEW - ANTOINE SOOTS, HEAD OF HUMAN RESOURCES FOR FRANCE, BENELUX AND SWITZERLAND REGIONS, CYCAS HOSPITALITY: "IN FRANCE, WE'RE REALLY AT THE START OF OUR DEVELOPMENT"
Cycas Hospitality, which has been managing hotels since 2008, is continuing to expand across Europe and has big ambitions for the years ahead. |
Category: Europe - France - Careers
- Interviews and portraits
- Career - Interviews
Interview made by Christopher Buet on 2023-07-19
There is something fascinating about the spectacle. There, beyond the glass windows, a quasi-permanent ballet unfolds, steel giants soaring to the heavens, tearing themselves away from gravity like dancers. This spectacle has been available to Hyatt Place and Hyatt House guests since 2020, and to Marriott Courtyard and Residence Inn guests for just over a year. As well as an uninterrupted view of the runways at Paris-Charles-de-Gaulle airport, they have two other features in common. The first is that they are dual-brand hotels, two hotels of different brands housed in the same building. The second point is that they are managed by Cycas Hospitality, whose influence has been growing in recent years.
Founded in 2008, the British company first made a name for itself in the UK by teaming up with IHG in 2010 for a first hotel in Liverpool before, in 2012, operating two of the group's hotels, which will serve as a back base for British swimmers and the Paralympic Committee during the London Olympic Games. Cycas then inaugurated the dual brand, which would become one of its signatures. The adventure took a new turn in 2017 when Thailand's Hua Kee acquired a stake in the company. Cycas then turned its sights internationally and set out to conquer new markets on the continent, starting with Amsterdam (Netherlands) in 2018, where it set up its head office.
The Asian investor took control of Cycas in 2019, taking advantage of the withdrawal of the founders, and further supported the company's expansion strategy. Between 2020 and 2021, he opened 17 new properties, then joined forces with Interglobe, one of the leaders in the Indian market, to expand its portfolio, which now comprises 44 hotels, including the luxurious Reichsof in Hamburg, and more than 6,000 rooms, spread across 12 different countries in Europe (United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Austria, Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary and the Netherlands).
To support its significant growth, Cycas Hospitality has had to increase its workforce. Antoine Soots has been involved in this process for over three years. Trained at the Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL) and having worked in French Polynesia and Courchevel, the Head of Human Resources for Benelux, Switzerland and France spoke to Journal des Palaces about Cycas Hospitality's development strategy and the reasons why, in Carterer Magazine's annual ranking, it has been among the 30 best hotel companies to work for since 2018.
What's the current status of Cycas in France and Europe? Are there any new openings planned, and if so, which ones?
When I arrived at Cycas Hospitality on 13 January 2020, we didn't have an office. We were like scouts (editor's note: with Luc Vicherd, Vice President of Operations for France, Benelux and Switzerland). Today we have two hotels in the Roissy area: a 430-room Marriott double-brand (Courtyard and Residence Inn) and another with Hyatt.
We will be opening a Moxy, with Marriott, in Clamart in December and a new Hyatt Place in Rouen in January 2024. I don't have the right to talk about them all, but in 2025 there will be quite a few openings in Le Havre, again with Moxy and Marriott, and in Switzerland with the IHG group, with many more to follow!
In France, we're really in the early stages of development. At Cycas, we have almost doubled in size in the space of two years. We're obviously not going to stop there.
What is the Group's recruitment policy?
We want to move away from what we've always done in the hotel industry. We have no choice, given the state of the job market in our sector today. We have to recruit personalities and profiles before skills. We are prepared to train.
It's a group that values its employees, gives them a chance and promotes them internally. We pay a great deal of attention to employee development and training. We have an internal training programme, Cycas Cyfari. Every year, we select a few employees to move up to a higher level. The programme lasts just under a year and provides training in a variety of areas: HR, sales, revenue, finance, etc.
Can the employees selected choose the content?
No, we have set up a specific programme at Group level. They have to work on a project and, at the end of the training, each employee presents his or her project to the Group Executive Committee. The projects selected are then implemented by the Group. This reflects Cycas' desire to help its teams grow.
Today, we have promoted a good ten people to both operational and managerial positions.
How do you intend to stand out from the crowd?
We favour a very positive working environment with a real quality of life and a friendly atmosphere. We don't wear suits and ties any more. We're adopting a more youthful, quirky approach and that's how we present ourselves when we go to schools to recruit.
We're banking on schools and local recruitment, at least in the Roissy area where we have a large population. Our aim is to approach schools in the north of France that can easily reach Roissy by train from Amiens or Lille, for example.
What links do you have with the schools?
We opened in 2020 just before COVID-19 and everything was frozen for that period. We're now in the first year of full-scale operations. We are now canvassing schools and going to meet them to introduce ourselves. We're trying to take part in various local trade fairs and the idea is to do more and more.
Could your strategy be summed up as one of recruiting young graduates first and foremost, and then giving priority to internal promotion?
That's one of the ideas, but of course we're open to all types of profile, because today's job market is ultra-competitive. You have to build up networks, and that's what we're trying to do.
Does the fact that you were given a chance in HR when you had no experience also contribute to your sensitivity to atypical profiles?
Yes, unconsciously. I'm not averse to recruiting someone young. I'm going to recruit someone with potential, someone with personality, someone who's motivated and has a good frame of mind, and I'm prepared to spend time training them.
How do you view recent developments in the luxury hotel employment sector?
The world of work has changed at least two or three times in recent years. The mentality is completely different and the new generation is totally different from what we were used to in the past.
How should hoteliers adapt?
We have to try to move away from certain practices that we used to have and that we should forget. Today, you have to offer quality of life at work. Working time management worthy of the name, dynamic packages. You have to pay attention to work-life balance because the new generations are very sensitive to this. It's something we've succeeded in doing well, and it's something that our hotels appreciate.
We talk a lot with our employees, we spend time with them. We have a calendar commitment, for example, with events organised on a very regular basis. Our HR policy is dynamic on a daily basis. That's something I learned at K2, where there was real expertise.
How do you operate at Cycas?
We have fairly low hierarchical barriers, with very accessible management. If you want to talk to the Vice President of Operations, he'll see you.
We organise regular information meetings, called Cycadettes, where we explain what's going on in the hotel, what the projects are, give them the figures and get them to work on projects. We have set up a green committee. A staff party committee organised our last evening. We involve them in the life of the hotel.
Is this way of working an advantage for you in the eyes of candidates?
Clearly, because there are opportunities everywhere and they have a choice. In the spring of 2022, recruitment was very, very tough. Since that spring, there has been renewed momentum, but the market is very demanding and competitive, and you have to make your mark with a differentiating offer. Our development opportunities are one of them. You can join the company and work your way up. Tomorrow, for example, we're opening a Hyatt hotel in Rouen. It's going to be a big machine in a nice town, close to Paris, in a historic building. Now that's appealing. It's the openness that appeals.
You're showing great momentum, with ambitions to open new stores. How do you see your workforce developing?
We will be recruiting staff for our new hotels. Our recently opened hotels are starting to reach cruising speed. We're not there yet, but we're ramping up and the teams should be strengthened. I also think that in the future, with the planned expansion, we will also have needs in terms of management structure.
At our Roissy hotels, we have around 150 staff, excluding housekeeping, which is outsourced, and this figure is set to rise.
How important is it for you to recruit outside skills?
A team is also a mix. If we give potential young people a chance, it's a limited chance. They are supervised and guided by experienced people, of course, and for development and management positions at regional level, we look for experienced profiles from outside Cycas.
Which profiles are the most difficult to recruit?
Middle management positions are the trickiest because of the shortage of candidates, an ultra-competitive market and staff turnover. For these operational positions, turnover is fairly natural, so to speak. Reception is also very complicated, as are head waiter and maintenance positions.
It works very much through networking. In fact, there are a lot of people who don't necessarily have plans to move, so they're not available on the job market, and we have to go to them. It takes a lot of time, but that's how we manage to recruit for these complicated positions.
How do you support and integrate new employees?
We are quite strong on the subject of onboarding, as each employee receives an email beforehand in which we try to use less formal language than usual.
We also offer induction days, one a month, which all new recruits are invited to attend. We present the group, as well as training courses (safety, etc.). We all eat together in the restaurant, and take a tour of the hotel. We go into more detail.
We also have the Cycas Journey. During the trial period, we do three reviews. One at the end of the first week, to ask the employee how the welcome and the first few days went, and if there's anything missing. This allows us to take the temperature straight away and make any necessary adjustments. We do the same thing halfway through the trial period and finally before the end of the trial period, when we take stock and decide together whether or not to renew the contract.
What about your off-bording initiatives? Is this a dimension that you have taken into account?
We do an exit interview with a form system, but we need to do more work on the subject. The idea would perhaps be to develop a tool that would enable us to carry out a reverse survey to find out why employees are leaving and to build up a database that we could use in the same way as our satisfaction survey tool, which gives us trend curves, the subjects on which employees are satisfied, those where there is a risk of dissatisfaction, etc.
What other areas would you like to improve?
We have a number of ideas for further improving the work-life balance of our employees, things that we're not used to seeing in the hotel sector, such as the 4-3. It's not on the agenda, but we're thinking about it.
What benefits do you offer at Cycas to build employee loyalty?
We have the advantages of the brands, with advantageous rates all over the world, at Marriott or Hyatt, and the same at Cycas. We pay up to 70% of the cost of transport tickets, and have a competitive health insurance scheme, which has been very well received. There are also target and incentive bonuses for certain operational positions. Our Hyatt is a dog-friendly hotel.
We also make a number of small gestures on a daily basis with breakfasts, lunches and snacks for employees. We give out ice creams when it's hot, for example. Our employees have access to a gym and a fun room where they can rest and have a siesta, play a games console, read books, play table football or table tennis.
You mentioned internal promotions. Is it possible for hotels in different countries to be promoted within the Group?
The Group's DNA is to help its employees grow. We have a good example here. Nicolas started out as a receptionist in England, rose through the ranks and is now Operations Director of the 335-room Marriott combo at Roissy.
How do you see the future?
Attitudes are changing and we're moving towards something very interesting. We're going to move away from the traditional towards a more dynamic model. There will be more automation, more crazy concepts attracting different profiles.
What advice would you give to a young person thinking of launching their career in the hotel and restaurant sector?
It's a great environment, very rich, very open-minded and offering human and professional experiences. New ideas are welcome, so let yourself go and you'll end up with someone who'll listen to you and give you a chance, or who'll give you the push you need to grow.
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