GPS managing director stresses importance of relevant sector experience
The managing director of a hospitality, catering and leisure recruiter launched earlier this year has told Recruiter he prefers all his customer-facing staff to have worked in the sector at a senior level.
These staff include a former a head chef, former directors and managers, while he himself has been “a hotel manager most of my life”.
Alan Hogg, managing director of Global Personnel Solutions (GPS), that launched in April, said: “The market has changed, and it is more important to be a consultant than a salesperson.” As a result of this change, he said employing ex-industry professionals gave the company a competitive advantage.
Hogg said ex-industry professionals were better equipped to understand the needs of clients’ businesses than those without this background. “They [clients] do get a lot of sales calls from people who don’t understand their needs, and a lot of the way competitors operate is transactional and doesn’t involve meeting people.” For him, running a successful business in the sector “is all about people and relationships”.
Hogg said Brexit accentuated the need to take a consultative approach. This was particularly the case in rural areas of the UK, such as the South-West and Scotland, where smaller independent hotels relied on a transient workforce, many from outside the UK. He said that heightened concerns over whether the UK was now less attractive to EU nationals than previously highlighted the importance of “working with those businesses to understand their needs and to help them attract staff”. A priority now was to find people who wanted a career, and not just a short-term job.
Asked whether launching a business in such uncertain times was a good idea, Hogg responded: “Brave or foolhardy? Ask me in a few months.”
