EHL’s new Hotel General Management Program aims to help professionals progress in their careers by enhancing their management, leadership, and personal skills. Stéphane Haddad, director of the program, explains the impetus behind it in the following interview, sharing insights into the program’s vision and objectives.
As Associate Dean in charge of Executive Education at EHL, Haddad’s focus is on lifelong professional development. The department wants to serve the professional world by developing the leadership capabilities of employees so they can step into management roles, both in hospitality and in the wider service industry.
With hospitality suffering from a talent shortage since the pandemic, it’s essential to nurture and develop the careers of existing employees who have the potential to become industry leaders, and to help aspiring managers reach their career goals.
EHL Graduate School’s new Hotel General Management program aims to meet that need. Over nine weeks – eight online and one onsite at EHL – this unique management development program helps talented managers and future leaders cultivate the hard and soft skills they require in order to master management excellence, take on further responsibility, and progress in their careers.
The skills that we develop in this program really enable participants to tackle the strategic dimension of managing a hospitality business, as well as the leadership skills needed to manage people, either at the property level or at the corporate level, where they may be led to continue their career progression.
In Today’s Hospitality Landscape, What Does “Management Excellence” Mean to You?
Management excellence really means mastering a combination of competencies – hard skills as well as soft skills. It is about navigating through complexity and making evidence and data-based decisions.
It’s also about taking a new approach to leadership – leading people, leading teams – with a human-centric focus.
How is The Hotel General Management Program Structured to Teach This?
The hotel management development program is built around a combination of online and onsite learning. Participants first go through three core online modules.
- The first tackles the development of a clear understanding of the hospitality world, the different stakeholders, and industry dynamics.
- The second module addresses financial and operational effectiveness,
- and the third covers aspects of people management.
In addition, participants can choose an elective to take a deep dive into either stakeholder management or revenue management.
During the on-site week, we focus more on leadership, sustainability, and technology.
The program also comprises individual coaching sessions that identify and develop participants’ leadership styles for more efficient management.
What Elements Do you think are Critical Nowadays to Keep Stakeholders Happy?
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The first is to have effective communication in place between the general manager and the different stakeholders that surround the hospitality business.
The second is to be able, through that effective communication, to build a trust-based relationship over a long-term period.
The training program provides tools and practical examples to help develop a trust-based relationship. This revolves around mastering hard management skills and revenue management so that performance is delivered and communication is not just based on words but on hard facts.
Related to Good Communication, Why Is It Important for Today’s Hotel Managers to Master the Art of Influencing?
The hospitality industry is very complex, with multiple participants at different levels. It's key for managers to know who these players are and how they differ from one another in terms of needs, influence, and more.
Hotel owners, hotel operators, other brands that are involved, as well as customers and, not least, employees, all influence the workings of your hotel… and this means you as a manager need to be able to influence them.
Learning to properly assess the role each stakeholder plays and being able to influence them through skilled communication is a key part of a manager's professional development and one of the things we focus on in the program.
What Key Financial and Operational Management Skills Are Required in This Industry?
It is all about capturing the information that hospitality businesses have and actually synthesizing it all to make decisions.
We cover multiple aspects in this program that relate to hotel operations and finances:
- analyzing financial statements and the effectiveness of KPIs,
- understanding the multidimensionality of hospitality businesses, such as the real estate side of the businesses,
- maximizing revenue,
- optimizing performance,
- working with market insights,
- successfully using distribution channels,
How Does the Hotel Management Development Program Train Leaders to Foster Collaboration and Drive High Performance?
As part of the training program, students attend a series of leadership workshops, individual coaching sessions, and other activities that drive personal and professional development by enhancing their self-awareness in combination with growing their people-management skills.
Through exchanges with other participants, the workshops help individuals build their own leadership style and have a better understanding of their strengths and their areas for improvement in the leadership journey.
What Emerging Trends Do You See Shaping the Future of Hospitality Management, and How Does the Hotel Leadership Development Program Prepare for Them?
The hospitality industry is faced with a number of trends that are impacting it quite substantially.
- The first one is the increasing focus on human-based interactions, and the program tries to address this through a specific online module on driving employee performance, as well as bringing soft skills in terms of managing people and teams.
- The second trend relates to the impact of the sustainability agenda and how to evolve the business model and operations accordingly. During the on-site week of the training program, we cover sustainability at length.
- Finally, there is clearly a trend of digitalization with the advent of AI. This is a topic that we address during the on-site week session by focusing on technology and its impact on the industry.
What Makes EHL’s Approach to Leadership Training Stand Out?
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We believe in applied learning. This is the DNA of EHL; this is the DNA of the program.
We offer a combination of learning and hands-on experience through the online modules, on-site sessions, individual coaching sessions that provide real-life examples and case studies, and opportunities for participants to share their respective experiences with others and learn from them as well as from faculty experts. We believe this is key to becoming a leader in this fast-evolving world.
For Professionals Looking to Advance Their Careers, Why Would This Training Program Be a Pivotal Investment in Their Future?
It consists of three pillars that together form an indispensable foundation for their personal and professional development.
- The first is to enable them to gain a full understanding of the complex world of hospitality. We look at the web of interactions that exist between the different stakeholders that are an integral part of this industry.
- The second pillar is about enhancing their management skills so the business can be run more efficiently, and this by improving their skills in revenue management, and by addressing financial and asset performance, both on the real estate side as on the business and investment side.
- The third pillar aims to identify and upskill their leadership capabilities and to have an introspective journey so they gain self-awareness in terms of their ability to motivate and lead people in teams and different hotel departments.
Thanks to the hands-on approach of the program, students gain experience in leadership even before graduating and leave feeling prepared and confident about taking on a hotel management position.
What Impact Might Graduates of This Program Have on the Hospitality Industry?
They will be able to drive not only performance in their future roles in the industry, but also adequately assess and address whatever the latest industry trends are. They'll also have gained the skills to deal with the real-world challenges of not just maintaining staff, but also keeping them happy.
On top of that, the hotel management development program prepares them to deal with the still-increasing importance of sustainability and the ever-growing role of technology in the industry.
And to enable the industry to promote itself to the greater audience and reinvent itself altogether.
