For hotel king Petter A. Stordalen, it is important to see the person behind the CV and the formal education.
KVADRATUREN (Nettavisen Økonomi): Nettavisen meets the hotel owner in November on a charm offensive under the auspices of NHO Reiseliv to get more people to start in the hotel and restaurant industry.
The meeting was held before the outbreak of the infection and the new shutdowns. Several hotels and restaurants have struggled to find competent labor. Stordalen receives an immediate response from 300 people present, many with a minority background, when he posts from the rostrum in a well-known style.
In private afterwards, he says that the most important thing for Nordic Choice Hotels is to look a little behind the professional competence, behind the CV of the jobseekers:
– What person is here? The way you are is important to us and our culture. The interaction in Nordic Choice consists of economists, receptionists, marketing, cleaning, catering, all within one and the same house.
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No language barrier
– If you do not know the language, the workplace is the best way to learn the language. And there is a limited amount of language you can if you are good at cooking or working with cleaning or at the reception. But our whole idea is to find the people and see you fit in, says Stordalen to Nettavisen Økonomi.
And some of the audience quickly excelled with feedback he appreciated.
– When I stand on the stage, I see the enormous joy, the enthusiasm and the smile, the motivation. I talked through the lecture with eight to ten people in the hall. In a classic recruitment process with interviews and the like, you rarely get the same enthusiasm and excitement as here.
The hotel owner is impressed by what he sees in those who were present, the enormous desire to actually get a job.
– I have met a lot of people, and they only want one thing: To have a job to go to in the morning. And here I meet 300 people, who are all positive and happy.
Correct setting
Stordalen says he has looked at many of the Nordic Choice chains’ employees. Many of them are not hired at all because of their resumes, but because of the people they are. If they have the right attitude, the Choice chain can teach you a lot.
The most important thing in a job interview is not what you should not say, but what you should say: This is what I want to work with, and this is what I feel I can do.
– You want to go to work “in the morning”, and you are keen to deliver. It is important, and then it is important to radiate some positive motivation and energy. I also like that people are open and honest about their good sides and things they have challenges with. Then it is much easier to guide in the right direction.
Stordalen says he has been so lucky throughout his career to hire people who are better than himself. He cites CEO Torgeir Silseth as the first and best example, but this also applies to several others.
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Respect
– Then I am very concerned that you should have respect for other people and mutual respect for each other. Nordic Choice has, among other things, been active in “Pride” and in many cases.
– It is not because we should be so political, but it is an important part of our culture, and we do not celebrate it. This is about human rights, and it is a human right to love whoever you want.
His own career has not always gone smoothly. The 59-year-old was fired in 1996 by the main shareholder Stein-Erik Hagen in Steen & Strøm, a company Stordalen had been a co-owner of since 1992. The lesson was that it is the owners who decide in a company.
– If you disagree about the direction of a company, it is natural that it is those who own the company who decide what should happen. But it was a fantastic opportunity for me, because I had worked a lot with shopping malls, and Steen & Strøm was a canon success.
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Out on top
– I felt like I went to the top, says the hotelier. He has been in and out of shopping centers through the large grouping Sektor Gruppen, which is now owned by Finnish Citycon.
– Have you had nany tricks or tips that have gotten you where you are today?
– I have taken the opportunities that have come along the way. I had no opportunity to dream that I would get a job as center manager at City Syd in Trondheim at that time in 1987, and then I got it. Then I was headhunted by Atle Brynestad.
– Then I thought you are sitting there and have a super job and earn well and have success, but now I have to take the chance and do something new. Then I started working for him, and Brynestad ran both shopping centers and real estate, Stordalen answers.
Brynestad also owned the clothing chain BikBok, and suddenly Stordalen was CEO of BikBok for a year.
Became my life
– Life takes a turn you do not expect, and when I had to involuntarily quit Steen & Strøm in 1996, hotels came up as an opportunity. It started as an investment in my life, and then it became my life.
– What is the best advice you have received in your career?
– The most important piece of advice in many ways is actually to line up and do it, not just think about it. I would never have been where I am today, had I not been to that interview and traveled to Trondheim. Of course, it’s a bit about the CV and where you work, but it’s very much about who you are as a human being.
– What do you think is your most important trait?
– It is that I am very fond of people, and I am genuinely interested in other people. I think human history is exciting.
Neither dream nor plans
– The whole of Nordic Choice is such a company, and Torgeir Silseth is the best example of that. He started as a chef and never had any dreams or plans to end up as CEO. Now he has been sitting there for 20 years.
– You must have seen something in him pretty quickly?
– I saw it right away. The first time I saw Torgeir, I saw that all the other leaders related a little to him. He had a natural security and never left Vatnefjorden (hometown, editor’s note) and the values he had with him from there.
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