The Changing Candidate Profile: Adapting to Transferrable Skills and Employee Well-Being in the Post-Covid World of Work

Severine de Paepe: Ten or fifteen years ago, we had more people coming out of pure tourism training. The recruits were already coming from tourism or coming out of tourism schools.

Today we adapt, we do not necessarily recruit people from tourism, but who have transferable skills. It is a concept to which I am very attached.

I work with managers to get them on board with this notion. Today, I want recruits to have a sensitivity for travel. For some destinations, it is possible to train in an eductour. They must have an appetite for sales and a sense of customer service. We will think more in terms of skills than in terms of training.

TourMaG – Is there a before and after Covid?

Severine de Paepe: Since the Covid, people leave more easily, for other jobs, “to give another meaning to their lives”, for totally different jobs. The Covid has blurred the benchmarks so much that people today are looking for meaning, for reconnection.

With a little hindsight, they come back to it. For candidates who come from tourism, there are many more requirements, which cannot always be met.

TourMaG – What has changed between the beginning of 2000 and today?

Severine de Paepe: Taking into account the human! Not only in onboarding, because we realized that a rookie that we hang on well for a year and a half, is boosted to the fullest. She wants, she is happy, productive. The graft is taking well.

Then, during the employment contract, there is what is linked to legal obligations and QVT, parity… We will measure the employee’s feeling of well-being and fulfillment at work more than we did before, through an annual interview on which we made an opening with much more personal questions: What degree of fulfillment within the company? Within my team? Do I want to invest myself in other missions? … These are factors that were not taken into account before.

Previously, the tools were more linked to an obligation and intended for managers. Today, we measure the well-being of employees and their risk of departure. It allows us to anticipate and act.

We also work a lot on career management, even on structures that are not very large. There are things that can be put in place: avoid working in firefighting mode. It is very important to identify the key and evolving people in advance.

Every two years, we do people reviews. We discuss with each collaborator and question him: Is he good in his job today? Is he likely to get bored soon? Does he want to take other missions? Does he have the skills? We assess development capacities: managerial? on production? a technical aspect? etc… and let’s start preparing tomorrow’s job today. This is the issue today. And it is also a loyalty issue.

We have set ourselves the objective of having significant internal promotion. We want people from outside to join the team, but also give our employees the opportunity to have visions of professional development, even if it means encouraging inter-group promotion.

TourMaG – What will the world of work look like tomorrow?

Severine de Paepe: In the future, it will be necessary to recruit even more by transposition of skills and no longer by business knowledge. Today, it’s still difficult because former managers will say: “yes, but he doesn’t know tailor-made or this destination”. We must break these landmarks that can no longer continue to endure.

It will be necessary to accept that the employees do not make career all their life in the same structure. It’s complicated, it’s exhausting for the recruitment teams.

The company must agree to be at the service of the employee, while maintaining the same degree of requirement.