The Age Paradox: Experience pays for the Accor Group

This hotel group developed a training program in conjunction with National Seniors Australia pitched at over 50s looking for work – and is reaping the benefits.

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Joe Coorey, 63, at work in The Pullman Hotel, Sydney

This hotel group developed a training program in conjunction with National Seniors Australia pitched at over 50s looking for work – and is reaping the benefits.

Joe Coorey, 63, has worked in the front office at The Pullman Hotel at Sydney Olympic Park for seven months. During that short amount of time, he’s already been nominated for employee of the month six times and won three times.

“When you get a lot of the senior staff saying you’re an asset to the hotel, the old pat on the back’s great. It feels terrific,” says Joe.

While Joe’s official job title is a “welcomer” or concierge, he is happy to help out wherever he can. “You name it, I basically do it here,” he says.

“I’ve been a butler to the Indian Prime Minister, I’ve been the chauffeur for the Madagascan President. I’ve cleaned people’s boots and shoes. I’ve worked as a chauffeur driving some of the guests around. I’ve done washing, ironing, pressing. Whatever’s required. But I don’t mind. It’s not consistent, but when something needs to be done, you do it.”

Word of Joe’s work ethic has spread through the Accor Group, The Pullman’s parent company. General managers from other hotels have visited The Pullman to help their staff learn from his example. John McDonnell, the vice president of Human Resources at Accor, even stopped to take a selfie when visiting the hotel.

It’s not just his colleagues who think highly of him either. Scroll through online reviews of The Pullman on TripAdvisor and you’ll find glowing comments from guests about their experiences with Joe. Reviewer “Carolyn G”, who stayed at the Pullman in May, wrote, “I must make mention particularly of Joe, he must be the most welcoming person I have ever met.” Another user, “LeezS2” from Auckland wrote, “Joe the concierge went above and beyond with his customer service skills.”

Joe also embraces the accolades because, before this job, he was unemployed for almost three years. He found himself out of work when his promotional business collapsed after difficulties with a business partner. At the same time, a complete knee replacement managed to knock Joe off his feet for two years as his body rejected the foreign metal that was placed in his knee. The ongoing financial difficulties meant Joe lost his house and his marriage became strained.

“I was shattered. That was the proper word, shattered. But again, you can’t keep looking back. You’ve got to survive. I’m a survivor,” he says.

After his knee healed, Joe spent the next year looking for work, sending out over 70 resumes with little success. He left voicemails with HR departments and recruitment agencies that were never returned. He’d often throw the jobs section of the paper across the room in frustration.

“The bank account was basically flat. I needed to do something. Not only that but for my own health, I would say. I was getting very frustrated,” he says.

He believes his age was a significant factor as to why he was not getting responses from employers. “Although I didn’t put my age down, or a lot of my earlier jobs or schooling, they can still calculate your maturity level,” Joe says.

In the sole job interview he scored that year, the interviewer told Joe that he wasn’t suitable for the role, saying sales had changed too much in the three years since he’d left the job market. Joe was shocked, seeing he’d spent 40 years in the industry. He pushed the interviewer to tell him how exactly it was the market had changed. The interviewer couldn’t elaborate.

Experience is an asset

However at The Pullman, Joe’s experience is an asset. He was hired after a recruitment agency recommended he take part in Accor’s Experienced Workers Program, which Accor was trialling in its Sydney and Melbourne hotels in 2014.

The training program was designed with National Seniors Australia and was pitched at over 50s looking for work. Over the course of a week, participants got hands-on experience in the front office and food and beverage services. Stand out performers, like Joe, were offered jobs.

“He just adds value every day. He would be exactly what we were thinking about when we started the program,” says Edward Pearce, the human resources manager for Accor NSW/ACT.

Joe admits he was sceptical of the program’s intentions at first. “I thought, hello, this is a con job. Something where they’re going to hire you for three months, get their little grant off the government or Centrelink then flick you. But after the first week of the training… I said this group is fair dinkum. They’re looking for genuine workers,” he says.

The Accor Group, which includes chains such as Sofitel, The Sebel, Novotel and Mercure, has over 200 hotels and around 10,000 employees in Australia. However, like much of the hospitality industry, the demographics of their workforce are skewed towards younger employees. Over 60 per cent of Accor’s workforce is under 35, with the average age on the front desk around 22. Comparatively, over 55s make up only 8 per cent of their workforce, with most of those working in maintenance or housekeeping. The Experienced Workers Program was explicitly designed to see what value this age group could bring to a front-of-house role.

The program wasn’t pitched at those from a hospitality background, instead it focused on maturity and customer service.

“We can give them the skills. It was more about what they could bring to the table with their life experience, with their interactions with guests, with the way they could show empathy,” says Pearce.

The most common comment Pearce says he heard from participants in the program was that other employers usually didn’t even respond to their applications. “They were just glad to be given the chance. I didn’t realise there must be a lot of age discrimination out there,” he says. “We’ve got some amazing experienced workers out of the programs. They’re just amazing. You think, ‘Why didn’t we do this ages ago?’”

Pearce’s only disappointment with the trial was that the company was not able to employ all of the participants. Only about half of those who completed the week were hired. Accor is currently reviewing the program to make sure it can be run with job vacancies for all the participants.

‘Enjoying the work’

After Joe’s week in the program, he was staggered to find four divisions were vying to employ him. He believes the recognition of his hard work he’s since received proves his hiring was not tokenistic. “I’m very independent, I don’t want someone saying we’ll keep him because he’s old or this and that. I earn my own keep,” he says. “I believe they’re getting their dollars worth out of me.”

Joe isn’t fazed that many of his colleagues are 30 or 40 years his junior. They share jokes. Many of them turn to him for experience, impressed with his way of handling of guests. Others have also encouraged him to apply for management roles, however Joe says he’s not interested.

“I’ve done all that side of it. I’m very content with what I’m doing now. When you go three years without working, it’s frustrating. You don’t want to jump positions all of a sudden and then lose your enjoyment,” he says.

As for retirement, it’s not on Joe’s agenda any time soon. The financial losses from the three years out of work are still too great. Besides, he’s still enjoying the work. “Some people might be waiting for the pension, but I’m not, I’m too active. I just can’t sit down so I might as well work,” he says.

The Age Paradox is a series of articles by AAA journalist Jackie Keast written as part of her Master of Arts (Journalism) at the University of Technology, Sydney.

More from The Age Paradox series on AAA

Tags: accor group, age-discrimination, the age paradox,

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