Franck Arnold looks at how hotel staff are finding their career path after Brexit
As a Frenchman who hails from Strasbourg, the Savoy's managing director Franck Arnold is about as close to a ‘global citizen' as you could find. He has never settled anywhere for much longer than five years – not in Paris, New York, Athens, Edinburgh, nor any other major city where he has worked as a hotelier for the industry's top companies.
"To this day, if you look at the largest and most recognised hotels in London, the majority of the directors or managers are not British," he says. "They may have lived here for a long time. I arrived for two years in the 1990s, left to work in Scotland for five years and then I came back. I've now been here for three and a half years."
Living and working in so many cities around the world has left Arnold feeling like a "foreigner", wherever he is.
"Even when I go back to Alsace, I am a foreigner because I haven't lived there for 32 years. It suits me well, I like it, it gives me perspective. Although I'm French and I will never part ways [with that], London is still my place of choice. It is a special place," he says.
It's this love of London that sees him make the capital his current home, but he finds it difficult to watch London hotels struggle more than ever to retain employees in a congested luxury hotel market, fuelled by expansions at Claridge's and the Ritz London as well as many big-name openings, including Raffles London at the OWO and Peninsula London.
The Savoy has invested heavily in its staff in an attempt to keep hold of talent, spending nearly £300,000 last year on a new staff restaurant as well as launching other employee perks, such as a wellness room, in a bid to fend off employment competition. Despite London's allure and long history as a destination for European hoteliers, Arnold feels the inability to import the skilled European labour London's high-end hotels once relied upon has seriously exacerbated the issue.
"London has attracted so much talent because it is such a special city. There is an exceptional hospitality level in London, but that's especially so when you've got people who can travel and move from one country to another without too much difficulty," he says.
A shallow talent pool
According to Office for National Statistics (ONS) data, there were nearly 120,000 unfilled hospitality sector roles in 2023, while a UKHospitality survey last year revealed that 61% of hospitality businesses were experiencing staff shortages. This was despite a rise in net migration from 329,000 people in 2015 to 745,000 in 2022. ONS data shows that while 58% of immigrants arriving in the UK for work were EU nationals in 2015, by 2022 citizens from EU member states made up a little under 20% of all immigrants arriving in the UK.
Arnold, who departed the Ritz-Carlton Toronto to become the Savoy's managing director in September 2020 amid the Covid-19 pandemic, recognises this represents a large reduction in the potential hiring pool for London's hoteliers. To ease the pressure, he supports "commonsense" reforms, such as an expansion of Youth Mobility Scheme visas to include EU countries, as well as a reversal of the increase to the minimum salary requirement for skilled workers to £38,700.
"We used to find those skills in people like me, who had gone to [European] hotel schools and had training and were super-motivated to come to the UK to perfect their English, acquire experience and, most of the time, go back to their original country. But they're no longer available," he says.
Arnold is not seeking to re-legislate the Brexit referendum, rather, he fell in love with London and the UK and wants to see it make the most of Brexit.
"Emotionally, I was disappointed [by Brexit] because I'm a European. I love this continent and I still believe Britain is one of the greatest countries of Europe. I'm very grateful to be able to live here. It's really a pity that it happened but it is what it is, you move on and make the best out of it.
"We are spending a lot on training and development, but the industry still has potential to do much more and do much better, if we had more flexibility with employment," he adds. Flexibility is not a byword for poor employee treatment however, and he feels strongly about the need to respect and empower employees.
"I know exactly what they [the Savoy's 600 members of staff] have to do. When they wake up and come to work, it's early, they have to put an act together and bring the best out of themselves. They walk probably 20,000 steps a day, smiling, establishing a rapport with the guests. It's a tough, tough job, but also very rewarding. These are the people who actually make the Savoy – they're the ones delivering the experience. Not me."
The fact Arnold has worked in almost every role in the hotel industry throughout his career is a source of pride and informs an empathetic approach to the Savoy's employees, whose roles he knows inside-out.
"I've done pretty much all the jobs in hospitality. My first job was housekeeping – I think I almost resigned three times. After two weeks I went to the director of HR and told him ‘I think I'm in the wrong department, possibly the wrong industry'. He convinced me to stay. A few weeks later I nearly dropped out again. But when people say: ‘what doesn't kill you makes you stronger', it's very true. When you learn how things need to be delivered and you're being trained – in the kitchen, the dining room, in housekeeping or at reception – you're being trained by professionals who mould you.
"They may sometimes treat you a bit harshly, but it's so as you understand. Throughout my life I had people tell me ‘No, Franck, look at that, that's what you need to do'. You develop a sense of attention to detail and understanding of how things should be done."
Although his progression into managerial positions has reduced interactions with staff and guests, Arnold still derives a great deal of motivation from them: "I still get very energised every morning when I arrive at the Savoy in the lobby and say hello to the guests and staff because the walls have so many stories to tell. For me as a hotelier it really energises me to be the custodian," he says.
"This hotel has been here for 135 years and we need to ensure that in the future it will still be here when I'm long gone."
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