'We apply to job seekers instead of the other way round'

Staff shortages in the Netherlands continue unabated, including in the hotel industry. They also notice this at WestCord Hotels, with 15 hotels spread throughout the Netherlands. Corporate recruiter Eline Ligthart does everything in her power to present the family-run company as an attractive employer. "We not only take good care of our guests, but also of our employees," she says.

Once, she hesitated between Hotel School or studying Human Resources. It became the latter. "When the opportunity arose eight years ago to start as a Human Resources employee at WestCord Hotels, I ended up in the hotel industry after all, so that worked out really well," says the now 31-year-old Eline. "Initially, we worked a lot with employment agencies to recruit candidates. But when the job market started to change, the need arose to work less with temping agencies and to focus more on recruitment ourselves. However, there was no real job description for a corporate recruiter, basically I was just sent out and thrown in at the deep end. Typical WestCord Hotels: as an employee you get a lot of freedom and you are allowed to make mistakes. In short, with us people get all the space they need to develop."

At WestCord Hotels, everything is about becoming 'part of the family' as quickly as possible.

As a corporate recruiter, Eline has since been working in many ways to increase brand awareness of the WestCord Hotels employer brand. "For example, we have an Applicant Tracking System and we also recently started low-threshold job applications via WhatsApp to make it as easy as possible for applicants. Because we consider the 'warm welcome' very important for new colleagues, we use staff app OneTeam in addition to company news, it also contains the complete onboarding process. All aimed at becoming 'part of the family' as quickly as possible. In addition, every employee receives the welcome training 'Embark on your Adventure' in order to get to know the DNA and history of WestCord Hotels."

For Eline, the biggest challenge in the current staff shortage is recruiting specialised chefs for the hotel chain. "Such skilled workers are very hard to find. For more and more people, a healthy work-life balance is increasingly important, but in the hospitality industry, of course, you work mostly on weekends and also at irregular hours. As a result, working in the hospitality industry has generally become less popular. Also, more and more people only want to work part-time. So the needs in the labour market are changing, and as an organisation we are working very hard to respond to this. And whereas abroad, working in the catering industry is often still seen as a real profession that people are proud of, here in the Netherlands it is now mostly no more than a part-time job for students."

According to Eline, it is therefore important to restore the image of working in the hospitality industry. And it is more important than ever for WestCord to profile itself as an attractive employer. "These days we apply to job seekers, rather than the other way around. We not only take good care of our guests, but also of our employees. For instance, we ensure that there is sufficient rest time between a late evening and early morning shift and we pay attention to healthy meals in the canteen. Moreover, we invest heavily in training our people; in recent years we have grown strongly in this area. For instance, we employ two hospitality trainers who teach both new and experienced staff to give the best possible service."

With the WestCord WTC Hotel Leeuwarden as her workplace, Eline feels like a fish out of water in the family business, which has some 16 hundred employees. "By nature, I am curious, I always like to stay up to date with everything going on in the organisation. Well, as a corporate recruiter, you are often the first to hear about new developments. It also fills me with pride when I hear that someone has met his or her new friend at the workplace. Or when, for example, someone has dropped out of university and then found his or her niche with us. I can really enjoy such success stories."