Perspectives from 3 giants on HR innovation challenges: Palais des Congrès de Montréal, Air Canada and Tourisme Montréal

Reverse pitch mornings at MT Lab are an opportunity to illustrate the challenges of innovation in our industry to innovative entrepreneurs and ecosystem players. On September 8, the focus was on HR (human resources) issues, with the presentation of concrete cases from the Palais des congrès de Montréal, Air Canada and Tourisme Montréal.

Our participants were:

Palais des congrès de Montréal

Christian Ruel, Vice-President, Finance and Administration
Marie-Ève Leclerc, Talent and Culture Advisor

Montreal Tourism

Sarah Justine Leduc-Villeneuve, Manager – Hospitality and Product Development

Air Canada

Rania Chehade, Manager – Distribution platforms and product delivery
Catherine Jetté, Department Manager – Customer Life Cycle

Issues and realities

1. Restarting means, above all: starting afresh in a new environment

That’s the big thing about getting back to business: we’re not restarting our good old “well-oiled” operational machine – we’re literally starting a new one.

It started with telecommuting, then the necessary use of new digital tools and, finally, revisiting our ways of doing things to reduce uncertainties and better support our customers through changes and new health measures.

The demands of the job, and the skills required to meet them, are far different from what they used to be. For example, at the Palais des congrès de Montréal, Christian Ruel, vice-president of finance and administration, illustrated the challenges faced by event teams in the convention business: experienced, seasoned employees must now integrate a whole new range of digital tools into their practices to bring hybrid (face-to-face and virtual) concepts to life.

In terms of HR challenges, we need to be able to capture the difficulties faced by teams in the face of this new reality, and engage employees in sharing and rapid feedback between the workforce and managers. We also understand that we need to be able to monitor the progress of learning and the integration of new tools into practice. Tourism HR professionals have every interest in familiarizing themselves with the technological innovations addressing these new challenges.

In the final analysis, it’s by generating the ability to mobilize skills, encourage mutual aid between colleagues, and offer the listening and support needed at the right time, that the tourism business creates the winning conditions to ensure its effective recovery in the world “after”.

2. Our business is all about hospitality and human warmth

The year was littered with difficult choices, such as letting talented people go. Now, as we move into the new year, we’re asking ourselves: how do we complete the tasks these people were doing?

Some would say: “Automate everything! Put robots everywhere!” But our major partners remind us that tourism is first and foremost a welcoming experience and human warmth. The desire to make new discoveries motivates us to travel, but we also cherish the memories of the encounters we make: people are at the heart of the travel experience.

The HR challenge is therefore to identify opportunities to alleviate the pressure and work overload on teams, while maintaining a healthy balance between process optimization and the tourist experience.

As Catherine Jetté, Manager – B2B Customer Lifecycle at Air Canada, put it, the tourism employee acts as an ambassador for the destination.

As the visitor experience goes hand in hand with the destination’s image, employee well-being becomes a prime concern – we want talent with a “clear mind”, free from all worries, so that it can focus on the human element.

As Sarah-Justine Leduc-Villeneuve, Manager of Hospitality and Product Development at Tourisme Montréal, points out: with telecommuting and the underlying risks of isolation, the need to foster a harmonious corporate culture is a necessity to ensure cohesion and the transmission of the organization’s values throughout all its departments.

Faced with a shortage of manpower, HR professionals are also interested in any solution that can also automate low value-added tasks, so that employees can apply themselves to welcoming visitors.

3. There’s no better time than now to get your tourism innovation off the ground.

The pandemic led to the sharpest decline in the tourism sector since the Second World War. Now, the prospect of the industry’s recovery promises to be just as “historic”.

With the economic impact of 2019 (before the pandemic) expected to return by 2024-2025, a player at the very beginning of this upturn will naturally follow the industry’s growth curve. In this context, the most agile players will have the opportunity to grow at breakneck speed and position themselves as the new leaders in the field.

Share the good news! The tourism industry is entering the “springtime” of investment, and there’s no better time than now to take your innovation to the next level.

Can you turn these HR challenges into opportunities?

Contact MT Lab -> bit.ly/3CwhZWm

If you’d like to see the reverse pitch morning of September 8 again, click here -> bit.ly/399Mhki

Look out for our next reverses pitch in November -> bit.ly/3zX9QI6

Originally published October 4, 2021 on Tourisme Express