From 1,200 employees in 2019 to 10 times fewer only two years later: like many companies in the hotel and restaurant sector, Imperial London Hotels lost almost all its staff during the pandemic, due to lockdowns and restrictions. But in spring 2021, the UK capital “came back to life, there were people everywhere and we thought we had time to prepare for the recovery, but we had to speed up the reopening of our hotels”, recalls Sandra Nunes, the human resources director of the London hotel chain. After almost a year and a half of closed doors, the hotel group had to start hiring again and seek out multigenerational staff, like its customers, to provide a welcome in its eight establishments, because customers tend to look for someone more their own age when they need information.
