Hiring for a London hotel opening: the order that works
An opening team is hired in sequence, not all at once. Getting the order right is the difference between a soft launch and a hard one.
- Written by
- JobsPronto Editorial
- London hospitality desk
- Published
- Reading time
- 6 min read
- Also in
- Hotels
Photograph: @apatrissi via Unsplash. Unsplash License — free for commercial use, attribution appreciated
A hotel opening compresses a year of hiring into a few months. Every department has to be staffed, trained and rehearsed before a guest walks in, and the people doing the hiring are usually also writing the standards, choosing the systems and chasing the builders. This piece is the desk's view of the sequence that works, drawn from what we have seen of London openings from inside and from outside.
Leadership first, and earlier than feels comfortable
The general manager, the head of housekeeping, the executive chef and the front office manager need to be in post while the building is still a site. They write the service standards, choose the property management system, set the rota model and, crucially, hire their own teams. An opening that hires the leaders late ends up with departments built to someone else's plan.
This is also the hardest hiring in the whole project, because the people who can open a hotel are usually running one. Give it the most time and the most care.
Then the core: the people who train the people
Supervisors and senior team members come next: the housekeeping supervisors who will sign off rooms, the reception seniors who will run the desk on the first night, the sous chefs who will run sections, the F&B supervisors who will lead breakfast. These are the people who will train the volume hires, so they need to arrive with enough time to learn the building and the standards themselves.
Volume hires last, in the final weeks
Room attendants, receptionists, waiting staff, porters and kitchen porters are hired closest to opening, in the numbers the forecast justifies rather than the numbers the pre-opening budget imagined. They are inducted in groups, trained by the supervisors above them, and rehearsed through mock services and mock check-ins before the first paying guest.
This is also where the London labour market matters most. Volume roles are hired locally, quickly and in competition with every other opening in the capital. Clear pay, clear hours and a start date that does not slip are the things that fill these roles.
- Hire volume roles to the forecast, not to the aspiration
- Induct in groups; rehearse services and check-ins before opening
- Publish pay and hours clearly, and keep the start date
- Plan cover for the launch weeks separately from the permanent team
What usually goes wrong
Opening dates move. When they do, a team hired to a fixed date is either paid to wait or lost to another venue. Building flexibility into start dates, and being honest with candidates about the risk, keeps more of the team intact than any retention bonus.
The second common failure is treating the launch period as normal operation. The first weeks of a hotel are a peak, and they need cover on top of the permanent team, not instead of it.
Leaders first, trainers second, volume last, and cover for the launch on top. A person at JobsPronto reads every opening brief we receive, and the earlier we see it, the more useful we can be.
How to read this piece
- Verified fact
- Checked against a named public source, with the date we checked it.
- Editorial analysis
- The JobsPronto desk's reading of the market. Reasoned, not measured.
- JobsPronto observation
- Something we have seen in our own work with London venues and candidates. Not a statistic.
- External source
- Reported by a third party we link to. We have not independently verified it.
