Accor Heartist Solidarity
Jacques de Laboulaye
Solidarity Director & Managing Director – Accor Heartist Solidarity
According to you, what are the key factors behind a successful partnership between a company like Accor and an organisation like IECD? What impact has this partnership had so far?
Trust is the foundation. The ability to maintain regular dialogue about the project, including when addressing more complex or sensitive issues. And this trust must exist at every level: on the ground, between hotel teams and project staff, as well as between our respective headquarters.
This strong relationship has enabled the partnership to take root and grow over time across several countries. What began in 2013 with support for around thirty Karen young people in Thailand has evolved into a regional programme benefiting around 800 people across Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam.
How does this partnership fit within Accor Group’s CSR strategy?
This partnership is fully aligned with one of the four “Extra Mile” pillars of our CSR strategy, which focuses on promoting the sustainable professional integration of people who face significant barriers to employment.
Each year, IECD’s programmes provide vocational training to several hundred beneficiaries across a range of professions, helping them broaden their opportunities and build lasting careers.
Since the partnership between Accor and IECD began, more than 1,800 people have received training.
What tangible value does this partnership bring to the Group’s teams, particularly in terms of training, employer attractiveness, recruitment and employee engagement?
For our hotel teams, the partnership helps address key HR priorities such as training and recruitment, while giving these efforts a strong social purpose through inclusion.
It offers a practical way to strengthen employee engagement, foster a greater sense of pride and belonging, and encourage more inclusive practices within our hotels. Ultimately, it also helps reduce social inequalities at the local level.
One example perfectly illustrates this impact. The General Manager of Hôtel des Arts Saigon, who is deeply committed to the programme, told us that the hotel sources all the pastries served at breakfast exclusively from La Boulangerie Française – HCMC, one of IECD’s supported social enterprises. It is a powerful reminder that excellence and inclusion are not mutually exclusive – quite the opposite.
What would you like to achieve together over the coming years?
We would like to explore new ways of strengthening our partnership by adopting an even more holistic approach.
This means looking beyond financial support to develop joint capacity-building initiatives, for example, training our teams on inclusion issues or involving hotel professionals more closely in the design of IECD’s training programmes.
We also want to identify new ways of engaging our employees and partners so that they can play an even more active role in the partnership’s long-term success.