AIHM HIGHER

Over the past several weeks, we’ve been discussing key insights that have emerged from the AIHM Employer Forum and related research. If you’re an employer who will be recruiting new graduates and you want to know how to capture star students and the highest-potential future leaders, these insights are an invaluable way to get to know them better. Perhaps you’re a manager or business owner who will be directing and collaborating with the next generation. In that case, understanding the differences (and similarities) in worldviews and expectations can be vital to your success.

As the last semester drew to a close,Samantha Lauver-Marionsat down with four of AIHM’s graduating students as they completed their Bachelor of Business Administration in Global Hospitality Management. 

What were there favourite moments from their time at AIHM? How do they plan to benefit from their AIHM educations moving forward? What advice to they have for new students? Find out below. 

Insights from the Next Generation of Young Leaders

In this series on the lessons learned from the AIHM Employer Forum 2024, we’ve already covered two of the biggest motivating factors for the next generation of young leaders: an embrace of Individuality and Value-alignment. The emerging generation seek employers who recognise strength in diversity and support them in uniting their individual talents and identities with company visions. More than ever before, new graduates are focused on the values of the brands they’re exploring as potential employers, and they are specifically looking for brands whose values and worldviews align with their own.

Do you want to be a memory maker? Dreaming of a career where you can express your creativity and play a starring role in bringing many of people’s most important moments to life? 

Weddings, honeymoons, family vacations, romantic getaways, business trips, company retreats, fine dining events…for some people these are once-in-a-lifetime events. For a hotel manager, they’re a part of everyday life!

He has a flair for drama…very fitting considering his storied theatrical background. Actor, stage director, educator—Philip Reid knows what it takes to grab his audience and take them on a journey. Students in his English classes make rapid progress as he entertains, inspires and makes learning fun.

Recruiting the Best and Brightest of the Next Generation of Leaders

In my previous post “How to Catch a Star” I introduced one of the biggest driving forces in recruiting, supporting and achieving with the emerging generation of young university graduates. That force: individuality. Today’s graduates want to feel valued for who they are as a person and what they bring to the spaces they occupy. As we saw and discussed in that post, this desire to recognised and respected as an individual and to be invited to thrive by leaning into those points of individuality…well, it’s a basic desire most of us share. 

If you’re scared of heights, would you rush to the top of a ladder? An experienced construction worker or someone who cleans the windows of skyscrapers for a living would be happy to just hop on the ladder and zoom their way up to the top. They’re used to it. Climbing up to a lofty height is something they’ve done many times before. We can use this as a comparison to public speaking.

Dr. Yuth Thongcharoen initially joined the Asian Institute of Hospitality Management at the end of 2023 as an AIHM Expert in our Executive Education management skills training programme. With his successful academic career at higher education institutes in Thailand in addition to his background in management and entertainment as well as a doctoral degree in Language and Communication, he was a perfect fit teaching memorable workshops on topics likePresentation Skills and Start Your First Business.

As an educator, I work with passionate and brilliant young people every day.

At educational institutions like AIHM, we learn as our students learn, because we take a lifelong approach to our personal and professional development. In settings like this you can enjoy a journey of constant discovery and fresh inspiration. In many ways, the emerging generation of future leaders stand out as radically different from those who came before. Academic research studies and the anecdotal experience of professors and others who interact closely with today’s young adults confirm that when it comes to those who are now entering the workforce their aspirations, values and career goals stand in stark contrast to the generations that have come before.

At the Asian Institute of Hospitality Management (AIHM) in academic association with Les Roches, our academic team has the opportunity to work with brilliant young leaders from around the world. As we teach, train and mentor, we are inspired by the dreams and aspirations of AIHM students.

In some ways, students’ energetic and ambitious mindsets are familiar. Every young generation possesses a vision for their future. In other ways, it’s apparent the next generation entering the workforce is very different from those of us already well into our careers.