AIHM HIGHER

Dr. Natasha Doowa is not only a seasoned lecturer with over a decade of experience in business and hospitality education but also a passionate advocate for continuous learning and personal growth. With her deep roots in the hospitality industry—having grown up in a family dedicated to the field—Dr. Natasha brings a wealth of real-world insight to her classroom.

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!

If you’re reading this post, you may have noticed you’re on the AIHM Higher blog. That’s what we call this little ‘digital press’ you’re on. The AIHM Higher blog is where our community of educators, learners and guest experts share their visions and experiences.

Open any popular news magazine today and you will find articles proclaiming artificial intelligence’s status as a major disruptor of industry. AI is changing the way we work. It’s transforming the market. It’s upending the working processes we’ve used for years, the tools we’ve come to rely on, the speed and efficiency of completing tasks, and the realm of what’s possible—or at the very least, feasible. AI isn’t just impacting the activities of corporate offices though. Those of us in the education sphere are feeling its disruptions at least as equally.

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.

If you’re my age, you remember learning in school on a slate chalkboard and an abacus. A “computer” sounded like a strange, cute little creature. And the internet? Is that a tool for catching fish?

I’m joking. Mostly! But the tools available for learners today have evolved dramatically. Today’s young people have the opportunity to learn in so many new and different ways. As educators, we have the possibility and the responsibility to turbo-boost our students’ learning with a wide range of modern tactics and up-to-date technology.

Imagine losing 89% of your customers after a single bad experience. Guess what? You don’t have to merely imagine it. That's the reality. (Customer Experience Impact Report, Oracle) When businesses neglect customer service excellence, the impacts are dire​​. This statistic may sound dramatic at first glance, but think about it for a moment and it makes total sense. Consider your own experience. When you receive bad customer service once, how often do you never go back to that business again?