Experience makers

Alexis Kennedy, HR Director, Sodexo Live! UK & Ireland explains how the hospitality brand recruits and motivates its ‘experience maker’ workforce

Sodexo Live! is Sodexo’s dedicated global hospitality and live events brand, supporting many of the UK and Ireland’s most iconic music, cultural and sporting events, as well as conference centres and airport lounges. It delivers world-class food and hospitality services that create exceptional moments, to help venues reach their full potential, and generate lasting positive impact within their communities.

As part of the wider Sodexo Group, Sodexo Live! sits within the global organisation, a leader in food and services across work, healthcare and education. Sodexo Live! extends this purpose into the world of live experiences, bringing people together, elevating guest satisfaction, and supporting long-term sustainable growth for its partners.

Globally, Sodexo Live! contributes to many high-profile major events such as Royal Ascot, the Tour de France, the Rugby World Cup and the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2024. It also showcases and operates at exceptional venues including the Eiffel Tower Restaurants, Bateaux Parisiens, Yachts de Paris, the Royal Academy of Arts in London, and the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.

In the UK, venues include Newcastle United FC, Nottingham Forest FC, and Edinburgh’s Signet Library. These partnerships demonstrate how Sodexo Live! brings the strength, scale and values of the wider Sodexo brand into dynamic, guest-facing environments.

WORKING FOR SODEXO LIVE!

A range of roles make up the 1,000 UK Sodexo Live! workforce. This includes culinary teams, dedicated to delivering foodservices, and support function employees encompassing sales, marketing, finance, HR, H&S, tech & digital. Because our portfolio includes stadiums and arenas, cultural sites, major events and providing retail services at key venues our operations are manned by a blend of full-time permanent employees, frontline workers and casual workers. We have a workforce of 7,000 casual workers that we scale up for our events and matchday operations that enables us to scale up and down depending on the size of the event or operation that we are delivering.

Recruitment is managed in-house by our onsite teams and a central support function. During our busiest season we do have a select few agency partners that we work with if we require more staff than are currently on our books, then we will engage with our partners to support fulfilling the people’s needs of our events and operations.

RECRUITMENT CHALLENGES

Since covid the hospitality industry has become notoriously hard to recruit in, it is now seen as a sector that is hard work and low paid, particularly when people now want more flexibility in working from home and reduced hours around childcare. It also features predominantly unsociable hours and weekend work which can make it hard to attract people. However, what we do find is that this industry is a little bit like marmite, you either love it or hate it. If you love it you are engaged, passionate and naturally motivated by delivering exceptional experiences for guests.

We look for motivated, engaging individuals who have a passion for the services industry who are also open-minded and willing to learn from our experience makers. We believe we can provide anybody with the right skills and development to deliver a great service to our customers as long as they display the right behaviours and attitude.

Inclusivity and diversity are also very important to us, and we pride ourselves on being an inclusive business, creating opportunities for everyone and providing our experience makers with opportunities for growth and development.

TRAINING PROVISION

Training depends on the role, but as an example, our onsite teams and casual workers who work at specific venues receive a standardised Sodexo Live! Induction alongside specific training on their venue and client site. This is because it is important that our experience makers are not only inducted into our business but also that of our clients, as this is where they will be working and spending their time.

Opportunities for career progression depend on the individual and their career aspirations, Sodexo Live! is such a vibrant and exciting business, focused on growth that there are new opportunities all the time.

Many of our experience makers have been with the business for over 10 years and have a wealth of knowledge and experience having progressed their careers from frontline positions to senior management or director roles, demonstrating the possibilities available to individuals who join the business.

WHAT THE FM WORKPLACE SECTOR CAN LEARN FROM HOSPITALITY

I believe the FM sector can learn about performance, motivation, and employee experience from this industry. Hospitality has spent a long time refining how to get people to deliver consistent service quality under pressure often with tight margins and high turnover.

FM roles can often feel invisible, whereas hospitality reframes roles as experience makers, not just task-doers. In hospitality clearly standards matter but attitude and behaviours matter more.

We believe we can train, upskill, and educate people with the skillset to succeed in the hospitality industry no matter their background, which means training in emotional intelligence and not just technical skills. Likewise, from a training perspective, this is seen as a career investment, not a cost to the business. By delivering high quality training to our experience makers, we are activating our retention strategy and reducing the turnover. This provides flexibility to our workforce and builds confidence in our people that they have the skills and tools to deliver their role.