Hundreds of jobs are at risk at hotels managed by LGH Hotels in England and Scotland as the company looks to cut costs in response to the coronavirus crisis.
LGH Hotels Management runs 47 hotels under brands including Holiday Inn, Crowne Plaza and Hallmark from Aberdeen to Guildford and is understood to employ 2,500 staff.
LGH described the impact of Covid-19 on the business as “dramatic” and said it did not expect hotel occupancy to rise above 20% of capacity for the remainder of 2020.
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The company told staff: “Unfortunately, we see no signs that we will be able to support the return of our existing teams across our portfolio for the foreseeable future.”
LGH is in consultation with staff over the planned redundancies and hopes to make some job cuts through voluntary redundancies.
Staff at the Holiday Inn Glasgow Airport, which has been shut since March, were informed in a presentation by the hotel’s general manager Denis McCann in late July that 88 out of 92 workers were at risk of redundancy.
The hotel is due to reopen in September with a skeleton staff, with only four senior managers to be retained. The remaining 88 workers have been told they can apply for seven to 10 new “hospitality service expert” roles, which will require employees to work flexibly in all areas of the hotel.
One hotel employee, who did not want to give their name, complained that the company had not contacted workers during four months of furlough until they were informed about the planned redundancies.
“There was no compassion, there was no remorse,” said the worker, who has been at the hotel for five years. “I’m just a number to them, but this is people’s livelihoods, people have got kids to look after, they’ve got roofs to keep over their heads.”
Bryan Simpson, an organiser at the Unite union, said members at Holiday Inn hotels were fighting against compulsory redundancies and would put forward alternative proposals.
“LGH want to sack 95% of workers and then have them to fight it out for less than a dozen ‘hospitality service expert’ roles who will be expected to be ‘fully flexible’ across all departments and shifts,” Simpson said. He warned that the company could damage its reputation with its redundancy plans.
Simon Teasdale, the chief executive of LGH Hotels Management, said the company was holding “intensive talks” with staff in order to “master the Covid-19 situation”.
“We are endeavouring to protect the interests of the employees and our company as best we can. Since the occupancy rate of hotels in the face of the pandemic necessitates capacity adjustments, we are currently reviewing all options for ensuring the company’s continued success,” he said. He refused to comment further on the talks.
The proposed job cuts at LGH are the latest in a string of redundancies announced in the hospitality sector, including planned redundancies at 19 hotels in England and Scotland directly managed or leased by Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG).
The decision by Pizza Express on Tuesday to close restaurants and slash more than 1,000 roles takes the total number of jobs lost in eateries and other food outlets in the last few months to 17,000.
The pub chain Wetherspoons has told head office staff that nearly a third of them – up to 130 people – are at risk of redundancy as it adjusts to the post-pandemic trading environment.
The chief executive, John Hutson, said: “The decision is mainly a result of a downturn in trade in the pub and restaurant industry generally, a reduction in the company’s rate of expansion and a reduction in the number of pubs operated from 955 in 2015 to 873 today.
“We should emphasise that no firm decisions have been made at this stage. All head office employees will be affected by the process, with the exception of those working directly in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.”
Hutson said the company would try to redeploy people to its pubs, whose staff would not be affected by the cuts, and would seek to avoid compulsory job losses where possible, with early retirements and improved departure terms for those who take voluntary redundancy.
