Hospitality faces some of the toughest workforce challenges, with one of the highest turnover rates in any industry. In this article, Cynthia Hansen, Managing Director of the Innovation Foundation, reflects in conversation with Inès Blal on how social innovation can help reimagine jobs, expand inclusion, and upskill the workforce. At the end, we’ll highlight six takeaways from social innovation that hospitality leaders can put into practice right away.

Why Hospitality’s Workforce Struggles Persist

Hospitality’s workforce challenge is not new. It spiked during and after the pandemic, but even as conditions stabilize, deep-rooted issues of turnover and perception persist. Globally, the industry sees an average turnover rate of 74 percent, compared with 59 percent across all industries. There is a lot of talent out there, notes Franck Sibille, Area VP Hyatt, but they’re not in our industry.

Workers who left hospitality during the pandemic have not returned in the same numbers, while the sector continues to struggle with perception problems: long hours, low prestige, and limited career progression. Too often, employers “fish in the same pools,” recruiting from traditional sources rather than opening doors to new ones.

This is where social innovation enters the picture.

What Social Innovation Is, and Why It Matters

We are not a grant-making foundation, says Cynthia Hansen. We work as a Social Innovation Lab. The closest analogy is a venture studio.

Unlike traditional CSR or philanthropy, which can be donor-dependent and transactional, social innovation is generative. It’s about taking the same money and focusing it on practical solutions that can live outside the foundation, she explains.

Social innovation relies on human-centered design: identifying the real needs of people, understanding the barriers that keep them from work, and co-creating solutions with industries and communities. It’s really about working in collaboration to find the best, most scalable and viable solutions, Hansen emphasizes.

For a risk-averse sector like hospitality, where leaders prefer tested models over disruptive experiments, this approach is particularly relevant.

Inside the Innovation Foundation’s Method

The Foundation’s work follows a three-step model: Scan, Build, Scale.

• Scan: Identify who is falling out of work and why. For example, women returners or youth who lack access to training.
• Build: Use design thinking to co-create prototypes with stakeholders, pick the best solutions to develop with small Venture Teams, and then test and refine them in multiple iteration loops.
• Scale: Expand proven solutions across industries and geographies, ensuring they remain sustainable, and then scale them out of the Foundation.

The scan helps us identify levers for change. For instance, shift-based work is not inherently bad. It is the unpredictability of shift-based work that is one of the biggest entry barriers, especially for women in hospitality. By identifying those pain points, we can build targeted solutions that employers can adopt without major restructuring. Cynthia Hansen, Managing Director at Innovation Foundation (more Insights from Cynthia Hansen)

Case Example: Women Back to Work

Eloiza Fernandes Giraldi’s journey illustrates how social innovation connects overlooked talent with urgent workforce needs. A trained doula from Brazil, Eloiza found herself underemployed in Spain, her skills unrecognized.

Through the Foundation’s Para Ti tech solution, developed in collaboration with TaTiO, Eloiza completed virtual job simulations that highlighted her transferable skills: communication, adaptability, and language fluency. Those insights led her to a new career path in hospitality, where she now thrives as a Guest Experience Expert at Le Méridien.

Hotels say they hire for attitude and mindset, Hansen stresses. The paradox that we observed is: Why exclude anyone who has never worked in a hotel? We can train the hard skills.

By reframing hiring around skills and attitudes rather than CVs, Para Ti bridges the gap between hidden talent and hospitality’s urgent demand for people.

Applying Social Innovation to Hospitality’s Key Questions

Today’s Hospitality workforce challenges are complex, but they converge around a few critical themes. Social innovation provides a way to address them holistically, linking skills development, inclusion, and job redesign into a single approach. Rather than treating these as separate fixes, it encourages leaders to see the connections, how investing in one area can unlock progress in the others.

Upskilling:

Hospitality jobs are often shift-based or seasonal, which makes investment in training challenging. Hansen suggests starting with a whole-person assessment: “If you take the time to assess the skills a person already has, you can identify the gaps and guide tailored training.” This creates career paths, not just jobs.

Inclusion:

Women returners, refugees, youth at risk, and mature workers represent untapped talent pools. Social innovation provides models to connect these groups with roles that fit their circumstances and potential.

Reimagining Jobs:

As technology reshapes hospitality, even frontline workers will need new skills. What’s coming up is AI, Hansen says. Frontline workers will need to know how to interact with people and handle online orders or AI-driven systems. It’s an evolution that will impact nearly everyone.

The Foundation’s projects in Mexico, for instance, combine simulations with on-the-job training in hotels, preparing youth for diverse roles while packaging their skills for future mobility.

Partnerships & Social Entrepreneurship

Hospitality businesses do not have to innovate alone. Social entrepreneurs are already piloting models that blend community value with workforce development. Examples include SkillLab, which provides skill-matching tools for NGOs and governments, or London-based enterprises like Luminary Bakery and Sisterwoman Vegan, which train and employ disadvantaged women through food-based ventures.

The Foundation’s approach is open-source, designed to be shared and used by others. How does this apply to hospitality? Walk the talk, Hansen advises hospitality leaders. Screen for mindset and attitude, test out ways to be more open to non-traditional candidates, and then scale what works.

Six Takeaways from Social Innovation for Hospitality Leaders

1. Rethink shifts: innovate in scheduling to open access for women, parents, and mature workers.
2. Widen talent pools: Continue to look beyond the usual candidates and stop limiting searches to prior hotel experience.
3. Turn jobs into pathways: build on the person’s existing skills and create mobility across roles.
4. Partner smartly: team up with foundations and social entrepreneurs who de-risk innovation.
5. Rethink Recruitment: Replace (or postpone) the CV screen to after the attitude and soft-skill assessments.
6. See flexibility as a business advantage: flexible shifts and career mobility keep talent longer and cut recruitment costs.

Conclusion

Hospitality cannot afford to keep doing business as usual. By adopting social innovation that is tested, human-centered, and scalable, the industry can make its jobs more inclusive, more attractive, and more sustainable.

As Cynthia Hansen reminds us, hospitality has a unique advantage compared with sectors like retail or manufacturing: it offers a larger breadth of options, where attitude and mindset matter as much as technical skills. That flexibility makes it especially well-suited to benefit from social innovation.

With the right partnerships, hospitality can do more than catch up; it can lead the way. By showing how inclusion, upskilling, and reimagined roles create resilience, hospitality can lead other industries on the path to the future of work.

Want to know who’s making a difference? Discover the Who’s Who of Social Impact in Hospitality in our Directory.

Inès Blal
Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne
+41217851454
EHL

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