“Finding opportunity in adversity. This is the mindset of our company.”
Regarding job hunting, what kind of talent are recruiting companies looking for in students? Many students are probably wondering about that. A Waseda University Weekly Reporter (SJC student staffer) went to interview an HR coordinator at Hoshino Resorts and ask about recruiting.
Hoshino Resorts is a hotel and resort management company known for its unique accommodations that include the HOSHINOYA, RISONARE, and KAI brands. The SJC student staffer in charge of the interview was Takumi Hasegawa (4th year at the School of Education). Through it, he was able to familiarize himself with the corporate culture at Hoshino Resorts, a company that keeps on taking challenges while adapting to an uncertain future.
Hoshino Resorts Inc.
Marie Suzuki, unit director
Career design support unit, HR group.
(From the left) Suzuki and the interviewer Hasegawa at the entrance of the Hoshino Resorts office.
Hasegawa: The tourism industry is in a difficult situation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. What do you think are the strengths of Hoshino Resorts in such times?
Suzuki: First, it is our mindset to “take on challenges.” In fact, Hoshino Resorts already has 20 years of experience managing hotels and resorts with revitalization projects. Taking on the challenge of revitalizing hotel and resort facilities that ran into financial difficulties was done to build up our strength as a managing company. That is why, even now, when we face difficult challenges, we feel a little excited. During the pandemic, our CEO Yoshiharu Hoshino blogged with humor about the company’s probability of bankruptcy and kept us informed of the current situation. I think that, because we shared management information regardless of the situation, employees everywhere were able to think about what to do, and were able to get through this.
That said, you can’t create a business with just a mindset. It is also important to plan a strategy from a neutral position based on clear facts, like numbers. A system to support and evaluate such actions, and a mindset to “take on challenges.” I think that one of the strengths of Hoshino Resorts is to have those two things.
Hasegawa: Please tell us about the corporate culture.
Suzuki: In order to provide services meeting the guests’ needs in the hotel and resort business, I think that “paying attention” is important for employees. This is because it can lead to good suggestions to the guests. However, a hierarchical relationship among employees will hinder communication and risk burying such attention. This is why it is important to have a “flat” organizational culture. I worked a long time at a lodging facility in Kyoto, but in many situations, including the daily dealing with the clientele, or examining facility strategies, employees traded opinions while respecting each other, regardless of seniority. Also, the flat relationship can apply between the company and its employees, too. Meaning that both the corporations and individuals are independent, and everyone supports each other in an equal contractual relationship between mature adults.
Hasegawa: Are you invested in projects currently, and what is the vision for the future?
Suzuki: Our corporate vision is to become a “Globally Competitive Hotel Management Company.”
There are hotel management companies in the world with scales of several trillions of yen, but there is as yet no Japanese company that can compete in the global market. On the other hand, Japan has the culture of “omotenashi,” or Japanese-style hospitality, and hot spring ryokans, the traditional Japanese inns. Many foreign companies find value in Japan’s unique service culture. If nothing changes, many hotels in Japan will fall under the management of foreign companies. If a company that understands Japan’s unique culture does not compete in the global market, such culture itself may disappear, and that would be a tragedy.
HOSHINOYA Tokyo, a Japanese ryokan in Otemachi, Tokyo, which rivals Western-style hotels in amenities and convenience with a refined art of hospitality.
Recently, Hoshino Resorts announced plans to open hot spring resorts in North America within the next five years. This is the first step toward competing with foreign companies. Also, what we are now invested in is the fundamental “domestic brand establishment.” Our goal is to be branded as “A company that makes travel fun,” so we are thinking of providing a wide variety of choices for trips. For this goal, we developed brands like OMO for city tourism hotels, or BEB with a concept of “kicked-back stays with the crew.” We are introducing brands that can offer a wide variety of travel suggestions at reasonable prices.
For overseas, we already operate facilities in Taichung (Taiwan), in Zhejiang Province (China), on Bali (Indonesia), and in Hawaii (US), among others, and we plan on increasing our facilities at home and abroad. As the opportunities for employees to work abroad will increase, we want to train the talent that will manage things on-site as soon as possible.
Picture on the left: “Kicked-back stays with the crew.” The BEB5 Karuizawa is a hotel and hangout spot for travelers looking for a laid-back atmosphere. The rooms and lounge are geared for fun, and the café is open 24 hours a day. As you can bring your own food and drinks, it is popular with students.
Picture on the right: Hoshinoya Guguan, a luxury resort in the hot spring valley of Guguan in the outskirts of Taichung, Taiwan’s second largest city.
Hasegawa: What kind of career-path-supporting system is there?
Suzuki: I think that the job at Hoshino Resorts is to keep on providing suggestions that grasp the changing needs of the guests; in other words, an endless task that is worth mastering. In order to close in on the needs that our guests don’t even realize exist, employees have to polish themselves as individuals.
For example, we have a new system called “Meister Course System.” New employees choose a career path like “service” or “management” and undergo training to master it. For the Meister course in management, employees will work the first two years after they join the company at no more than four facilities, or in back-office departments like HR, to broadly grasp the nature of the business of the company. The aim of this system is to make employees think about what kind of “meister (master)” they will be in the future.
There are various other systems, like the in-house business school “Rokuson-juku,” or the “Leave of Absence” system that allows employees to be away from their jobs for up to two years if they want to improve their skills. I myself used the “Leave of Absence.” I majored in aesthetics in college, and since I knew nothing about business, I decided to learn the basics of business administration. I took a leave of absence from work for about a year and went to college to get an MBA, which was a good experience that will help me for the rest of my long life.
The in-house business school “Rokuson-juku” where employees who want to acquire skills can learn from and share knowledge with experienced employees. It features a wide selection of courses from marketing to wine studies.
Hasegawa: What kind of talent do you think could work at Hoshino Resorts?
Suzuki: We are now living in uncertain times where we don’t know what is going to happen tomorrow. To begin with, how are we going to survive in this era? We think that the answer is the skill to flexibly respond to a changing world. And, what is required to support that are solid experience and self-understanding. We are looking for candidates that understand what kind of person they are, what is important, and what they can and cannot do before they can transform themselves while facing the future.
I mentioned the mindset to “take on challenges” but not all employees have the same intent. This is a job where we provide services to various guests, so we wish to employ talent with diverse backgrounds.
Hasegawa: Please tell us about the internships and recruiting at Hoshino Resorts.
Suzuki: During the internships last year, we put our heads together with the students to try and identify the current issues facing Hoshino Resorts. By making them experience the process of “creativity” that is required on the job, we were able to make them feel the organizational culture of Hoshino Resorts.
Internships were held in February 2022 for 2023 graduates, including a large-group online format in which all applicants could participate, and face-to-face fieldwork with 5-10 students.
Recruiting is not entirely up to the company, as we see it as a process to confirm each other’s matching needs. I should also mention that we essentially hire all year round. We recruit employees in spring, summer, and fall, and if new graduates apply through the mid-career entry channel, we will have a look at the documents provided regardless of the season and will even sometimes contact candidates to further mutual understanding.
Yoshiharu Hoshino, the CEO of Hoshino Resorts, is known as a “resort revitalization contractor” and has been highly acclaimed for his entrepreneurship. His decision to open facilities by 2024 in Yufuin and Unzen in Kyushu under his hot spring ryokan brand KAI, as in Aso, Beppu, and Kirishima, made the news.
I myself joined the company one year after my graduation. That is because riding the job-hunting wave that starts in unison and leads to entering a company was not important for me. Instead, for one year, I decided to get rid of my label of a student and face my future at my own pace until I was satisfied. As a result, I think I was able to find what I really wanted to do.
Hasegawa: Students who will graduate in 2024 had to live a student life restricted by the pandemic, and this will also affect their job-hunting process. Could you share any advice?
Suzuki: I think that if you had to live a student life with restrictions, the access to information on what you like and what you want to do might have been rather restricted, too. I think that this made it more difficult for job hunters to find a company that they match up with well. However, you have to make the best of any information you can get and think from multiple perspectives, not be swept up by superficial impressions or trends, and choose carefully while being satisfied with your choices. And if you don’t resign yourself to that idea, unexpected encounters will surely await you. I encourage everyone to look at job hunting as a challenge with eyes open on a wide range of selections.
Expectations and reality from job hunting to employment as told by a 2021 Waseda University graduate
Saeko Mano, Career design support unit, HR group
(graduated the School of Sport Sciences in September 2021)
I chose Hoshino Resort because I wanted to make people feel positive through travel.
I joined the “Management Meister Course,” and after working eight months at RISONARE Yatsugatake in service operations, I am now working in recruiting in my second and current term at the career design support unit of the HR group.
When I was a student, I loved traveling so much that I backpacked around Southeast Asia. Because in the future I wanted to “transmit the charms of regions and give people positive opportunities,” I looked for jobs centered on industries such as tourism, railways, and real estate. Many companies were facing financial difficulties due to the pandemic while I was looking for a job. A tourist area where there is a shop I like a lot had lost its vigor, so I wanted to contribute to this tourism industry. The reason I selected Hoshino Resorts is because they proposed a new style of traveling called “micro-tourism” where one can travel within an hour or two from home, even during the pandemic. It overturned my assumptions that going far away or experiencing something out of the ordinary were the best things about traveling. I thought about how I wanted to share such new values, too.
RISONARE Yatsugatake, where Mano worked for 8 months after joining the company. Opened in 2001. The success of this resort was the reason for Hoshino Resorts’ boom.
Even before entering the company, I imagined it to be a “company where even new employees can talk freely due to the flat hierarchy.” And once I started to work, other employees listened to my opinions even though it was just my first year here. At the same time, I realized that just making suggestions does not work, and that any substantial improvement required proposals backed by evidence. I was really surprised at how much individual skills were reflected upon the management of the facilities.
My future goal is to use what I studied in the School of Sport Sciences and propose plans for travels that will reinvigorate both body and mind. This is why I intend to develop managemental viewpoints and properly acquire planning and project management skills.
[Hoshino Resorts Inc.] Founded in 1914. Aiming to be a worldwide hotel and resort managing company, Hoshino Resorts operates approximately 60 facilities at home and abroad with various brands, including HOSHINOYA, RISONARE, KAI, OMO and BEB, among others (as of June 2022). Through promoting the charms of regions and providing personalized services, Hoshino Resorts will keep proposing new travel values. Even though the tourism industry was hit hard by the pandemic, Hoshino Resorts ranked 21st in Gakujo Co., Ltd’s “Company Popularity Ranking for Employment – 2023 Graduate Edition.” It also won the Mynavi Corporation “2022 Internship Award as Selected by Students.”
After the interview ~ Even if outstanding activity was not possible during the pandemic, the company properly looked at the thought process of what was learned during that time
Takumi Hasegawa, 4th year at the School of Education
“Hoshino Resorts, full of momentum and hospitality. Since the interview, my image of the company has improved.”
The tourism industry was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and is still facing headwinds. Even under these circumstances, Hoshino Resorts is using an “adversity mind” and “clear evidence” to keep on taking the challenge to open new facilities. I found their stance really attractive. The job-hunting season for students set to graduate in 2024 will soon be in full swing, but after a student life of confinement due to the pandemic, there are surely many students who will struggle to fill out their application forms. This time, I was able to hear from recruiting director Suzuki and I felt that the thought process of “What did you do, what did you learn, and what do you want to do based on those experiences” was what employers were looking for on application forms, and during interviews.
※Read the original report(made in June of 2022) in Japanese from HERE!
