THREE university students from Singapore and their metaverse idea won Accor Group’s Take Off!
Challenge this year, an annual worldwide student competition designed to attract young talent to the global hotel group.
The winning team, Meta Trio, comprised Phuan Shi Yun, Ng Min Feng and Chia Pei Rong, all of whom have previously obtained a diploma in Tourism at Singapore Polytechnic, and are currently studying at the Singapore University of Social Sciences and Nanyang Technological University.
Their main idea revolved around the concept of Accorverse: Accor’s very own metaverse and first-ever virtual career fair. In their proprietary portal, users would be free to create personal avatars and roam to different zones in the Metahotel.
Just like a real-life career fair, each zone serves a different purpose such as connecting with current employees, learning about Accor’s culture and building their own career plan. The entire experience is made engaging through gamification, such as spot-the-difference to determine aptitude for certain jobs, trivia quizzes and scenario-based games which let employers get a feel of how prospective employees think.
Other areas such as the video showcase zone give users a quick glimpse into a day in the life of an Accor employee, whereupon users who find that the company values resonate with them can drop their resume at the final zone: the interview booth.
Speaking to WiT, the students said that while the virtual career fair is certainly a concept that is gaining more traction in an increasingly digitised world, what set them apart was their focus on talent acquisition itself.
“Many other teams targeted the career training process, which actually comes after you’ve already acquired the talent. But we focused on targeting the first step – the acquisition stage. I mean, there’s no point in making the existing employees’ experience better and providing better welfare if you’ve got no employees joining in the first place,” they said.
The project’s strength also lies in its reach, they said – as a virtual portal, it can be implemented everywhere.
“Accor is a huge group with many brands and offices around the world. A virtual career fair is really the way to go in connecting all these employees and employers and almost anything can be done via the online platform,” they added.
The trio won a fully-sponsored trip to Paris to work with Accor’s Leadership and Executive Committee at global headquarters to further develop their project.
A total of 80,000 people join Accor every year and with hospitality still reeling from the effects of the pandemic, it is clear hotel groups have to do more to attract and recruit young talent. In Accor’s Take Off! Challenge, teams of three students innovate to solve a real-life Accor case study. Shortlisted teams are evaluated by Accor leadership, and three rounds of intense competition spanning three months determine the winning team.
The last 10 years have seen a variety of different competition topics, ranging from F&B to Technology, Design and New Ways to Travel. This year’s theme revolved around the people aspect of hospitality, with the main topic being “Talent Attraction”. The challenge question posed to teams was: What innovative practices can Accor adopt in the post-COVID-19 rebound to attract talent?
