IHG is expanding its Skills Academy programme to include eight new languages as it seeks to remove barriers to careers in hospitality.

The Skills Academy, which was launched in the UK last October, is now catering to budding hospitality professionals in Australia with a new digital site dedicated to education and training.  

The content is now available in Arabic, French, German, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, Spanish (Latin American), Thai, and Ukrainian

“At the heart of our Journey to Tomorrow plan is our communities pledge to improve the lives of 30 million people, and one of the ways we intend to do this is through focusing on skills training via our IHG Skills Academy portal,” said IHG’s Vice President of Global Talent and Diversity, Louise Byrne.

“By translating some of our best content into eight new languages, we hope to broaden our impact worldwide on people facing barriers to education and training.”

Food rescue organisation and IHG partner OzHarvest has also provided content for the platform to educate users about food waste including a selection of recipes designed to reduce wastage and other tips.

OzHarvest National Partnerships Manager, Justine Tarrant, said the organisation is thrilled that people from all over the world will be able to read and learn from its resources.  

“At OzHarvest, we’re committed to achieving the national target of halving food waste by 2030,” she said.  

“A huge part of this is educating and inspiring others to make food waste a thing of the past. That’s why we’re so pleased to share our resources on IHG Skills Academy website and that people from all over the world will be able to access and learn from these thanks to the translation to eight different languages.”

The digital platform is the latest evolution in the IHG Academy, which launched in 2004 to help young people gain life skills and secure employment through work experience, internships, and apprenticeships within the group.

More than 80,000 people have taken part in the programme over the past eight years and IHG expects many more will be reached through this new digital tool.  

With hotels in Australia and around the globe struggling to recruit enough skilled staff in recent times, IHG is further developing the platform to fast-track the recruitment process for those who have completed certain modules and earned badges. 

“While we continue to offer work experience opportunities and placements through the IHG Academy at our hotels around the world, we also recognise that our traditional methods of attracting a diverse talent needed a refresh and to diversify, which is why we’ve strengthened the IHG Academy with a truly global skill building platform,” Byrne said.  

The new languages will be rolled out in partnership with Learning Pool by the end of the year.