Analysis

With around 11,000 colleagues working across its head office in Oxfordshire, remotely and at its nearly 600 hotels, Travelodge is a significant employer in the communities it operates in across the UK.

This means that it can, and does, have a meaningful social impact across a number of areas.

The most obvious is by providing employment opportunities to a wide range of people from different backgrounds.

As an employer, Travelodge offers flexibility to allow people with different life situations - such as parents, students or carers - the opportunity to work. Getting a foot in the door is only the first step though. Many see hospitality as a form of short-term employment but Travelodge is trying to ensure the correct training and development is in place, to enable fair career progression and the chance for colleagues to build long lasting careers within the hospitality sector.

There are brilliant examples within this report of individuals starting in part-time roles and progressing on to managerial positions. The Aspire programme will help increase this, alongside the development of its apprenticeship scheme.

Travelodge also recognises the importance of the health and wellbeing of its staff. This has been highlighted during the pandemic and is a focus for the organisation moving forward.

Since the launch of its internal wellbeing programme, Better Me, Travelodge has continued to commit to the health and wellbeing of its staff. Different initiatives are available for physical health and mental health, and the organisation listens to its staff on areas that need more focus.

The organisation is committed to opening up opportunities for a wide cross-section of society and removing unnecessary barriers to employment.

While 73 per cent of colleagues at Travelodge are female this does not always translate into greater diversity at senior level. The organisation has committed to having a 50/50 gender split at senior level, as well as 10 per cent ethnic minority representation, by the end of 2025.

Travelodge is aware of the social impact that it has as an organisation. With some incredible initiatives already in place to increase opportunities, it also recognises the importance of going even further.

This commitment to action, ensures Travelodge continues to be a leading light in the progression of the purpose agenda within the hospitality sector.

06 Recommendations

R1 - Focusing community impact on the most deprived areas

Travelodge can have a more significant impact on levelling up by targeting its community efforts.

Travelodge should assess the level of its social impact and how its vast presence across the UK could provide an opportunity to focus on deprived areas around its key sites, particularly in social mobility cold spots.

It can use the Office for National Statistics’ Index for Multiple Deprivation to enable this. This includes widely-used datasets within the UK to classify the relative deprivation (essentially a measure of poverty) of small areas. This considers how all areas across the country (32, 844 areas in total) rank in terms of deprivation by income, employment, education, health, crime, living environment, and barriers to housing and services.

For sites in England & Wales, Travelodge may wish to use the UK Government’s Social Mobility Index, which ranks the 533 constituencies in terms of social mobility outcomes for various life stages - including early years, school, youth and adulthood.

This will both enhance and drive forward the impact of Travelodge on the levelling up agenda in a way that also delivers operationally for the business.

R2 - Capturing and analysing the socio-economic diversity of the workforce.

A more comprehensive tracking and measuring of the socio-economic background of Travelodge’s colleagues will enable a further understanding of the workforce.

This could lead to a deeper understanding of the barriers to career progression and where financial support, especially prevalent now re the cost of living crisis, could be more deliberately offered.

Background tracking could be done through 4 specific questions developed by the Equality of Opportunity Coalition:

What was the occupation of your main household earner when you were aged 14?

- Which type of school did you attend for the most time between the ages of 11 and 16?

- If you finished school after 1980, were you eligible for free school meals at any point during your school years?

- Did either of your parents attend university and gain a degree (e.g. BA/BSc or equivalent) by the time you were 18?

R3 - Furthering leadership and advocacy as a responsible business on Levelling Up.

Travelodge’s leadership in the hospitality sector can help shape the wider levelling up agenda from the perspective of a purpose-led business operating on the ground.

Travelodge should use its know-how and positioning in the sector to be a firm and clear advocate for purposeled business focused levelling up. Taking advantage of its relationships with key stakeholders, supply chain and the wealth of ties in the communities it operates in, Travelodge can leverage its own efforts on social impact to create a unified and greater impact for local people and communities.