If one hotel chain can do it, then why not others?

Is it more a case of all being down to philosophy? MarSenses is one of only three hotel companies in Spain to make a list of the best companies to work for. A couple of months ago, a Madrid-based consultancy called Great Place to Work presented its 63 best companies. In the category of companies with between 251 and 500 employees, MarSenses was fourth. The consultancy referred to the hotel chain’s “exceptional vocation for service”, and staff ratings of the company included 95% who considered it an “excellent place to work”.

MarSenses is an interesting case at a time when so much attention is being paid to the negotiations for the new collective bargaining agreement in the hospitality industry. Two major sticking points characterise these negotiations - pay and a reduced working week. At the start of this season, MarSenses applied a five per cent pay rise. This was on top of a three per cent increase in 2024. A combined eight per cent, this is what the hoteliers federation is insisting should be the limit for a three-year deal. Ok, MarSenses is not in the same ballpark as the union 19% demand, but there is one crucial difference to all the noises coming from the employers - a reduced working week.

In 2024, MarSenses cut the working week from the standard forty hours to 38.5. This season it is going a step further, reducing the week by another hour to 37.5 from the middle of June. Spain’s employment minister Yolanda Díaz, wants a 37.5-hour week, but regardless of government ambitions, the hospitality negotiations have raised the possibility of 37.5 hours or indeed 35. The employers have basically said this is impossible, and a combination of a 19% pay increase and a reduced working week is a total non-starter.

The MarSenses pay rises, based on 2024 and 2025, fall somewhere between the two negotiating positions, while the company has taken its own decision to reduce the working week. This cut doesn’t affect pay, MarSenses explaining that it has a workplace well-being strategy to improve the balance between personal and professional life, which it believes is key to offering excellent service.

The director of communications and social responsibility, Lorena Coelho, has said that reducing hours without losing productivity is a commitment to the value and confidence there is in the workforce. Work-life balance and professional development policies “have made the company a benchmark in the Balearic tourism sector in terms of corporate culture”. And the Great Place to Work rankings would appear to bear this out.

If this can work for MarSenses, why not others? When it comes to pay, negotiations in recent years have been quite favourable to the unions but have been marked by smaller hotel groups baulking at the size of increases. These groups have argued that the pay agreements have been for the large hotel chains with greater financial wherewithal because of their scale. But then MarSenses is on the small end of the hotel sector spectrum. It manages and it can cut the working week. There’s been a five per cent pay rise this year regardless of the outcome of the negotiations (and MarSenses is affiliated to the federation through local association memberships).

But hotel businesses, for all they are similar, aren’t the same. The president of a hotel group about twice the size of MarSenses in terms of establishments said last weekend that she “trembles” when hearing talk of a reduced working week. Unless there is some flexibility with this, it can’t be viable. Yet a one-size-fits-all agreement for all the establishments linked to the federation (around 60%) by its nature lacks flexibility. However, decisions can be taken unilaterally, as MarSenses demonstrates. It’s all about the philosophy.