Swiss Hotel Is a Model for Hiring Staff With Intellectual Disabilities
Photo Caption: Staff members outside the Martigny Boutique-Hotel in Switzerland, which employs 40 people with intellectual disabilities. Source: Martigny Boutique-Hotel
Skift Take
Two out of three staff members at Martigny Boutique-Hotel in Switzerland are people with intellectual disabilities. We could all learn a lesson or two from the hotel's inclusive workplace and how the property maintains boutique standards.
Of the 70 team members at the Martigny Boutique-Hotel in the Valais region of Switzerland, 40 come from a foundation supporting people with intellectual disabilities.
“They have a lot of pride and their families do too, because they are placed in society,” said Mathias Munoz, director of Martigny Boutique Hotel. “They have coworkers and teammates. For everyone, it’s a really good thing to share life and work and to be integrated into society.”
Martigny’s model of a commercial-hotel-meets-social-inclusion project has been operating for almost eight years, but it remains a rare example in the industry. As more hotels try to boost their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts (that sometimes seem thin at best), the 52-room Martigny Boutique Hotel is making legitimate societal change.
A staff member at work. Photo by Olivier Maire. Source: Martigny Boutique-Hotel in Switzerland.A few other hotels, like the nearly-year-old Shepherd Hotel in South Carolina (which Skift has also profiled), employ members with intellectual disabilities. So does the In Out Hostel in Portugal. Yet almost no other has the Swiss property's rate of inclusion.
Yet while the Martigny hotel takes pride in its concept, it also wants to deliver as a “real” hotel. Its main goal is to deliver an art-themed experience with a solid restaurant and comfortable rooms.
“We want to be judged by our quality, and not just because intellectually disabled people work here,” said Munoz.
The hotel partner
