Auberge Resorts Collection Management Development Program: how it works and what a general manager now running an Auberge property says about starting at the bottom

The Auberge Resorts Collection Management Development Program, known inside the company as MDP, is the structured way into Auberge for a hospitality school student or recent graduate: a 12 month paid program run on site at one of its properties, built in two phases, with a chosen path, time in the rest of the hotel, mentorship from home office leaders and a management placement at the end. This page describes the program as Auberge presents it on its own pages and then turns to what those pages cannot tell you, which is what a hotelier in my books who now runs an Auberge property says about his own first years and about what happens when a promising young person is promoted too soon.

The program, as Auberge describes it

Auberge is one of the few groups of its size with a proper landing page for its program. The Management Development Program page calls it “a 12-month paid training and development program” that is “80% work experience and 20% professional development,” and says it is “exclusively designed for students or graduates from an accredited hospitality school.” The company’s FAQ adds that applicants must either be graduating before the program starts or have finished a bachelor’s degree within the previous two years, and must hold work authorization in the country where they apply.

The structure is spelled out more clearly than most. Phase One, months one to three, is line level work rotations, with the stated focus on mastering service and department knowledge. Phase Two, months four to twelve, introduces supervisory duties, management essentials and leadership and soft skills development, and sends participants into accounting and finance, culinary, engineering, talent and culture and revenue management for time in each. Month twelve brings a leadership competency assessment and then placement in a management role, which the FAQ says may be at the participant’s own property if one is open, or elsewhere in the collection for those willing to relocate. The promise on the page is direct: “Promotion to management level upon program completion.”

Around the rotations sit three things the page names: “Mentorship opportunities with home office leaders,” “Task force opportunities and assignments abroad,” and “Monthly MDP Meetups with fellow MDPs across the collection.” The FAQ says the cohort is kept small so that senior leaders can mentor participants and the program can adapt to each person’s interests.

The paths on the program page are Food and Beverage, Culinary and Rooms; the FAQ adds Finance, which asks for an accounting or finance degree. Candidates choose a path and a preferred property during recruitment, though Auberge says the experience is not confined to that path, and some participants split the year between two properties. None of it is remote. The program runs at properties in the United States and Mexico, and the FAQ describes two intakes a year, one in winter and one in summer. Pay, housing, relocation help, exact dates and cohort size change and are carried on the pages and in the listings, so I have left them out. What the company says it wants is worth reading before you apply: “enthusiastic entrepreneurs who embody excellence in everything that they do,” with a caring and respectful nature, curiosity and a wish to serve others.

What a general manager now running an Auberge property says about the first years

No one in my books came through the MDP. One of them, though, now runs an Auberge property. Damien Bastiat was general manager of Ballyfin Demesne in Ireland when I interviewed him and is now general manager of Domaine des Étangs, Auberge Collection, in France. His account of his own apprenticeship is the closest thing in my books to what an MDP year asks of you, because he began exactly where Phase One begins, on the floor.

He grew up in the southwest of France and worked in a local restaurant from the age of fifteen. His mother, he says, “instilled in me that hard work and dedication are the keys to success, and to always learn by doing and that no task is beneath anyone.” Her rule was three words long, walk before you run, and he describes her “steering me to start at the bottom of the ladder and work my way up.”

His first proper job was as a chef de rang in a Michelin starred restaurant inside a Relais and Châteaux hotel, and what he took from it was a lesson about teams rather than about service. “I learned early on that working as a team can be quite challenging when people come from different generations, backgrounds, and skillsets,” he told me. “I realized then that hospitality was 100 percent about people, but it was the rapport one has with the guest that drew me further into the industry.” That is the Phase One lesson the Auberge page describes in other words: you master the department by learning the people in it.

His first management position was at Hotel du Palais in Biarritz, which is where the MDP’s Phase Two would put you.

“The toughest lesson I learned in this role was how to understand and manage guests’ expectations. We needed to deliver the highest possible level of service at all times, whether a guest was a world-traveler who knew exactly what they wanted and were accustomed to a certain level of luxury, or whether they had saved up to take a very special trip of a lifetime. The latter, in fact, may even have higher expectations than the former, but we need to be consistent in always exceeding those expectations. There is no room for mistakes.” Damien Bastiat, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)

The part of his story that most resembles the program is how he was coached. At Gidleigh Park in England, the general manager and the executive chef took him on, and he is clear about how he earned it.

“Being there first in the morning and the last to leave in the evening allowed me to spend time with them. They saw that I was eager to learn. They took me under their wings, coaching me through operations management and eventually in becoming general manager.” Damien Bastiat, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)

Auberge formalizes that with a home office mentor and monthly meetups. Bastiat’s version is a reminder that the mentor still has to see you want it.

Auberge as a training ground

Bastiat has run a property that takes young people in and promotes them, and the lesson he draws from it is the one a program like the MDP is built to answer.

“I learned that when you identify a young, promising colleague ready for advancement, do not simply promote them and hope for the best. They still need guidance and training to convert them into great managers. It is a different skillset that must be taught. Do not assume it comes naturally. If the extra guidance and support is not given, in-house or otherwise, you are setting them up for failure.” Damien Bastiat, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)

Read the Auberge page again with that in mind. Nine months of supervisory duties with management essentials taught alongside them, and a leadership competency assessment before the placement, is a company trying not to promote people and hope for the best. Bastiat also recruits “for personality over skill” and meets most applicants himself, because the tasks can be taught and the temperament cannot; Auberge’s own wish list reads the same way.

One more voice belongs here, with a caveat. Luc Delafosse, then managing director of Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills and now managing director of The Peninsula Paris, has no connection to Auberge Resorts Collection. I include him for what he says about how a hotelier actually learns, which is what the 80 percent of the MDP that is work experience depends on.

“To this day, I can say that I learned most of what I know on the job and through interactions with general managers, owners, investors, and other colleagues that I keenly observed and listened to. Always be open to new ideas, new ways of thinking, and new ways of doing business. It’s a lifelong journey.” Luc Delafosse, in A Wealth of Insight (2017)

What to take from it

Choose a path and a property you would be glad to spend a year in, since that is how Auberge recruits and where you will stay for the whole program. Treat Phase One as Bastiat treated his years as a chef de rang: the point is to learn the people in the department, since that is what mastering it means. In Phase Two, remember his Biarritz lesson about the guest who saved up for the trip of a lifetime, and do not assume the management skills arrive with the title; ask your home office mentor to teach them. Ask in the interview how placements at the end of the year have actually gone at that property. And read both Voices pages above before you go in. Chapter 2 of The Luxury of Attention, The Apprenticeship, is about exactly these years.