Building Therme Manchester's 1400-strong workforce before the doors even open

Therme Manchester promises to bring large-scale wellbeing infrastructure, hundreds of jobs and new career pathways to Greater Manchester. But before the £500million destination can welcome its first guests, Chief People Officer Alison Gray must build an entire workforce, culture and employer brand from the ground up...

Therme Manchester promises to bring large-scale wellbeing infrastructure, hundreds of jobs and new career pathways to Greater Manchester. But before the £500million destination can welcome its first guests, Chief People Officer Alison Gray must build an entire workforce, culture and employer brand from the ground up.

Recruiting for an organisation that does not yet physically exist presents an unusual challenge.

Alison Gray

Chief People Officer, Therme Manchester

There is no bustling workplace for candidates to visit, no established workforce to meet and no employee experience to showcase. Many of the roles being created do not fit neatly into one sector either, spanning hospitality, wellness, engineering, horticulture, technology, customer service and corporate functions.

Yet Therme Manchester expects to recruit around 800 employees ahead of its opening - scheduled for 2028 - with the development anticipated to support a further 600 indirect jobs across customer service, lifeguarding, therapy and wellness, horticulture, technical operations, maintenance and management regarding the employment and regeneration impact of large-scale wellbeing destinations.

For Alison Gray, the newly appointed Chief People Officer at Therme UK, that means building far more than a recruitment campaign. She is helping to create a new employer, establish its culture and persuade hundreds of people to commit to a destination they cannot yet walk through.

“One of the unique things about Therme Manchester is that we’re not simply filling vacancies, we’re building an entirely new category of employer in the UK,” she explains. “That creates a really exciting opportunity, but it also means we’re asking people to imagine and commit to something that doesn’t yet physically exist.”

Creating a new category of employer

The £500million wellbeing destination is currently in development, with plans to combine water-based attractions, thermal bathing, fitness, wellness treatments, restaurants and extensive botanical environments.

Delivering that proposition will require an equally broad workforce. Some employees may arrive from hotels, restaurants, spas and leisure centres. Others will bring experience from engineering, facilities management, technology, finance or horticulture.

Gray says one of the initial challenges has been bringing together professions that are rarely included within the same recruitment strategy.

“Our biggest challenge has been bringing together talent from sectors that don’t traditionally recruit together: hospitality, wellness, leisure, technical operations, facilities, customer experience and corporate functions,” she says.

One of the unique things about Therme Manchester is that we’re not simply filling vacancies, we’re building an entirely new category of employer in the UK

Alison Gray | Chief People Officer, Therme Manchester

“We’re looking for people who are not only highly capable in their discipline but who are energised by creating something new.”

It is a challenge that also reflects Gray’s own career. She began in hospitality event management, where her focus was on designing and delivering experiences for guests. Moving into the people profession, she says, allowed her to apply much of the same thinking to the workforce.

“Creating and delivering memorable guest experiences is what has always motivated me and moving across into the people world was a natural progression for me – the people of any organisation deserve to have memorable employment experiences and that is our goal at Therme,” she explains.

The opportunity to create that experience without inheriting an existing people model was a major attraction of the role. While an established organisation may already have entrenched systems, behaviours and expectations, Therme UK can make deliberate choices about its employment proposition from the beginning.

“What attracted me to Therme Manchester was the combination of ambition and purpose,” Gray says. “Opportunities to help build an entirely new organisation, and shape the employee experience from day one – are rare.

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“This role brings together everything I’m passionate about: creating environments where people can grow, building capability for the future and helping create an organisation that has a positive impact both inside and outside its walls.”

Recruiting for a destination that does not yet exist

Starting with a relatively blank canvas does not make the recruitment task straightforward.

Candidates must be able to understand what the destination will become, how its different functions will work together and what it might feel like to work there. Therme must therefore communicate not only the vacancies it expects to create, but the purpose and scale of the wider project.

Rather than waiting until every position needs to be filled, Gray says the people team is already developing longer-term talent pipelines and relationships across Greater Manchester.

“Our approach has been to start early and think long-term,” she says. “We’re focusing on building talent pipelines rather than transactional recruitment, developing partnerships with education providers, engaging local communities and creating clear pathways into employment.”

Employer storytelling will form an important part of that process. The organisation is asking prospective employees to buy into a vision and consider the part they might play in building it.

“We’re also putting significant emphasis on employer storytelling, helping people understand not just the jobs available, but the purpose behind Therme and the opportunity to shape a destination that will serve millions of guests,” Gray adds.

Some areas of recruitment are likely to be more competitive than others. Gray identifies roles combining specialist knowledge with the ability to deliver a strong customer experience as a particular pressure point.

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“Technical operations roles, engineering and maintenance capability, alongside certain leadership positions across hospitality and wellbeing, continue to be highly sought after across the UK market,” she says.

Those skills will be essential to the safe and reliable operation of the destination, but Therme’s varied workforce also creates opportunities for employees to move between disciplines and develop capabilities after joining.

For Gray, this means employers can no longer rely solely on finding candidates who already possess every piece of relevant experience.

“The traditional model of recruiting only for experience is becoming less sustainable,” she says. “For us, that means recruiting for potential as well as capability and investing in training, onboarding and development from the outset.”