Hospitality’s people and skills shortages laid dormant throughout the Covid pandemic, now, those issues have reawakened, all too rudely.
If anyone needs background on the current people and skills problem, and the looming catastrophe associated with it… here’s our take on it and that of several industry leaders. If that’s not enough here’s more in The Guardian, or here’s Reuters. Almost every news website, newspaper, tv channel, radio station has run similar in recent weeks.
Brexit created a vacuum of skilled, experienced hospitality people that became glaringly apparent as soon as hospitality started the reopening process on 12 April. Warnings were given, but amidst the Covid pandemic a shortage of people available to work in an industry that was closed went under the radar.
Now, with ONS figures researched in partnership with ESCoE showing at least 355,000 people that worked in hospitality pre-pandemic being forced to leave the UK under Brexit legislation, how to fill a gap of that size is getting many people concerned, and rightly so.
Moving away from the here and now, and the fact that people and skills shortages have been with hospitality for more years than most care to remember, why? Needs to be asked.
The asking however needs to be done through a methodology prescribed by Atticus Finch: “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view … until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”
So, we need to climb into the skin of a young waitress/waiter and walk around in it.
I have three sons, and before they went to university, all worked during their summer holidays at Ascot Racecourse. We lived nearby and jobs were always plentiful.
They worked for different employment agencies (not the racecourse or Sodexo directly) and different years. Rather than quote each it is easier to summarise.
- They were all paid minimum wage.
- They all received zero training, if you didn’t pick it up on day one you were replaced.
- They all worked long hours with no overtime rates.
- One did well on tips, one did OK, one received none.
- All said that ‘management’ were usually equally as inexperienced as they were.
- One said he witnessed ‘management’ bullying staff regularly, particularly women.
- All said they would never work in hospitality as a ‘career’. Although all three did go on to work temporarily in hospitality repeatedly throughout University. One did a summer with Zizzi and loved it.
- None did pursue a career in hospitality.
OK, a sample group of three is not a foundation for any thesis, but I am sure if you have children that are now adults and went to university you will not be astonished with the summary. Everyone reading this I suspect can relate to it directly or indirectly.
This I would suggest is the root of hospitality’s problem. Not all, but all too many people’s first experience with temporary and/or part time employment in hospitality is a bad one, and as such, it eliminates any desire to follow a career in hospitality.
Sacrilege, how dare he cast such aspersions on our glorious industry.
He says it to cross a line and hopefully start a process that recognises the issues that result in the problem of people and skills shortages. And like any problem, recognising causes is the first step towards recovery.
As an industry we need to look at the problem from the perspective of someone applying for their first job in hospitality.
Reading the job advert…
- Is the job offering minimum wage? If yes, what message does that give?
- Is the job linked to service charge/tronc/gratuities system? Is it fair? Is it transparent?
- What induction and training will be provided? If none, why not?
- What are the hours? If not 9-5 and comparable to most employment, what are you additionally offering to compensate?
- Who will they report to? Is their manager trained and qualified to manage people?
Put yourself in the shoes of the person you want to employ and ask do I want this job? If the answer is yes, start recruiting. If the answer is no, better write a new job description.
Who is this self-appointed business guru? Someone that has run successful businesses based on the strategy of having the best people. A business strategy that resulted in one of those businesses being acquired by a FTSE 100 company for the deployment of that strategy.
Many things change in business over time, all other things being equal, having the best people in your team will always deliver competitive advantage, and that will never change. If adopted, it works. And the same people that make up that team, at every level, deserve to be rewarded and remunerated well for their input. That never equates to minimum wage.
The job of team building is to recognise talent, and then work hard at developing it. It can be done in every hospitality business, big, small and everything in between. If adopted, a step forward would be taken towards ridding our industry of its Achilles heel.
Oh, and if you are like me and everyone else in hospitality that I have spoken to you have no idea of where at least 355,000 new people can be found and trained to replace the 355,000 that left, in time for full reopening, and hopefully a staycation boom this summer, needing even more experienced and skilled people… Please sign the petition to ask the government to allow the ones we sent packing, back.
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Hospitality & Catering News: Covid unveils the reality of Brexit for hospitality. – 28 May 2021 – Covid unveils the reality of Brexit for hospitality.
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