Don't lose sight of the broad picture
Although the clear-up has begun, the debris from the terrorist attack on New York still lies scattered across the globe, leaving its imprint on the day-to-day lives of nearly everyone in the developed and underdeveloped world.
For some, particularly Americans, the impact of the tragedy has been felt on a very personal level. In Europe, a collective psychological depression has descended, affecting share prices, high-street trading and the entertainment industry (of which tourism and hospitality are part).
Elsewhere, people and governments are reviewing their alignments, wondering whether they might be on the receiving end of US aid packages or its military might. The sum of these uncertainties in the West is a wobbling of commercial confidence and the onset of cautious economic conditions.
In these circumstances it is difficult for individual companies and industries to keep long-term strategies in focus. But the long haul has to be kept alive.
That is why UK hospitality's government-appointed National Training Organisation last week kept to its original timetable and launched a five-year strategy aimed at tackling the domestic problems of staff recruitment, retention and training. Whatever happens in the short term, these must remain a priority if the industry is to prove its competitiveness.
The Workforce Development Plan (as it is called) is an ambitious scheme designed to pull together all the parties involved in staffing and training issues, from colleges to employers, from trades unions to government departments. In theory, it provides the answers to some of the problems that most operators have been facing since the 1970s.
That's fine, but the launch obviously comes at an awkward time. Like so many high-principled paper plans, this one could be applauded by the captains of industry and then immediately forgotten because more momentous issues are afoot.
As British Hospitality Association chief executive Bob Cotton said at the launch of the plan: "Training costs money and, at a time when the economic outlook is gloomy, the temptation to cut back on training to reduce costs is difficult not to resist. We've all seen this happen before."
If the economic downturn continues; if the war against terrorism becomes, unintentionally, a war against tourism, what chance has the Workforce Development Plan, or any other long-term strategic initiative, have of surviving?
The obvious answer is "not much or none at all". But this need not necessarily be the case.
A time of recession is actually when businesses need investment. Cutting back in the style of the 1970s and 1990s, when terminal reductions were made to marketing and training budgets, is surely outdated thinking. We hear so often that businesses are "about people". Well then, now is the time to invest in those people; now is the time to consider involvement in the Workforce Development Plan and other "people" programmes, such as the Springboard Careers Festival.
If companies are about to face difficult times; if they are going to regroup and restructure, they should use the occasion to prove the sincerity of their previously trumpeted principles that staff are their most important asset. They should take a look at the Chinese alphabet, where the pictogram for "crisis" uses the symbols for danger and opportunity.
Forbes Mutch, Editor,Caterer & Hotelkeeper
