Pride of placement

A new report from business adviser Ernst & Young, quoting figures from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, claims the average cost of replacing a staff member is £3,462 when time, effort and finder's fees are calculated. What's more it soars to a staggering £5,699 for each managerial leaver. With average wage costs continuing to rise and a serious shortage of trained staff massaging the price of quality employees higher, the report warns that this upwards price trend will continue.

Pride of Britain Hotels, a not-for-profit group consisting of 37 hotels around the UK, has decided to take action to ease the cost burden of recruitment by setting up its own group recruitment site - www.pobjobs.com - run by a dedicated, salaried specialist.

"Getting the staff we want is certainly difficult," says Pride of Britain chief executive Peter Hancock. "Getting the staff we want at a price we can afford is a major challenge."

Jeremy Rata, managing director of the 18th-century Devonshire Arms and Devonshire Fell hotels, North Yorkshire, who with the support of Beppo Buchanan-Smith, managing director of the Isle of Eriska hotel near Oban in the Scottish Highlands, set the scheme in motion. "It would appear that increased competition in the recruitment market has in fact pushed prices up," Rata says.

Despite this, recruitment companies remain an invaluable and integrated part of the group's recruitment policy, providing expertise, insight and the right people in an industry that suffers from a chronic shortage of talented individuals. However, recruitment companies are businesses which have to make money to survive, grow and prosper. It means there is a significant and growing cost to employment, with the typical price for placing a senior team member in a hotel now running at several thousand pounds.

Recruitment initiative
In keeping with the ethos of the group, the recruitment initiative, based in Wiltshire under the control of Seona Young, is a not-for-profit venture that has now placed 17 people in Pride of Britain hotels in just over six months of operation. Although these appointments have occurred at all levels (the going rate is £250 for junior positions with a salary under £15,000 and £500 for senior positions salaried above this level), the recent appointment of Scott Dickson as head chef at the Bibdon Country House hotel in Somerset is estimated to have saved the hotel about £3,000 in recruitment fees. Membership of the scheme, which has its own marketing budget, is optional and at present 20 hotels are signed up.

"The more hotels we can get on board the more budget we'll have to promote the scheme," Rata says. "This year we had a £10,000 set-up fee for the service and in the future we'd like to have 25 to 30 of the consortium signed up. We're targeting 25 placements in the first year."

Hancock adds that the scheme, which he believes is working well at the moment, is another reason for hotels to seek Pride of Britain membership, which is good for the health of the organisation.

"Recruitment remains the single biggest issue I face as a hotelier," Rata says. "It's rivalled only by my need to find my next customer. I really wanted to do something about that, rather than sit on my backside. This is the result."

Young explains that Pride of Britain Recruitment's aim is to avoid a cloak-and-dagger approach by naming the location of the job immediately, helping to make the process as transparent as possible. All CV submissions to the site are replied to within 48 hours to maintain good recruitment practice.

"I'm recruiting operational and senior positions, acting as a filter to free up the general managers' time to get on with the process of judging the candidates' personalities," Young says. "There's the belief that now we have a group-wide framework, people will come to me directly if they want a new challenge, allowing us to retain talented individuals within the group."

Another advantage of Young overseeing recruitment is that poaching staff isn't allowed at member hotels.

The natural autonomy of all member hotels means they can also get the best of both worlds by combining the Pride of Britain Recruitment service with the services offered by private recruitment companies.

"I think it's healthy to have competition in the recruitment market but we're never truly going to worry the big companies because we're a small outfit and don't have any intention of scaling things up," Rata says.

And to the suggestion of starting a trend that others will follow, Rata is dismissive. Although in theory the scheme would be easy to scale up for bigger companies, the prospect of Hilton going it alone and turning its back on recruitment companies altogether is highly unlikely. "I doubt whether any other hotel groups will follow suit because they'd want to run the scheme for profit," Rata says, "and if you do things on a profit-making basis you find yourself taking a bite out of an ever-decreasing cake."

The aim for the new scheme is to continue its momentum in the hope of building a reputation as an ethical initiative that looks after the needs of employees. "I don't expect to solve every recruitment problem thrown at me, but I would hope that in the future general managers at Pride of Britain hotels at least come to me first," Young says. "I suspect the fact that they know the money they're paying me is going straight back into the group will give me an unfair advantage over my recruitment competitors."

FACTFILE

Pride of Britain Hotels
Cowage Farm, Foxley, Wiltshire SN16 0JH
Tel: 01666 824666

Pride of Britain was formed in 1982, led by life president Gerald Milsom, after the founding members had grown disillusioned with the group they belonged to at the time.

The business affairs of Pride of Britain are managed by chief executive Peter Hancock, and all hotel owners and general managers - typically a representative from each member hotel - are consulted over any significant policy changes and the budget set each year for the not-for-profit organisation.

The organisation's mission statement is "to effectively market and support a collection of the finest owned hotels in Britain", of which there are 37 members at present, including the Devonshire Arms in Bolton Abbey, Isle of Eriska in Argyll, and the Chester Grosvenor and Calcot Manor hotel and spa, in Gloucestershire.