Take training to next level
"People are our greatest asset." While it's one thing to come out with that cliché, what have we as an industry actually done about realising our greatest assets over the years?
I believe we have achieved quite a lot. Over the past five years, organisations such as the Hospitality Training Foundation (HTF) have provided our industry with a comprehensive programme pertinent to our training and development needs.
Employers now take staff training much more seriously. Indeed, many of us have created our own internal training programmes.
Now is the time to take this activity to a new level, and I believe that the proposed Sector Skills Council (SSC) for hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism could help.
A limited number of SSCs are being created to replace the more numerous National Training Organisations. Those that succeed will gain a powerful voice in Government and the resources to provide their sectors with a bold and imaginative approach to education and training.
The future training needs of our people is thus in our own hands. The Government's aim is for employers to drive the new SSCs. These bodies will have as much as £1m of public funding a year, but this will have to be matched by employers.
To successfully address the skills and manpower problems of our industry, the provision of adequate funding is critical. How that funding is sourced and allocated is a matter for careful debate, but here is a real opportunity to fuel our own prosperity.
It is proposed that the SSC for hospitality will implement the great work already undertaken by the HTF in uniting employers from all sectors through its Workforce Development Plan. However, we must be careful to ensure that we put in place a solid structure to achieve the objectives of the strategic plan throughout the five-year guardianship of the SSC.
We must also make sure that the team tasked with making it happen will move with the times. That's why it's so crucial that employers play a major role.
But it's not only the big businesses that need to take the high ground. The SSCs will give all employers, large and small, even micro-business operators, a stronger remit than ever before with which to influence education and training policy and initiatives.
If you would like to register your support for the SSC, please write to John Brackenbury, chairman of the steering committee, and deputy chairman of Pubmaster, 27a Sloane Square, London SW1W 8AB. E-mail: brackenbur@aol.com.
Angie Risley is human resources director of the Whitbread Group
