What matters is the job package
What is there left to say about the skills shortage? What can be said that hasn't been said before? Not much, perhaps. But the problem won't go away by ignoring it, so maybe the same things need to be said over and over again.
Recruiting and retaining staff remains the hospitality industry's biggest and most constant challenge. Figures from the National Online Manpower Information Service, published in the Hospitality Training Foundation's Labour Market Review 2002 earlier this year, suggest that 56.4% of vacancies for hospitality positions in the UK remain unfilled at any one time.
This figure has risen by 10% over the past five years. Not only that, but the total number of vacancies (notified to JobCentres) has been rising - from 92,000 in April 1999 to more than 98,000 in April 2000. If that weren't bad enough, not every operator uses the local JobCentre to advertise vacancies, so these figures could possibly be doubled.
Of course, it's not only catering and hospitality that is suffering in this way. The Government has been pursuing a policy of encouraging school leavers to stay on in higher education, and this has raised the expectations of students, who are no longer attracted to vocational or manual jobs.
A recent survey conducted by paint manufacturer Dulux Trade found that fewer than 5% of students these days are interested in becoming decorators, bricklayers, electricians, joiners or plumbers. Is this because they all want to become hotel or catering managers instead? No, they are keen to follow careers as computer programmers, lawyers or (believe it or not) journalists - jobs that offer recognised career structures and good remuneration.
According to the HTF, the reason for the low take-up of hospitality jobs remains the perception that the industry is all about long hours and low pay. Much has been done to improve this image, particularly by organisations such as Springboard UK, supported by the work of individual operators and recruitment consultants. And in this lies a clue to the way forward.
It is no good Government or academic industry bodies prescribing a cure for the malaise - marketing a better image - if operators on the front line won't swallow the medicine and actually take steps to improve their performance in the area of recruitment and retention.
Improving the image of the industry is not about honouring (for example) the Working Time Directive or minimum wage legislation, it is about providing structured career paths and better in-house training, and by openly recognising that staff are the most important asset that a customer-facing business can invest in.
Recruitment consultants have their part to play in this by providing more than just a people-in-position service. The better consultancies already offer career advice to job candidates and HR advice to employers, but more should do the same. And employers need to listen.
The dialogue and conversations that take place at the Caterer.com Live careers fair in London next month should not be about what the jobseeker can offer a company, but what the employer can provide in return.
It is up to individual companies and the consultants that they employ to come up with complete, all-round packages that deliver on promises.
So you've heard all this before? Go and do it, then.
FORBES MUTCH
Editor
Caterer & Hotelkeeper
