Kent County Council, Visit Kent Suzy Jackson : Executive Director Hospitality Guild

The Hospitality Guild was created to address the industry’s overwhelming desire to simplify professional development, help the hospitality sector address its skills gaps, and to train and retain the best staff THE HOSPITALITY GUILD

State of the Nation 2013 Focus on the recruitment challenge Lessons on the games All figures from People 1 st ’s latest report 3

Growth and demand The sector employs a workforce of 2,076,000 – one in 14 jobs We are growing faster than the economy as a whole 4

Our workforce 2/5 under the age of 30 22% were born outside of the EU (vs14% across the economy 57% are women, but only 37% of managers are women 48% work part-time (compared to 28% across the economy) = all in all we are employing an increasingly transient workforce 5

Growth and demand We need 660,200 new staff by 2020 This is partly growth, partly replacement demand 6

Context and impact Whilst we have 2.51 million unemployed across the UK Recruitment is tougher than expected with such high unemployment 7

The recruitment problem 16% of sector employers have vacancies (vs 12 %) 11% experienced a hard-to-fill vacancy last year Two thirds of hard-to-fill vacancies are due to skill shortages 8

What’s the problem? It’s a problem of perception and reality 9

Perception We are widely perceived as being a low-skilled, low paid sector We are not getting our message out effectively There are a number of barriers to combating this message…. 10

Perception It is difficult to get into schools Schools are competing with colleges to retain students Schools responsible for careers – but they have no money, time or expertise Young people have changed and we need to change to get our message across 11

The nub of the problem We have both short-term, low skilled roles, but also highly skilled professionals … but these different needs are not so easily recognised and so are not easily filling the skilled roles 12

How are we recruiting? We are largely filling roles, with the transient workers, such as students and international workers But this comes at a cost ….. 13

As a result ….. Productivity hampered by skill gaps Skill gaps exacerbated by 20 % labour turnover Huge training investment is having to be diverted to address initial development 14

Is there a better way? Strong careers campaign Employee engagement Recruiting pools Change in culture for recruitment Less reliance on transient workers Working together 15

Hospitality Guild vision June 2013 “A world where UK hospitality is celebrated as a Great Place to Work and increasingly the first choice for people seeking a career for life”

June Set the standards for training and professional development in the hospitality industry through accreditation, clear career paths and quality partnerships 2.Act with our partners to raise the positive profile of the hospitality industry and achieve our aims 3.Save employers time and money by simplifying training and helping them to retain the best staff 4.Create a single channel for professional development which is recognised and utilised by individuals, employers, government and educators Mission – the “how”

State of the Nation 2013 Available online at Support and advice on ActNOW! campaign 18