Excerpt from CoStar
Hotel Industry Needs One Unified Voice To Better Promote Benefits and Careers It Can Provide
As the struggle to fill roles in hotels and hospitality continues, stakeholders agree there must be one clear voice to be heard by both employees and government and that the perception of the industry is outdated and wrong.
The competition and struggle to secure staffing in the hotel and hospitality industry is a “battle for bodies,” according to Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality, the United Kingdom’s principal industry membership body.
Speaking on a panel at Westminster Kingsway College in London, Nicholls said to hire the people it needs, the U.K. hospitality industry must be “relentlessly positive and optimistic” about the benefits, flexibility, upward progression and good pay it can and does provide.
According to Nicholls, in the U.K. approximately 20% of revenue, more than 20 billion pounds sterling ($25.2 billion), is being lost due to a lack of staffing.
Panelists said employment success stories need to be told, young people are the ones to relay to other young people the benefits of a career in hospitality and one, united voice is needed across the industry to get the message out.
In the U.K., the combination of Brexit and COVID-19 have accentuated staffing issues, which has resulted in UKHospitality collaborating with partners on a new “Hospitality Workforce Strategy.”
“Staffing is an international crisis, but of the 32 countries I work in, the U.K. has the worst situation,” said Sophie Kilic, whose role as senior vice president of human resources for Northern Europe and Corporate U.K. at Accor is based in London.
Nicholls said despite the likelihood of increasing staffing challenges over the next 12 to 18 months, there is a sense of optimism and a change in thinking in government circles. She also asked the government for a total overhaul of the apprenticeship levy scheme, which was rolled out in 2017.
“It is worrying the apprenticeship scheme is moving from low-level entry to higher skills,” she said.
She said the industry’s ability to recover and to grow revenue is being hampered by restrictions to talent.
“Remember back to summer 2019, and everyone was struggling to recruit, and we were facing a people crisis. Vacancy levels are now double what they were then. I don’t think anyone would have believed you if you’d have said recruiting would be twice as bad,” she added.
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