People 1st, the skills and workforce development charity for the hospitality and tourism industry, has launched three new policy insight reports that look at the skills challenges the hospitality and tourism sector faces.
The reports have been released to coincide with the first meeting of the Tourism Council, the partnership between Government, hospitality and tourism that aims to address skills, recruitment and enterprise in the sector.
The tourism sector’s skill challenges
Martin-Christian Kent, executive director at People 1st, said that the hospitality and tourism sector plays an increasingly important role in the UK economy, yet its productivity is lower than some international competitors. The reports provide a snapshot of the tourism sector’s skill challenges and the opportunities available to raise productivity:
“These reports look at the main areas that need to be addressed if the sector is to meet the recruitment and skills challenges it faces both now and in the future, and also offer practical guidance for what needs to be done to ensure the sector can continue to grow and increase its contribution to the UK economy.
“The first report focuses very much on raising productivity through skills and the impact this would have on the sector, while the second draws attention to our future recruitment needs and what alternative labour sources we could look to in an effort to address the challenge of attracting people to our sector.
“Finally, the third report focuses on recruitment and retention into higher skilled and management roles.”
High labour turnover rate
While the tourism sector is already addressing its recruitment and skill needs and there are many examples of best practice, all three reports highlight how the high labour turnover rate is increasing the sector’s recruitment challenges. They also show how staff turnover undermines the significant training investment tourism employers currently make.
The reports themselves identify key areas that the sector will need to focus on in the future, including generating a much higher level of staff retention than currently exists, and taking advantage of the new employer-led apprenticeship standards and the development of the linked professional standards for roles in the industry.
Funding cuts in further education colleges and the need to ensure that quality of provision is not diminished have also been identified as key issues. This is particularly true on full-time chef courses where students are given opportunities to broaden their understanding through gaining skills in food and beverage service.
Recruitment and retention strategies
Martin-Christian stressed that with falling unemployment, it is going to be difficult to recruit the 843,000 staff needed by 2020 if the sector does not view its recruitment and retention strategies differently.
“We really need to look at how we can address the challenges we face and the creation of the Tourism Council provides an great opportunity for both employers and Government to work together to come up with solutions, which is why we’re wholeheartedly behind such a move.
“That’s why, in addition to offering an overview of the challenges we face, we’ve included practical solutions to address these issues, which in many cases reflect what some employers are successfully doing.”
The reports are available for download from the People 1st website. For more information click here