People 1st has revealed that its work with leading hospitality employers has helped fill over 5,000 new roles. The results were achieved in partnership with local training providers and Jobcentres through People 1st’s ‘employment academies’, which have helped employers find team members with specific hospitality industry skills.
Filling roles with enthusiastic and skilled staff
Martine Pullen, who was responsible for the development of the employment academy model at People 1st, said that the benefits delivered by this form of recruitment have been impressive:
“We spent quite a lot of time working with employers, training providers and Jobcentres to get the process right, and that work has really paid off. Our employment academy model has been hugely successful in helping employers to fill roles with enthusiastic and skilled staff.
“Continuing to use this model makes sense, especially among employers who are expanding their business – particularly through new openings – although we’ve also helped other organisations find the skilled staff they need.
“As the unemployment rate continues to fall, employers will find it more difficult to recruit, so using our model – where candidates are screened for suitability to work in hospitality before the academy starts – is the ideal solution.”
Tailored to meet specific business needs
Employers have also benefited as People 1st has worked with training providers to make sure that the employment academies were tailored to meet specific business needs and give them ready-trained team members that had the skills they need.
Ros Foster, Resourcing Manager at Travelodge, said that she has used the employment academies for a number of new openings throughout the south east and immediately noted benefits:
“The people who attended the pre-employment training were already used to working as a team, so when the hotel opened they hit the ground running.
“The productivity in these hotels has been better than that for other new openings and we have very engaged teams.”
Higher retention rates
Martine noted that other employers had also seen higher retention rates of staff coming through the employment academies as staff members were given a greater understanding of what it was like to work in hospitality during the pre-employment training.
“Employers using this model are facing far fewer issues with training new staff and then seeing them leave,” she said.
“They’ve effectively broken the cycle of investing heavily in induction training as new staff are hired and are now able to invest their training budgets at higher levels within the organisation.
“This is obviously having a huge impact on these employers’ businesses, because not only are they saving money on recruitment, they’re also able to invest in their staff, offer ongoing training and career opportunities, and successfully sell the industry as a great place to work.”
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