FOOD & DRINK
RECRUIT, RECRUIT, RECRUIT
Following a challenging period for the hospitality industry, with restrictions suffocating revenues across the country, BaxterStorey’s Chief Executive Officer Ronan Harte discusses the importance of recruiting and upskilling to equip the hospitality and catering sector in its recovery.
It’s no secret that the hospitality industry is experiencing a skills shortage, which in turn is presenting new challenges regarding recruitment – with three in ten hospitality businesses currently finding vacancies difficult to fill. It’s a tough climate with no apparent short-term solution, making it vital our industry continues to push ahead with mass recruitment, to aid in its recovery.
Investment is essential to address the skills gap that will become even more apparent now that restrictions are beginning to ease again. The sector is resilient, and we have learnt a lot from the past two years, in particular, seeing how businesses bounce back. A confident approach to building back faster and stronger requires an equally bold recruitment strategy, which promotes a more diverse workforce – from brilliant chefs and baristas to those working behind the scenes in the supply chain, sustainability and training.
Rebuilding a diverse workforce The pre-existing skills gap has only grown over the course of the pandemic. To rebuild our workforce and attract more people into hospitality, we have a big challenge in making our sector more appealing to young people by promoting the career opportunities within the industry.
Over the years, hospitality has suffered with perceptions of poor pay and poor working hours and often little is
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known about the opportunities such a career can provide. To aid the industry’s recovery, we must look at how we promote a more diverse workforce.
For BaxterStorey, this means proactively reaching out to a wider range of prospective candidates to highlight roles in hospitality that people might not be aware of, such as project management, sales or marketing – whether that’s by taking part in jobs fairs, or by working closely with other organisations, such as CIPD or ACCA.
It’s also essential we engage with pupils in schools, diversifying where we recruit from, giving young people and their families more insight into career journeys and showcasing training programmes, the variety in workplace locations and the availability of flexible working. The general workforce wants more and demand more from employers, whether that’s flexible working or a wellbeing programme; to more nutritious food menu options. We are seeing this trend within our client locations, and we play a role in supporting them to create a positive workplace culture through our hospitality provisions, as well as looking internally and adopting some of these practices.
Recruiting from within Apprenticeships have a key role to play in our recruitment strategy and have done for some time. We offer two
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