An Industry in Crisis: Attracting and Retaining Hospitality Workers

How You Can Have A Great Team And Profit

Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ll know there are skill shortages across the entire hospitality industry. And it isn’t going away. Attracting and retaining hospitality workers continues to be an urgent and important issue for all hospitality businesses.

According to the Australian Tourism Labour Force Report, there will be 123,000 new hospitality workers needed over the next five years.

Has this affected your hotel yet?

Employers are asking – how do we attract and retain hospitality workers? And smart employers are thinking about this not only in the context of their business, but the industry as a whole.

Because you’re not the only one who can’t find the talent. And as a business owner and employer – YOU are responsible for creating the talent the industry needs.

So how can you create attract and retain hospitality workers, and build the talent you need for your business?

1.      Embrace a training culture

2.      Develop career pathways in your business

3.      Be an employer of choice

Embrace a training culture

When Flying Horse Bar and Brewery began 10 years ago in Warrnambool, they couldn’t find the talent they wanted. So they decided it was up to them to create it. They embraced a training culture in their business, employing and nurturing a large proportion of younger apprentices and trainees. They don’t struggle to find staff (even apprentices), often recruit from within, have a great team culture, and retain staff for a long time. And they are the busiest venue in town.

Develop career pathways

Whether you are a large group or a small single venue business – you can offer career pathways. Structure roles to progress within the business from junior, to supervisor, to manager. This way staff know position responsibilities and remuneration can increase as skills and experience develops. Industry qualifications also align with this structure, from Certificate III to Advanced Diploma, and can provide benchmarks for expectations at each level.

Become an employer of choice

Along with training opportunities and career pathways, becoming an employer of choice is about the way to you treat your staff and the work environment. Providing good working conditions is not only a legal requirement, its good business practice, and necessary if you want to attract and retain good staff in this competitive environment. Ensure employees work reasonable hours, receive adequate breaks and are paid promptly – according to your Award.

How AVTES can help

As you can see, embracing a training culture is the building block for developing career pathways and becoming and employer of choice. We’d love to help you include accredited training as part of your training culture so you can maximize the benefits and value of training in your business.

We offer courses for front and back of house staff at all levels. With streams for kitchen, restaurant, bar, café, hotel, and accommodation roles. Training is delivered with Victorian and Commonwealth Government funding where eligible.

There are a lot of training subsidies available at the moment for both front and back of house, so it is a great time to take advantage.

If you’re interested in learning more about using accredited training in your hospitality business get in touch.