Understanding employment issues in coastal SMEs
Business Development
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NCTA
Introduction
Career progression and staff recruitment have been longstanding challenges for the tourism and hospitality industry. To help understand and address these issues, the NCTA has been working on a project with funding from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills. The NCTA commissioned research to understand the scale of the challenges in relation to staff recruitment, induction, employee engagement and staff retention. Some 270 businesses were interviewed in the coastal destinations of Eastbourne, Brighton and Hove and the Isle of Wight.
Read on to see the results. 2
Understanding employment Issues in coastal SMEs
BUSINESS SURVEY The NCTA commisioned Tourism South East to carry out a structured telephone interview with the owner or senior manager of hospitality businesses. 270 responses were recieved from businessed located in Eastbourne, Brighton and Hove and the Isle of Wight. The businesses included hotels, guest houses, restaurants and pubs as below.
Guest Houses and B&Bs
34%
38%
28%
Hotels
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Restuarants, cafes, pubs
NCTA
STAFF PROFILE On average, businesses surveyed employed 7 full time staff, 3.8 part time permanent and 1.9 casual staff. Not surprisingly hotels have the highest staff levels. The average length of employment was 3.7 years across all businesses but length of service was longest in Guest Houses/B&B as shown below. On average 12% of staff were from overseas but there was significant variation between destinations with only 1.7% from overseas on the Isle of Wight and 18% in Brighton. Hotels were the most likely to employ staff from overseas. Overall just under a quarter of employees are under 25 and there wasn’t significant variation between destinations. However food and drink businesses were much more likely to employ younger staff than accommodation businesses.
Average length of service
4.8 years 3.8 years 2.9 years
Average number of staff
Full time
12
2
8
Part Time
6
1
5
Casual
2
1
2
4
Understanding employment Issues in coastal SMEs
Proportion of non-UK national staff
Non UK staff
17%
6%
13%
8%
36%
Proportion of staff under 25
> 25 years old
17%
STAFFING CHALLENGES Businesses face a number of staffing challenges, the key issues being staff costs, lack of experienced / qualified staff, low staff retention and poor work ethic.
Key staffing issues among Coastal Tourism SMEs (results in %)
29
Staff costs
22
Lack of qualified / experienced staff
21
Low staff retention / high turnover
19
Poor work ethic Labour shortages in particular jobs (e.g. seasonal work)
13
Challenges related to employing staff from overseas Low interest in jobs advertised generally
7 6
Note: Multiple responses permitted so results do not sum to 100%
Staff costs were more of an issue for hotels (40%) and 16% mentioned challenges related to employing staff from overseas. For guest houses low staff retention was the key issue, closely followed by staff costs and poor work ethic.
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Understanding employment Issues in coastal SMEs
STAFF RECRUITMENT Overall, the two most common approaches to recruiting new staff are to place an advert in a local paper including online adverts (29%) and seek recommendation from friends/colleagues/relatives to identify possible candidates (26%). However there is significant variation between destinations with the most popular methods shown in the following chart.
Facebook/Twitter Gumtree Local specialist recruitment Isle of Wight
Online recruitment agency
Eastbourne
Advert in local paper
Brighton
Local job centre Through recommendation Try to recruit internally 0
10
20
30
40
50%
The different business sectors also took quite different approaches to recruitment, adverts in local paper being key for hotels and guest houses but internal recruitment and recommendations being more important for food and drink businesses.
Facebook/Twitter Gumtree Local specialist recruitment Food & drink
Online recruitment agency
GH / B&B
Advert in local paper
Hotel
Local job centre Through recommendation Try to recruit internally 0
7
10
20
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30
40%
NCTA
ROLES MOST DIFFICULT TO RECRUIT 24% of businesses said they found it difficult to recruit chefs, particularly in Brighton (31%) and on the Isle of Wight (28%). Kitchen staff (14%), chambermaids/housekeepers (12%) and waiting staff (12%) were also quite difficult to recruit. There are quite significant differences between sectors as this chart shows.
Chefs Kitchen staff Housekeepers / chambermaids Food / Drink
Waiting staff
GH / B&B
Cleaners
Hotel
Bar staff First line managers 0
10
20
30
40
50%
44% of food and drink businesses had problems recruiting chefs whereas for guesthouses/B&Bs chambermaids and housekeepers were hardest to recruit. Both chefs (19%) and chambermaids (19%) were the hardest to recruit for hotels. 8
Understanding employment Issues in coastal SMEs
EMPLOYMENT SKILLS There is a general perception that there is a shortage of skills in the hospitality sector but it seems that the following attributes were the most important when looking for new staff: • Positive attitude • Being adaptable • Customer focussed • Well-presented • Good spoken English Importance of skills/attributes when looking for new staff Positive attitude Well presented Customer focused Adaptable Good spoken English Literate Commercial awareness
76% 76% 72% 65% 62% 56% 35%
Customer focused Well presented Positive attitude Good spoken English Adaptable Literate Relevant work experience Possitive attitude Well presented Customer focussed Adaptable Good spoken English Literate Commercial awareness
52% 51% 52% 54% 54% 58% 59% 92% 86% 85% 68% 67% 56% 34%
Relevant work experience and technical skills and qualifications were important for some but they were more related to the actual role. Overall one fifth of all businesses saw lack of skills as a barrier to growth. 9
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EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT As the main objective of the UKCES/NCTA project is to improve staff engagement, exploring this was a key focus of the survey. There are a number of recognised processes which improve staff engagement and businesses were asked which of these they had in place. More than three quarters had: • Flexible working practices • Formal staff induction • Customer service policy
86% 77% 74%
However, fewer businesses had more proactive processes for staff engagement in place such as team building days, staff surveys or staff forums. There was some variation between different business types.
Flexible working for staff Formal induction Customer service policy Formal staff progress review Business plan shared with staff Recognition awards
Food & drink
One-to-one meetings
GH / B&B
Regular staff meetings Career development training
Hotel
Staff team building days Company newsletters for staff Regular staff surveys Staff suggestion box Staff forum or liaison group 0
20
40
60
80
100%
10
Understanding employment Issues in coastal SMEs
STAFF TRAINING Just under a third of businesses identify training and development needs through a formal appraisal or review process and 32% through a manager’s observation. Only 19% had a dedicated budget for staff training.
35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0
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CONCLUSIONS The findings of the survey reveal that the main staffing challenges faced by coastal tourism SMEs are staffing costs, finding suitable staff, high staff turnover and a poor work ethic. Attributes including attitude and adaptability are more important than specific previous experience or qualifications. The survey shows that many Coastal Tourism SMEs have some of the well recognised processes at work which are known to support staff engagement such as flexible working practices, a
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staff induction process for new recruits and a staff performance review system. However, significantly fewer businesses offer other practices such as regular one to one or general staff meetings or staff training to support employee progression. Only around half of the businesses surveyed reward high staff performance with a reward or bonus scheme.
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Publication date: February 2016 12