The Hospitality Rising campaign kicked off on Oct 24th to tackle the ongoing recruitment challenges in the industry.
When founder Mark McCulloch, saw vacancies rising to 400,000 with only 1 in 5 potential candidates considering joining hospitality and 42% of current employees considering leaving the industry, he launched Hospitality Rising to try to combat this challenge. .
I have been tracking the progress of the campaign ever since myself and Gail Kenny listened to Kate Nicholls, Chief Executive UKHospitality, speak at the Caterer’s People Summit back in May this year. The campaign, specifically targeting the under 30s has got off to a great start and appears to be continuing the successful momentum. Announcing in November they had had over 7,000 applications for jobs within two days of their job boards launching.
Just over one year ago Gail Kenny Executive Recruitment launched a Hospitality division with myself heading it up having come from Rubicon, a well respected Hospitality specialist recruiter. I wasn’t sure what to expect returning to the re-emerging industry I love, after watching it close down almost overnight.
It’s been great reconnecting with previous clients and candidates and engaging with new. I focus on middle to senior management level roles, so it is not the typical kind of vacancies being promoted by the Hospitality Rising campaign, but these new candidates will hopefully form the pipeline for long careers within the industry. It is still a difficult time for hospitality recruitment at all levels. With many candidates returning from furlough and wanting to remain in their role for another year, or those that have had a phenomenal year of growth and so are holding on for bonuses to be paid. There is also the impact of those that are no longer in the country because of covid and Brexit.
However, we have seen the light at the end of the tunnel with many businesses thriving, brand new roles created and alternative roles becoming more common. Sales teams have been rebuilt and added to, and a focus on digital roles has been popular this year. Many of these roles have attracted candidates from outside of the industry due to the huge number of transferrable skills they have. With fantastic initiatives such as Hospitality Rising, I hope in 2023 we continue to see the Hospitality sector rebuild and thrive with a new pool of candidates joining the industry.
Hannah Antell – Senior Consultant Travel & Hospitality
