When the pandemic hit in 2020, across industries, businesses went into full-blown panic mode.
Nowhere was this more evident than in hospitality.
People may have been forgiven for assuming that once hospitality began its slow re-opening that things would level off, yet by 2021, further disaster struck.
The main contributor? Hasty decision-making.
Now, many hospitality businesses are left to contemplate the repercussions of hiring people who may not have been the best fit for their business at a time when hospitality staff are absolutely essential to the recovery of the industry and in high demand.
What can this mean for the future, and why is this significant?
The issue
Headlines in 2021 were full of predictions about the difficulties that the hospitality industry would face in filling vacancies.
In fact, according to the ONS, hospitality businesses were the most likely to be struggling to fill vacancies in late 2021 – 30% of hospitality business said that vacancies were more difficult to fill than normal, compared to 13% across all industries.
This coincided with an extremely busy period for recruitment, with hospitality posting record numbers of vacancies in June to August 2021.
To top off all of these detrimental coinciding factors, there was also the one in five workers leaving the hospitality sector to contend with.
Rather than these factors culminating slowly over a period of a few years, they have combined over a shorter period and left many hospitality businesses scrambling to fill all vacancies – by any means necessary.
The prediction
Last year, our Managing Director Will Gennard expected that clients would start entering panic mode – and he turned out to be right.
Many of the clients who panicked last year about their recruitment situation and circumstances began hiring people who weren’t necessarily the best fit, but instead, offered a temporary reprieve from the disastrous headlines and vacancies that were seemingly piling up by the second.
The problem?
Now both the clients and the people that they hired are at an immense disadvantage.
In some cases, the lack of alignment and cultural fit with hires has meant that staff turnover has increased, as people decide to leave jobs which they don’t feel are working out.
In other cases, both the business and the staff are suffering from a lack of ‘fit’ when it comes to their job.
But what does this mean?
It’s costing time
A bad hire isn’t just bad for business, it’s also extremely time-consuming.
Whilst hiring quickly may have seemed like a quick fix at the time, now there has to be additional time spent considering your potential options to resolve the issue.
Whether you’re spending time training or educating an employee who might not be the best fit, or considering your recruitment options to make up for the poor hire – you’ll be spending far more time in the long-term than you would’ve had the employee aligned more skills and culture-wise.
You’ll want to focus more on running your business than attempting to rectify a bad hire, so it’s worth considering the implications that this will have on your time.
Higher turnover costs
The so-called ‘Great Resignation’ is in full swing.
If an employee realises that a job is not suitable for them, they are likely to be inclined to just leave as well.
Replacing these hires means spending more money – alongside the potential monetary costs incurred as a result of the poor fit, such as lost sales – meaning that you’re worse off than you were prior to making the hire.
Though there can be the common misconception that working with a hospitality recruitment agency can cost a lot, in reality, gaining a highly qualified candidate saves you money because they can hit the ground running – enabling you to put your time and energy into something other than training, or finding replacements.
Team morale
The best hires will adapt to their team and boost it, whether through strong leadership qualities or a flexibility to adapt to others.
People-facing businesses that revolve around customer service thrive on good teamwork and dynamics, and teams benefit from a shared vision (embedded in the company culture).
When one or several rushed hires are made, it can cause rifts and difficulties within teams that can contribute to low productivity and potentially, high turnover rates.
Long story short
We know how hard it is in hospitality right now.
Difficulties filling vacancies, the Great Resignation, and the shifting priorities of the workforce can all be daunting barriers to come up against when recruiting.
However, getting it right has never been more essential.
There are so many ways in which a wrong hire can negatively impact a business – money, turnover rates, employee productivity and morale – and yet it can all be resolved by making more informed, patient recruitment decisions.
It’s part of the reason why we’re so passionate about finding candidates that make a cultural contribution to our clients’ businesses – informed decisions mean that the best candidates can work with the best businesses, without the usual associated stress.
What does the future hold?
High vacancies in hospitality won’t disappear overnight – but it’s not all bad news.
Arguably, there’s never been a better time for candidates to consider a career in hospitality, as the industry is making greater efforts to focus on what it can offer to those looking to enter the industry, including greater emphasis on mental health and wellbeing and flexibility.
(You can find out more about this in our blog here.)
There are more ways than ever before to reach out to candidates, meaning that the talent pool is wider and the accessibility is more efficient.
Uncertainty can delay recovery, and this is extremely evident when it comes to recruitment.
At a time when many businesses are relying on their resilience to recover, the last thing that they need is further difficulty down the line.
If you’d like to avoid the usual stresses and headaches of hospitality, we’d love to help.
Many of our clients consider us their long-term recruitment partner, because we like to get to know the business and the people that they like to employ to be able to find the best match for them.
Why not give us a call to find out more?