Fulfilment

Fulfilment includes the opportunity to use one’s skills, to be able to influence work, have some control and to have access to training and development. The Inquiry considered the degree to which work in hospitality offers fulfilment and found the following key points:

• The hospitality industry has faced significant labour shortages since the Covid-19 pandemic, resulting in a focus on recruitment and retention of skilled staff. Employers giving evidence to the Inquiry reported key skills shortages, particularly for chefs.
• Employers interviewed as part of the Hospitality Inquiry often cited access to career advancement and the ability to ‘work your way up’ from all levels of the business as a key strength of the hospitality industry.
• The Inquiry heard a range of views from hospitality workers on career progression with many noting that the industry was ‘flat’ and there were only limited progression opportunities, but also believing that where progression opportunities did exist it was primarily based on merit. Other workers were unclear about what career opportunities existed to support progression through the industry.
• Many hospitality workers did not feel supported by their employer to access training. Worryingly, the Inquiry found examples of employers asking workers to undertake training in their own time and/or at their own expense, even for training directly related to their current role.
• Concern around the churn of staff and the loss of investment in training appears to act as a disincentive to providing certain types of training for some employers.
• Managers’ experiences of fair work were often viewed as poor, with a perception of long hours and relatively low pay, especially when considered in relation to hours worked. This suggests that there may be issues with how roles and pay are structured in addition to the ongoing impacts of high workloads and staff-shortages.
• The perception of poor fair work outcomes for managers presented a clear disincentive to career progression for workers in the sector, with examples of some workers expressing a preference for a zero hours contract over a salaried position or a promoted post due to the issue of unpaid overtime.
• Work in the sector is varied and both employers and workers often identified that personal relationships with co-workers and customers, and variation in the working day, made work enjoyable and fulfilling.

The hospitality industry continues to struggle with issues around labour shortages, skills shortages and high levels of staff turnover. There are a number of routes into the sector through apprenticeships, colleges and universities, but data suggests that the number of people undertaking apprenticeships and college courses is falling.

Perceptions of the sector do seem to be having an impact on recruitment, as do changes to immigration policy. Turnover and churn impacts employers by creating clear barriers to investing in their workforce through training, while, for workers, changing between hospitality jobs can often be a response to poor practice, particularly bullying and harassment from managers.

Relationships with managers shape the experiences of hospitality workers for good and for ill, and while relationships with co-workers and customers are often identified by workers as the best thing about working in hospitality, relations with managers are more variable and can have a major determining influence on workers’ desire to work in hospitality in the longer term.