Fair work levers
The stakeholders had a range of views about what fair work levers are needed or might work best to improve fair work in hospitality. One set of stakeholders believed that incentives were required to drive fair work practice: either in the form of some offset to business rates or more general business support, or indeed in the form of conditionality represented by Fair Work First in tying fair work conditions to public contracts and grants. Others were more convinced that the business case for fair work was likely to be the most influential lever – that is, that fair work practice will improve because it is required to address recruitment and retention challenges. Both groups agreed, however, that any lever for fair work had to contain or highlight clear benefits for employers to ensure its effectiveness.
Where possible, we discussed with key stakeholders the types of policy levers that Scottish Government might use to improve fair work in hospitality that are summarised in the Table below. Some stakeholders commented on all potential levers; others focussed on specific levers that had greater relevance to their businesses/organisations and experience.
| Authority | Treasure | Nodality | Organisation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Targeted awareness campaign | Further conditionality | Development of accredited fair work training | Business support, tools and diagnostics |
| Embedding fair work in employability provision | Strategic joint capacity investments | Support for fair work charters | Support for a fair work hub |
| Support for Real Living Hours | Support for formal fair work accreditation | ||
| SG, public sector/body and ILG fair work champions | Support for fair work communities of practice |
Targeted awareness-raising campaign
Fair work in hospitality might be enhanced through a targeted awareness-raising campaign aimed at employers and other industry stakeholders that stimulates better knowledge on fair work across the industry.
Our earlier research identified potential value in the Scottish Government leading the design, testing and evaluation of targeted awareness-raising campaigns communicating tailored messages on the importance of fair work to employers, industry representatives and other key stakeholder communities. Information is often a first step towards changing how people think, feel and act, though information may be a necessary but insufficient ingredient of changed practice and targeted awareness raising would need to be aligned with other levers, such as advice and support for action.
There was support among the stakeholders for targeted awareness raising of fair work in hospitality. While some stakeholders were well versed in the wider policy context of, and approach to, fair work, others had heard little or nothing on the subject, as the comments below highlight:
I think it’s [fair work] largely unknown in the sector … it isn’t fully understood by everybody. A lot of people will just look at it through the lens of pay; they won’t see the broader base”.
“… a lot of our organisations don't really know even now. We're still getting calls from federations or groups … saying can you give us an update on Fair Work conditionality and what it means.”
For those with limited awareness, some were able to speculate reasonably accurately on what fair work might look like, although as the first comment above indicates, such speculation might focus only on particular aspects of fair work, like pay, which presented an obstacle for businesses who believed themselves unable to improve their pay offer. Notwithstanding the importance of pay to staff, a more nuanced understanding of fair work by employers and key industry stakeholders might allow for progress towards other fair work dimensions. Several stakeholders felt that the time was right for a broader discussion of fair work in hospitality, with businesses more receptive to such discussions in the context of widespread recruitment and retention difficulties.
Stakeholders were supportive of increasing awareness using language that would be understood and seen as relevant by businesses,
“ … simplifying some of the terminology used, the language used. Breaking that down so that it it's seen as something that's more relevant to the day-to-day workings of an organisation as opposed to, you know, something that's being imposed on you as a business or as a social enterprise … making it resonate with the businesses themselves”.
More business appropriate language might, according to stakeholders, highlight the business benefits of fair work. As one noted:
“ … portray that fair work's not just about sort of fluffy stuff. This is actually affecting your bottom line … this is something that you want to embed to make your business run as effectively as possible”.
Some stakeholders highlighted the importance not just of general awareness raising on fair work, but on what fair work looked like in different industries or geographical contexts. This raises an interesting point about the levels of any targeted awareness raising campaign and potential tensions of what one stakeholder described as one-size-fits-all approaches that supported wider sharing of information and learning, and more bespoke awareness raising suited to specific contexts, for example, of a region of the Scottish economy or an industry.
Further embedding fair work criteria in employability provision
Embedding fair work further into the operation and outcome indicators of Scotland’s employability support might influence hospitality employers who recruit (or could recruit) via employability providers to engage more directly with fair work practices.
Existing employability provision funded and supported by the Scottish Government could play an important role in achieving fair work outcomes where the Scottish Government, Local Employability Partnerships and partners focus on prioritising and stretching fair work outcome indicators in assessing the performance of Scotland’s employability services. The Scottish Government and local government partners have direct responsibility for the employability policy agenda and therefore have authority to shape its focus on fair work issues such as secure work, supporting opportunity and inclusion, incentivising progression and promoting respect at work. Such an approach might involve providers working more intensively with employers to identify opportunities for progression and learning post-job entry, and to consider a broader range of flexible working opportunities that might assist people with caring responsibilities and/or managing disability/health conditions to enter work. It might also require additional resourcing in engaging and supporting employers in lower value-added sectors.
Few of our stakeholders in hospitality had any direct connection with employability services and did not have a developed view on the effectiveness of embedding fair work more centrally into employability provision in Scotland, not least because the predominance of small organisations in hospitality limits interaction with public employability services for some. However, there are examples of charities helping migrants and those recovering from addition/homelessness entering work through hospitality initiatives. There were examples, however, of hospitality businesses recruiting through job centres and finding these effective channels. As one employer noted:
“I'd say over the 10 years, 4 to 5 members of staff that have been suggested through the job centre or through education as part of a work placement or back to work schedule and they've all proved to be brilliant members of staff that have stuck with me for a considerable amount of time until they moved on to their next career progression or university or whatever it may be”.
This employer’s assessment of engaging with fair work through employability support services was that it would be worthwhile for their business. Additionally, several employers voiced a desire to engage more with employability providers and with schools and colleges as a way of developing access to and engagement with potential labour supply. This may signal an important area of collaboration between hospitality employers and employability providers.
Supporting real Living Hours
Scottish Government support for real Living Hours accreditation could help improve fair work in hospitality by improving income security and predictability of workers and improve planning by employers.
Looking at the potential impact of specific actions, our earlier research identified potential value in the Scottish Government providing further financial, policy and campaigning support for Living Hours, and for further evaluation of the impact of such a campaign. This might include helping employers to better assess the extent to which different workplaces and jobs provide sufficient hours. Living Hours commitments address the variability and unpredictability of hours of work in sectors like hospitality and, combined with adopting the real Living Wage, address the fair work dimension of security. The Living Hours accreditation scheme requires prior real Living Wage Accreditation (which some hospitality employers have) and commits employers to providing a minimum of 16 hours per week (unless the worker requests otherwise); a contract that reflects the hours generally worked and four weeks’ notice of shifts (or payment for shifts cancelled within this notice period). Living Hours may also deliver benefits beyond improved income security as greater hours predictability can better support employees to access training and opportunities for career progression. Moreover, Living Hours Accreditation requires dialogue between the parties to discuss their respective needs and agree on minimum hours which could, in turn, improve worker voice.
Stakeholders had, perhaps unsurprisingly, differing views on whether support by the Scottish Government for living hours accreditation could drive practice in the industry. Given that living hours accreditation is built on real living wage accreditation, only those with the latter could engage, and there is early evidence of trade unions working with some employers on the living hours agenda. Some stakeholders, however, could not see how a commitment to living hours could be aligned with their current business models or the business models adopted by many in the industry and did not think that efforts to encourage real living hours accreditation – or practice consistent with accreditation – would land with the industry.
Other stakeholders were more neutral, supporting the provision of living hours to staff but advising that aspects of accreditation could be difficult in some hospitality contexts. Specifically, a commitment to four weeks’ notice for shifts was seen as challenging given that bookings/demand can vary considerably week to week, and employers were interested in the potential for adaptability within the 4 weeks’ notice requirement. In addition, concerns were raised that requiring contracts with a minimum of 16 hours might eliminate some staff such as high school students, single parents, and those working in hospitality for a supplementary income, exacerbating staff shortages. In the latter context, flexibility for employees to be able to refuse a minimum hours’ contract was seen as essential and is permitted under Living Hours Accreditation.
Importantly, however, for some of the employers interviewed it was clear that if the offering of real living hours was required by staff, they would work hard to deliver this. As two employers from different parts of the industry noted:
“If I had to give somebody 16 hours in order to get, you know, the staff in for a weekend, I'm sure we could find a way to do that”.
“In relation to the fair living hours stuff, again, I think that's, you know, would be brilliant to be able to do something like that. And 16 hours, I don't think it's a problem at all for us to guarantee as a business”.
Such views showed both recognition of the demand for more stable and sufficient hours and a willingness to be creative in providing such a benefit to worker while also benefitting as employers in access to scarce staff. Many understood that stability and predictability of hours was also what they would want for themselves if they were employees or for their family members, and the legitimacy of any demand for real living hours was well accepted.
Fair work champions
Supporting the development of fair work champions in the hospitality Industry Leadership Group may advance fair work through enhancing fair work capacity and commitment at an industry leadership level.
Evidence suggests that workplace champions have some success in raising awareness of specialist workplace issues and ensuring them priority attention, particularly where they operate in a wider network of champions. Consequently, fair work champions might identify opportunities to raise the awareness of fair work issues; support the design and development of fair work policy; ensure that local or frontline issues inform fair work priorities; monitor progress and develop actions to address gaps; share best practice and signpost managers and workers to appropriate policies and supports. Such a role may be beneficial on Industry Leadership Groups in Scotland, on which industry-specific stakeholders provide a strategic interface with government to progress industry ambitions and provide leadership and a collective voice. The role would, however, require training and support.
Hospitality industry stakeholders were positive about the potential of fair work champions, drawing on experience of other types of champion, as the comments below highlight:
“Champions work really well”.
“Net zero champions have been a proven, tried and tested way of encouraging others to just have a little think about what that might mean for their business or their organisation”.
In terms of where champions would operate, hospitality industry stakeholders had very different perceptions of where industry leadership lay, though in part this related to the existence of sector and sub-sector bodies. Some saw the Scottish Tourism Alliance as the champion of the industry in Scotland. Some were aware of the operation of the Hospitality Industry Leadership Group (ILG) and others were not. Amongst those with awareness of the ILG, stakeholders had different levels of knowledge of what the ILG does and subsequently of its potential role as a champion of fair work. For some stakeholders, however, there is significant potential for the ILG, supported by a fair work champion, to take a driving role in fair work in the sector:
“My view is that the industrial leadership group is about future proofing the sector. So how do we make the sector better, how to make it fit for future, how do we pick up the big-ticket items from a workforce point of view. How do we drive the sector forward to address fair work?”
“I think the fundamental lever is getting people that sit on the ILG to understand the role and to be committed to driving forward standards and not focusing on ‘I'm here representing my business and I'm just going to say my business is fantastic and we don't need to do anything’. The government really needs to be telling the ILGs, if you want to be part of this, you need to sign up to some basic principles which are improving minimum standards”.
While some stakeholders were unsure how or whether ILG members were accountable to the industry, stakeholders with closer engagement with the ILG reported that it already had a focus on fair work and that a fair work champion could certainly build on this.
“I think the ILG is important. And there is definitely, I think, a real momentum and focus on fair work on that group. I'm part of the group that's looking at developing the mission around pride and value … a big focus within that on fair work and game changing actions”.
“I was sceptical … of joining that group [Hospitality ILG]. But I actually think it’s been one of the most positive environments to exchange understandings from different groups that would not normally agree and to change people’s perspectives of each other as well and work together better. Most importantly, it’s got a lot of leaders of change from within chains and hospitality venues, but also from within unions”.
While there was no detailed reflection on how this might happen, there was a general recognition that greater capacity in fair work, and dedicated capacity especially, could support greater understanding of, and actions to deliver, fair work across the hospitality industry.
Further conditionality
There are opportunities to develop fair work conditionality through, for example, fair work criteria in Small Business Bonus Scheme or through attaching fair work conditions to relevant licensing processes.
Governments can use market power to pursue social objectives by making the awarding of a contract or grant subject to meeting qualifying conditions. There has been limited evaluation of conditionality in Scotland, and initiatives like Fair Work First are too recent to have been robustly evaluated, though such evaluation is planned. Looking across the research evidence, there is potential for greater linkage of public contracting and public spending to fair work practices to avoid public spending embedding poor labour standards. This has budgetary implications for how the Scottish Government, local councils and other public bodies and agencies.
Over £100 billion of public spending in Scotland is a potentially powerful lever to shape the behaviour of those businesses in receipt of public funding or contracting with the public sector. Beyond Fair Work First, there are policy areas in which further conditionality might be applied. For example, there are currently no conditions attached to the Small Business Bonus SBBS, only eligibility criteria. Yet this is a significant spend (£279m in 2020). Evaluation[8] has found that receipt of the Bonus had only a marginal impact on payment of the real living wage.
Conditionality might also be applied outside of funding contexts, for example, in relation to the granting of licences. There are current examples in Scotland of licencing conditions that relate to health and safety, an important element of fair work. There is potential value in Scottish Government, local councils and other public bodies/agencies exploring specifically the acceptability, legality and potential costs and benefits associated with a range of additional conditional approaches that might link the allocation of Scottish Government spending/funding to specified action(s) on fair work, beyond the current practice.
According to some stakeholders, conditionality is currently a substantial driver of improved fair work practice in hospitality, with employers adopting fair work practices to access support, for example, from public agencies. Contact with public agencies around conditionality can also initiate wider discussions with businesses about fair work and how to support it.
Looking at the example of paying the real Living Wage, some stakeholders reported meeting this condition as a serious challenge (and reported reducing staff numbers to fund the increased pay) while others found it more straightforward to meet this condition. Several stakeholders were concerned about future uplifts in the real Living Wage in the context of difficult financial challenges facing the industry.
There was something of a fundamental tension in stakeholder responses as to how fair work conditionality should operate. Some accepted that businesses had to show that conditions are currently being met to be in receipt of a contact or business support. Several others, however, argued in favour of recognition of those businesses trying to work towards fairer work practices, preferring that conditionality should hinge on what businesses will do (with support of a grant/contract) rather than what they are doing at present. This approach, they argued, would enable more businesses to engage with fair work (though they acknowledged that hospitality businesses already meeting specified conditions might feel differently):
“Businesses should be supported while they are transitioning and doing their very best to deliver Fair Work.”
“Displaying or working towards is also a positive. It shows that a business is trying to be better and potentially needs you know new recruits or new involvement to help it reach the final step. But at the same time, a clear black and white of ‘is the business achieving’ makes it very easy for everybody to assess where a business is at. What would worry me about the progression side of it is, at what stage?”
“I believe that it's good to have that conditionality if we're sure that businesses can actually afford to pay it. But we need to be really careful of the unintended consequences.”
Another theme from employers was the nature of the relationship with Scottish and local government in the context of conditionality, specifically that policymakers needed to ensure that factors in their control (such as housing and transport infrastructure) did not obstruct businesses from meeting fair work conditions, and that conditionality could feel punitive for employers. As some employers noted:
“I think the government still look at specific support for businesses in terms of the impact of infrastructure issues, and how this interacts with conditionality.”
“That's not a partnership that's been suggested here. That's just a great big stick.”
“I think that right now the biggest challenge that we have around Fair Work is probably the relationship that the Scottish Government … I think we needed a far more creative and new approach than we're actually seeing from the Scottish Government at the moment. They are trying hard to reset that relationship, but they still got some way to go”.
Strategic joint capacity investment
There is potential in Scottish Government and hospitality industry partners jointly investing in specialist fair work capability to support employers in delivering fair work.
The Scottish Government recognises the importance of collaboration with hospitality stakeholders in achieving its policy objectives. Developing fair work capability and capacity might requires upfront investment in key organisations to drive change. Capacity investments in key organisations in Scotland could support employers, unions and third sector organisations to develop the capacity and capability to engage in activities that contribute to the achievement of social and economic policy goals, including the delivery of fair work. Investments jointly funded across stakeholders both improve capacity but also bind them more closely to the purpose of the investment.
Given current financial constraints affecting the Scottish Government and beyond, there is significant potential to design, develop and evaluate a programme of strategic joint investment to support the development of specialist capability in fair work delivery. This might involve a partnership with industry organisations, for example, the Scottish Tourism Alliance, to appoint a dedicated fair work specialist to support STA members with advice and information on fair work and to liaise with other fair work networks and expertise.
While stakeholders saw the rationale for investment in fair work capacity in industry or sub-sector organisations, most discussion focussed on capacity for employers, specifically through trade organisations, and only a few stakeholders raised capacity building by supporting capacity investment for workers or unions. Notably, only one comment focussed on the potential of unions and employers developing capacity together.
Development of accredited fair work education and training
There is potential in developing accredited fair work education and training for hospitality industry staff and managers to improve understanding of fair work practice, and stakeholders supported fair work training for staff, managers and within unions.
Developing and supporting education and training on the role of fair work in enhancing organisational performance and citizen wellbeing might leverage greater awareness and understanding of fair work, develop internal organisational support for fair work approaches and stimulate greater adoption of fair work practices. Accredited training acts as an important quality marker. Training could both generate a critical mass of informed fair work learners and embed a sense of employer accountability for fair work practices as accredited learners deploy insights from training in their job and organisation. These positive outcomes hinge, however, on employer engagement with training for fair work.
Stakeholders were able to outline their own training and development approaches, and/or industry level training and learning platforms currently available, and recognised public sector support (for example, by Skills Development Scotland) for training staff and management. There were concerns over gaps in some elements of vocational training but also a recognition of gaps in leadership and line management training. Vocational skills training, it was felt, had suffered in recent years, making it difficult for employers to find staff with the right skills particularly at the management level. Notably for this research, some stakeholders identified a gap in ongoing management training with any emphasis on fair work and advocated for existing provision (e.g. through UHI or public agencies) to promote fair work specifically in training on business skills development, leadership and management at all levels. As one stakeholder noted, “ … managers have to be trained to be fair”.
All stakeholders who commented on this lever welcomed additional and specific fair work training, and voiced preferences for training to be industry-led or co-designed for it to land effectively, and to be delivered online and bite size to address time and shift challenges - “they want it to be industry-led and an industry voice and industry narrative.”
“The focus on training and accredited training is really important, and I think a good, good focus would be as well as developing new training or bespoke training is building the work into existing programmes, so particularly on the apprenticeship frameworks.”
“At the moment we’re redesigning the hospitality and travel frameworks and are very keen to make sure that fair work is in there. But similarly, I think it should be in college provision and higher education, hospitality management, tourism management.”
Examples were given of how effective training can be in changing practice in hospitality as ideas and capabilities developed in training are deployed operationally, such as accredited stewarding training that focusses on prevention of conflict rather than just addressing conflict when it arises.
Turnover patterns in the industry can, however, limit the impact of training when businesses lose trained staff:
“Access to training and development is something that I'm very keen for as well. Unfortunately the staffing levels that we've got have meant that I've got all these promises I want to give to the staff, but I haven't had anybody long enough to actually deliver on a lot of these things”.
While the hospitality industry has had a poor reputation for training, particularly management training, the stakeholders in this research saw fair work training as having significant potential to effect change, not just in terms of training managers and workers, but also in terms of training that would support leaders in the industry. As one stakeholder noted of ILG members:
“I think they probably have no real understanding [of fair work] … so yeah, maybe some kind of pre training for groups before the ILGS are set up might be quite useful.”
Fair work industry charters/accreditation
A fair work industry charter for hospitality, designed developed by key industry stakeholders representing owners, managers and employees, has potential to encourage stronger collective engagement with, support for, and monitoring of, fair work practices. There was little support for more extensive, externally monitored accreditation processes.
The suggested mechanism of change at work in accreditation, charters and codes is through increasing awareness and acceptance of the need for practices to change; establishing new norms that guide actions. For example, in the priority attached to and senior management responsibility for the issue; allocating organisational assets (people, time, money) to address the issue; and developing observable implementation resources, practices and tools.
Yet there is an inherent tension in accreditation processes that aim to improve workplace practice. Formal accreditation with external monitoring is more likely to ensure relevant workplace standards than voluntary commitments by employers without external monitoring. But such a system is costly to develop and maintain. What rigorous formal accreditation may offer in terms of depth of engagement with fair work more context-specific mechanisms such as industry charters may eclipse in reach to a broader range of employing organisations.
Industry charters can act as a form of soft regulation that engages employers in fair work by providing examples of the types of workplace practices expected, supporting a commitment to engage in specific practices, offer a way of publicly endorsing these practices and, over time, offering ascending levels of engagement with the charter. Industry charters require an appropriate industry group to lead their development and adoption, and effective industry charters should have some degree of monitoring and enforcement built in.
Stakeholders showed no real support for formal external fair work accreditation either at industry or sub-sector level, raising concerns both about potential complexity and cost. The sole exception was where employers felt that some formal external accreditation might assist them in engaging wider stakeholder groups in education and training and help improve recruitment prospects:
“Having fair work accreditation for local businesses and having that that stamp of approval means that the colleges, the lecturers, the institutions we have can confidently guide their pupils to employment, to employment locally. They'll be vital for identifying responsible employers and where their students can get the best development. I think”.
From the responses it did not appear that stakeholders were opposed to accreditation in principle. Stakeholders from bars and licensed premises spoke positively about Best Bar None Scotland, a national accreditation and award scheme for licensed premises that focuses on safety, avoiding crime, and improving management standards. Specifically highlighted was the need to monitor and to provide evidence of meeting the relevant standards, and the positive impact not just on business operations but on customer perceptions.
Stakeholders also identified existing charters such as the UK Hospitality Hoteliers Charter, in operation since 2020, which aims to improve the industry’s profile and offer to staff in relation to training and career development; work life balance; communication; feedback and recognition and respect. The Charter is, however, silent on fair pay, contracts and employee representation. While some reported signatories in Scotland, take-up was more concentrated in England and especially London. This Charter appears to take the form of a simple pledge and lacks both enforcement mechanisms or measures of effectiveness and impact.
There were mixed views as to the potential effectiveness of another hospitality industry charter focussed on fair work in Scotland. One concern was how it would sit alongside other accreditations. As one stakeholder organisation noted,
“We as an organisation don't really have a front row in terms of accreditations and charters and so on. By and large, they're operated within commercial worlds. But I would be a wee bit wary about that approach, just because of the almost saturation of that. I think we need to be careful with introducing more schemes and more badges and stamps because we are quite busy in that landscape already”.
A common theme among employers and some other stakeholders was that any such charter had to be industry-driven: as one noted, “minimum care standards are good, but it needs to be industry-driven”. Additionally, some stakeholders felt that charters are only effective if endorsing them brings business benefits – that is, customers – and they were sceptical that customers would be influenced by a fair work charter.
Concerns were raised as to the ownership of charters inside firms. Charter endorsement – and responsibility for practice consistent with any charter – often sits with business owners or HR managers, and not with the wider organisation or indeed with staff. One stakeholder criticised charters on the basis that “ … it only lives and breathes with the HR manager or the general manager or the owner of the property … it doesn’t reach down to the shop floor”. Stakeholders felt that wider management and especially staff endorsement was necessary for charters to drive any change in practice. Indeed, many felt that only a charter that was genuinely driven by the industry, rather than by government and policymakers, would have any relevance.
It is clear from the responses that there are examples of where charters can have impact on wider practice in the industry, and that this impact is predicated on engaging managers and workers and having a degree of monitoring and enforcement. The costs of charter compliance remain a concern. Yet without any monitoring or enforcement, charters can be criticised for lacking ‘teeth’. Taking these issues together, there appears to be more potential in charters that are genuinely designed and owned by managers and workers in the industry, and for mechanisms of joint enforcement at workplace level. This approach was endorsed by key industry stakeholders:
“I think there is a whole issue of culture here and how do you establish a culture within an entire business … I've always had the view that the Charter needs to be signed not just by the general manager or the owner of the organisation. It needs to be signed up to by every single employee in the business. So they want to achieve the same aims.”
“The hoteliers Charter … doesn't necessarily have fair work embodied in it … but the Unite hospitality charter reinforces that … so I think both of them do complement each other and that's an example of where the ILG could bring together two charters that I think can honestly combine to make almost a wish list that is actually reasonable for the sector”.
“It's the employees that you want to get to sign up to it because the employees’ behaviour has to deliver and breathe through it in terms of the Charter values. So not just a single individual who, who might, you know, be at the top of the tree”.
“I think what we really need to be looking at is moving to a point where we have guidance which we're all signed up to and the Scottish Government has signed up to as well”.
Fair work networks / communities of practice
Hospitality industry stakeholders are supportive of peer-to-peer learning on fair work that could be facilitated by developing fair work networks or communities of practice.
Developing CoPs – within and across organisations - provides a potentially effective way to advance fair work in Scotland and could be a useful policy lever to raise awareness, understanding and endorsement of fair work; help guide employer actions; promote monitoring, learning and evaluation; and improve dissemination and learning about fair work, its outcomes and impact.
Different types of stakeholder might establish such a fair work community. In the context of fair work in Scotland, this would allow for ongoing activity for employers, unions, professions and regulators in the fair work space.
Stakeholders voiced considerable support for industry-based communities of practice as an idea, although few had set ideas about how these would operate in practice. Peer to peer networks were highly valued – indeed, a few stakeholders talked of experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic and how it encouraged more collective behaviours, but these had not been sustained thereafter:
“Sub-sector groups (e.g. hoteliers/ bar owners/ HIT Scotland/ STA, city-rural…) were particularly important during Covid”.
“Covid brought people together (SHG consortia) but industry has not managed to sustain this”.
Other examples were given of when bringing businesses together brought collective benefits, often in an area context:
“I think that there's definitely a drive for it. It would have to come from the businesses, but it puts me in mind of you have business development corporations that that are generally for the bigger cities. So it's a committee of, you know, local businesses that have decided they want to work together to make the general area more populous, more profitable, more more safe or whatever it might be.”
“Something like peer-to-peer learning facilitating that would be important to think that's something that we've heard from employers within our network - learning from other employers has been a big piece of it.”
Given this, stakeholders could see how communities of fair work practice might support dissemination and learning about fair work.
“Fair work being part of a wider project to develop the businesses as a collective group … I think that would be that would be brilliant.”
It was recognised that fair work communities of practice would need to be facilitated through workshops and training, and that industry or trade bodies should help to lead or co-lead such educational activities, to avoid policy-heavy language and approaches that some businesses find off-putting. As one stakeholder noted:
“Having industry speak to industry as opposed to it being from on high, the public sector organisations coming along to tell me that I need to do fair work … making it something that’s actually more of a sort of conversation between the industry themselves, about the benefits.”
Stimulating greater willingness to work together and to act as a community of businesses was viewed as a challenge by stakeholders. Several businesses gave highly positive feedback on the approach to fair work taken by Highlands and Islands Enterprise. This involved identifying key players in the industry with good examples of fair work practice, learning from their practice and their challenges, using their insights and outcomes to engage other businesses and spreading knowledge and understanding of fair work. The idea of learning from other businesses doing fair work well was a common theme:
“We have a number of employers who have been embedding for work way before the pandemic, and actually that, you know, they're reaping the rewards of that.”
“There's just some brilliant examples of businesses who are already engaged in the fair work agenda, and I think that you know, if we can try and pull some of that stuff out and get some of that peer-to-peer information out there on a more regular basis then I think that that will work”.
“You have to allow those that can accelerate forward to really go through it and also help to point their around guidance of how you help guide others through those, those you know murky waters too”.
HIE’s approach not only provided tailored one-to-one support and advice; it also connected businesses in what was effectively a community of practice.
“ … giving a constructive challenge and allowing organisations to work together to maybe come up with some of the solutions.”
Stakeholders felt that any support for establishing communities of practice would need to be sensitive in identifying relevant existing or potential networks in any area of sub-sector of the industry, and cautioned against a one size fits all approach:
“The problem is that we talk about hospitality like it's a homogeneous group whereas the hotels are very different from running a bar, or running weddings. So does it [a community of practice] need to be by geography? Does it need to be by sub sector?”
“Sector-specific approach required as bars/ restaurants/ hotels/ city/ rural are all very different”.
“Hotels are good for sharing training and IT ideas. Bars/ restaurants less so”.
Some also highlighted that small businesses might struggle to engage in such networks, given time and capacity constraints, and that ways would need to be found to ensure that learning from networks is made more widely available.
Overall, support for networks or communities of practice was strong, and policy support may be a crucial catalyst to establishing and developing such networks, alongside the kinds of materials that are outlined in the next section. Many stakeholders could see real benefits of employers working collectively to enhance fair work, improve recruitment and retention and improve the reputation of the hospitality industry as a place to work:
“If the best way of doing that is to get all the businesses together and agree that as a community, we're going to offer fair work as a collective group of businesses, we're going to offer better, better employment opportunities. Then it can only benefit the town”.
“You should feel proud about wanting to work in the industry … and getting those leaders of those businesses who are not conforming as we would want them to be, to be respecting of the employee and to really put that high value and change the culture and work differently … we have a cluster of businesses out there who either don't know or they've come from a different culture where it's not perceived to be an issue or they are so challenged by the pressures of business in terms of economics that they are forced into malpractice”.
Evidence, tools and business support
Stakeholders supported the development of hospitality industry-specific and industry-relevant evidence, tools and support that were more readily available to people in the industry.
There is already a substantial evidence base on the costs, benefits and practicalities of implementing fair work practices in a range of organisational contexts. Yet employers and other relevant stakeholders do not have easy access to this evidence base in a form that supports practice. Previous research has demonstrated that a key barrier to the take-up of fair work practices is a lack of awareness of/access to data and intelligence that might better inform decision-making among employers.[9] Improving access to this evidence base might better inform and incentivise take-up of fair work practices.
Across a range of workplace practice areas, employers can struggle to find practical support and advice on how to improve. Business support organisations recognised that there were “a huge number of organisations coming forward that we've not been able to support.” But there was evidence that business support was needed:
“Typically once you've sparked an interest and inspired a business or a social enterprise, they want two things. They want money and they want something to hold their hand to make this happen, they want, well, you know, what are you going to do to help me to, to make that work in my business? So … bespoke support … one to many doesn't always work.”
Addressing the ‘how to’ issue for employers in relation to fair work has the potential to leverage more substantial impact and change. This might involve the development of support materials, tools and diagnostics. While some fair work tools exist, these do not yet link employer and employee /worker views and experiences of fair work (although plans to address this are in process).
Stakeholders recognised the importance of good intelligence and data to support the delivery of fair work in hospitality. It is worth quoting one at length:
“Feedback I get from the tourism sector, by and large, on data and insights is that we could always do with more, with making it easier and more accessible. This is not specific to Fair Work. They want to found their decisions and what they do on data and intelligence and insights and research, the right sorts of businesses are looking for that and they don't always find that particularly easy … a lot of them are not time rich, they don't have the time to do the overlay, the interpretation. They want data not just in a raw format, but actually they want it with interpretation. What does this therefore mean for me? Because they don't have the time to just, you know, be pulling off stats and spreadsheets and then trying to do that analysis themselves. So I think the easier we can make insights and data and intelligence in a way that makes it easily digestible for the audience. It's quite hard if you're just an operator on your own and you want to find out some intelligence. It's a bit, where do I start? It’s quite hard”.
Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) have a fair work website and accompanying documentation that poses questions to employers about aspects of fair work, backed up by one-to-one business support with a specialist adviser and supporting documentation which appears to have stimulated interest in fair work issues. This approach was viewed positively by stakeholders as providing a tested model of what might work to deliver support for fair work, and access to similar support outside of Highlands and Islands was viewed as attractive. As stakeholders observed:
“HIE, their work toolkit and the programme, has been incredible … really successful. And, you know it’s a good model I think in terms of how small businesses engage, because we all know that the big challenge here in this sector is getting through to the SMEs.”
“I'd just like to, you know, support the HIE initiative as being something that we find has really being changing things.”
Stakeholders were aware of and valued existing industry-specific support and resources, for example, in relation to skills and training, and saw potential in having specialist fair work evidence and support available. Stakeholders were not all confident about where to access fair work support materials in general, or on specific aspects of fair work such as equality, diversity and inclusion or wellbeing. Few had encountered fair work support materials, but those who had engaged with the HIE fair work pilot in tourism and subsequent activities evaluated the support materials highly. Participants took part in a two-hour workshop. They were provided with a relatively easy to use booklet within which they were encouraged to look at their fair work practice and gaps, develop an action plan of organisation specific practices to implement, and begin to measure the impact of any action, with intensive support from a HIE specialist working directly with the business. Following the roll out of the workshops, wider dissemination of case study evidence also took place.
“A book which actually sort of like helps businesses understand what they need to do and how they go about it. A kind of toolkit. Having something like that which has buy in from all. That’s going to be a crucial resource. A really strong first step is actually getting more information out there about fair work, what it is, how businesses can get involved. Once you actually start creating those resources like that then you can start looking at campaigns, because there's something that's sitting behind it which is tangible and of benefit to businesses and to people working in our sector.”
“ … the case studies work wonders as well, just demonstrating actually how this has made a difference”.