The Skills Shortage is a hot topic at the moment.  We sent Charlie off to visit with Robyn Keenan from QTIC to find out more.

Charlie:
Hey guys, this is Charlie from Hospitality Crew.  We've come here today with Robyn Keenan the QTIC Skills Link Manager, at QTIC, the Queensland Tourism Industry Council, to talk about the skills shortage.

Seems to be a hot topic at the moment across Australia and in our industry especially.  We are going to talk with her about what it exactly means for us and what it also means in general.

Robyn, we seem to be living in a time where there's a massive skills shortage across many industries and in the hospitality industry especially, what does this mean for us?

Robyn:
What it's meaning at the moment is a lot of businesses are struggling to be able to be maintain the service standards, and I suppose what we are seeing at the moment and particularly across Queensland is that the service standards are defiantly dwindling and we seem to be sort of not only facing the service side of things in terms of tourism but also just plain lack of quality of product that being delivered.

Charlie:
What is the difference to a labour shortage?

Robyn:
A skills shortage is where we can't find staff with the appropriate skills for the job role that we are trying to advertise and predominantly at the moment were are finding that around our waiters, bar attendants, chefs, cooks, kitchen hands anything to do with the kitchen brigade and a labour shortage is where we are offering a very good amount of money for the job role so its above the industry standards in terms of whether it be salary or award base and we still cant find the people.

So predominantly what we’re finding is in the regional areas were facing labour shortages there’s just not the people who want to do the jobs that are being offered and then skills is almost like a second issue for a lot of operators.

Charlie:
So this shortage, has there been another time in history where it’s been like this?

Robyn:
As far as I am aware of no. I do understand that approximately 30 odd years ago we did have a skills shortage, it's definitely not as severe as we are facing now.  My view is that we’ve had skills shortages in the past but at the moment this is the first time we’ve faced a huge labour shortage.

Just a plain lack of supply of labour.

Charlie:
What does this skills shortage exactly mean for my industry now, what would we be looking at?

Robyn:
Well look there's fantastic opportunities for anybody looking to come into the industry.  What were finding is the promotion rate is a lot quicker than what it has been in the past.  In the past you’re probably looking at anywhere between 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 years to be promoted up through the ranks at the moment were looking at around...

Charlie:
A lot shorter?

Robyn:
Yes definitely a lot shorter, probably looking around the 2 or 3-year mark.

But what that’s also causing for us, as an industry is because people are being promoted quicker they don’t necessarily have the skills to deal with being a supervisor.  So they know the job role fantastically and where the gaps are, are things like financial management, people management those types of skills.  So that’s where we're seeing the gap at the moment.

Charlie:
This currents state of Kaos, I guess you can call it, how could we reverse that situation, how can we get the skills to these people?

Robyn:
Look training has to definitely play a big part in it. In my view the industry needs to change and if they don’t start changing in the next couple of years the issue is going to be far direr.  Now what I mean by the industry having to change is the industry is going to have a look at their employment practices and while we have very good operators out there we’ve also got some fairly poor operators.

When seeing that there is a huge demand in flexibility in terms of working and our industry would have to be the best industry in all of the world in terms of flexibility but we are also at the same time seeing employers don’t want to change their rostering practices if they've always rostered chefs on at split shifts they want to continue doing that and unless they change some of those practices unfortunately they’re just not going to find the staff to work their because they know that the person down the road will offer them the flexibility that they are looking for.

Charlie:
How can this shortage benefit the people who are watching this?

Robyn:
The benefit as I said earlier is to race through the ranks within the industry far quicker.  You’re on a lower salary for a lot less time and you have the opportunity within our industry to be able to manage or own your own business. Now were probably one of the only industries or second to only a couple of others were you still got the opportunity to own a hospitality or tourism business.
You can’t say that about a lot of businesses there sort of far outreaching.  So there’s the opportunity to get into a really good salary a lot quicker than we had to in the past and also the opportunity to buy into your own business.

Charlie:
When were talking about gaining more skills so we can fix this problem what sort of services would we contact to fix this, what's on offer?

Robyn:
Look there’s no quick fix to the skills and labour shortage.  You know we’ve got an aging population, there’s more people exiting the employment sector than entering the employment sector.  There is no quick fix.

We need to look at technology; we need to look at a range of different strategies to over come how many people we need to operate our business.  The operating hours, there’s a whole range of things that employers need to ensure that they do.  But over and above that they need to be able to tap into what we call registered training organisations and these registered training organstions can help people fill some entry level skills gaps in terms of you know running hospitality operations courses, bar courses, gaming course, those sort of short courses to get people into the business.

Charlie:
I guess people might be wondering are any of these services free to the user?

Robyn:
There’s a range of funding opportunities for people to be able to tap into to get free training, there’s defiantly that, but they're just got to ask the right questions when they go to a training provider.  

Charlie:
What help is there for employers who do not have the time or funds to train their staff?

Robyn:
There’s a range of opportunities for the employers there’s ample amount of funding for hospitality and tourism workers that they can tap into through the TAFE system or through other training providers.  In terms of time a very good training provider will come into the business and do what we call on the job training.  So the employee doesn’t need to leave the premises to do their training the employee can stay with in that business and continue to run the bar or the gaming room or whatever it may be while the trainer comes in and watches their on the job skills and provide them with some additional skills and techniques.

Charlie:
So more practical?

Robyn:
Absolutely.  Our industry is 100% practical.  The chalk and talk does not really work for us and employers don’t particularly look for students who have purely done that they've sat down they've listened to knowledge based way of how to pour a beer unless you’ve gone and done it, you know and that’s what our employers kind of see it as.

And the same with waiting, you cant tell people how to carry 3 plates unless they've had some practical experience, holding 3 plates.

Charlie:
There’s a lot of other factors that come into it as well.

Robyn:
Absolutely.  

Charlie:
What is exactly the future outlook if we don’t get in top of these problems in the industry today?

Robyn:
I think that the skills and labour crisis is going to really hit our industry in the next 2 years.  Employers are starting to feel the pinch at the moment.  I’ve had employers say to me that their operating their business 20% short of staff of what their operating procedures need.  In my view if things don’t change, if we don’t start working towards some collaboration across the industry], working towards some strategies to encourage some people to come to our industry, to stay in the industry, if we cant get employers to change some of their employment practices the reality will be that a lot of businesses will close down.  There just will not be the staff to staff them and the staff will have far more choice in terms of who they work for.

Charlie:
Do you think that will lead to a higher, a wage increase?

Robyn:
Not necessarily a wage increase a lot of employers, the good ones are offering over the award at the moment.

I don’t think it will get to the salaries of our mining industry, we just don’t have the yield within our businesses to be able to support and sustain that but certainly the good employers will not have a problem finding staff and the average employers who aren’t working with their employees will have problems and that will lead to close of businesses in my view.  

We’re starting to see that in regional areas at the moment were businesses cant find staff their closing it down.  I have heard of a hotel in Longreach and they couldn’t find a chef, they were trying hard to find a chef, being in regional area sort of made things a little more difficult for them, they closed down their restaurant for 6 months.

So they were still renting out their rooms and still functioning in terms of a business but they couldn’t put those add on value to their customers that they would if they had a chef there.

So that’s just one example of what’s happening in some of the regions.  

Charlie:
Well thank you very much for having us today Robyn.  Thank you for talking to us about the skills shortage, I know I've learned a lot and I'm sure some of the people watching must have to.  

If you would like to ask Robyn any questions at all employers and employees alike maybe about the funding available for employers you can hit her up, the details are under this vodcast so that’s all guys. 

Thank you.