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Putting People 1st on the map
There is a warm but cautious wind of optimism currently sweeping across the hospitality and tourism industry in Scotland, largely due to the new, more business-like Government at Holyrood. At long last, there is a much clearer and focussed commitment to finding and delivering solutions for a wide range of issues facing the sector.
David Allen outlines the recent changes at Holyrood and what they've meant for People 1st…
For some, the talk of people, skills, training-investment and industry qualifications is nothing more than a distraction from their day-to-day routines. However, for the majority there is not only an appreciation of the wider skills issues facing our industry but also a willingness to become involved with the work that we do and to help People 1st to find industry-driven solutions.
People 1st provide the opportunity for businesses and employers to air ideas, views and frustrations with those who can make a difference. In simple terms, we help to bridge the gap between what employers want and what the Government and other agencies do for skills in our sector.
In the past, People 1st and other Sector Skills Councils (SSCs) have had to operate in a very cluttered and fragmented landscape, where both the governments of the time and other public agencies were reluctant to support the work we do. However, the recent Scottish Parliament changes are finally addressing these concerns.
For the first time since devolution, SSCs operating within Scotland have been given a very clear and positive remit. Recent changes in government policy, announced by Fiona Hyslop and John Swinney, have set out to address the issue of too many agencies trying to deliver independently from one another on skills, and this has led to the creation of a new one-stop shop skills body. Skills Development Scotland, which has absorbed Careers Scotland, Learn Direct Scotland and a considerable percentage of the work carried out by enterprise agencies, will be fully operational by this summer. Aimed at demystifying much of the confusion for employers, careers advisers and individuals about where they can go for training and skills information, the new organisation will simplify the process and provide a single point of contact for everyone concerned.
It will also focus on developing lifelong learning programmes, and over the course of the next few months, People 1st will be meeting with Skills Development Scotland to explain the issues our sector faces.
We need to ensure that any investment in skills at a national level is driven by the needs of employers who have often had to endure public sector initiatives that neither fulfil their needs nor offer any reliable measure of their success.
Between 2006 and 2007, approximately £32m of public funds was invested into skills-based initiatives for the hospitality and tourism sector in Scotland. However, despite this investment, we still have the highest turnover rates of any sector, and over a quarter of our employers still report major skills gaps. We have also found that almost 80% of employers don't know how to access funding to support workplace training, and only 3% actually provide training that leads to any formal industry qualification.
Looking at these figures, it is clear that there is a real need for us as an industry to stand up and challenge where exactly these millions of pounds of funding are really going.
I have spent a considerable amount of time trying to simplify the message we are sending out in Scotland, and have focused on a number of smaller key messages that clearly highlight the benefits for employers and their businesses. The first of these messages involves the rollout of People 1st's UK Skills Passport (UKSP) and the Good Employer Campaign.
UKSP started life in 2006 as an online record of achievement for employees in the hospitality, travel, tourism and leisure sector. Since then is has undergone a dramatic redevelopment and is now a multi-faceted website which brings together information on careers, job opportunities, qualifications, employers, training providers and funding.
By becoming a UKSP employer and joining the Good Employer Campaign (GEC) operators and businesses will demonstrate their commitment to developing and managing staff by benchmarking against the very best in the industry. The GEC also allows your staff to rate your company as a good place to work, increasing your creditability as an employer and helping to improve staff retention. It also provides employers with an opportunity to post job adverts at a fraction of the cost of traditional recruitment methods.
The GEC and UKSP will feature heavily in the work of People 1st leading up to the Commonwealth Games in 2014. As the dust settles over Glasgow's triumph at securing the event, the hospitality and tourism sectors now need to focus on the impact this - and indeed the Ryder Cup at Gleneagles later that year - will have on the demand for highly skilled workers delivering the best of what Scotland has to offer.
Much has already been said about the lasting legacy of hosting both events for Scotland, but for the hospitality and tourism industries this legacy needs to go beyond raising the profile of the Scottish brand in the global tourism market. We should be using these events as a catalyst to generate a more skilled, motivated, and highly regarded workforce - instilling the same sense of pride we have for our nation in a professional and rewarding career.
People 1st wants to make sure that this happens, and will continue to challenge how funding can be better allocated to programmes, initiatives and qualifications that meet the needs of employers. How successfully this is achieved, of course, will ultimately be determined by the level of support it receives from the industry. If you are ready to help make that change, then let's unlock the true potential of the Scottish tourism industry together.
To find out more about the work People 1st are currently doing in Scotland, visit www.people1st.co.uk
Other contacts:
www.uksp.com
www.goodemployer.co.uk
This article has been edited from its original version. For the complete feature, please see Catering in Scotland magazine May/June 2008.
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