| Journal: TWUK | Section: |
| Title: | Issue Date: 19/06/00 |
| Author: | Page Number: 3 |
| Copyright: Other |
Retailer hires 500 in bid to ease employee shortages
Branches close at peak times due to lack of staff
Going Places scheme targets school leavers
Report by JEREMYSKIDMORE
GOING Places is taking on up to 500 school leavers in a massive recruitment campaign pitched to ease its staffing crisis.Multiples typically have up to 30% staff turnover per year and Going Places has posted signs in its southeast shops advertising vacancies.
At least one of the retailer’s branches in a busy town centre had to shut last Saturday because it didn’t have any staff to run the shop.
The employment of school leavers is heavily subsidised by the Government but managing director Terry Fisher denied the company was cutting costs by employing people on the cheap.
“How else are people going to start in travel?” he said.
“We’re giving 500 school leavers the opportunity to become MD of Going Places, because that’s how I started.”
Fisher claimed Going Places’ staffing problems were no worse than its rivals, despite unrest over the sacking of cleaners, changing staff incentives and redundancies.
“We’ve got 6,500 staff and in a year we could lose around 1,600 of them, so this is a sensible way to recruit,” he said.
“Other retailers have done it and, if anything, we are a little behind in hiring school leavers into the business.
“I think when we tailored staff incentives to Airtours UKLG products it did affect morale but we had to increase the amount of directional selling in Going Places.
“However, now we’ve raised it so that 66% of all our business is for UKLG, compared with 52% when I started last October, so we can now bring some preferred suppliers into the scheme. That’s gone down well with staff.
“We’ve also done roadshows and talked to every manager and most of them understand and respect what we’ve done.
“I now believe morale is higher than ever.”Sister company Travelworld is also taking on 60 school leavers.
On the lookout: the retailer is seeking to hire 500 school leavers
For jobs in the travel industry see our travel jobs section or visit our partner, totaljobs.com for travel and tourism industry vacancies with some of the UK’s largest companies