Travel is facing the perfect recruitment storm, says Gail Kenny, managing director of Gail Kenny Executive Recruitment and founder of Best Workplaces in Travel
The perfect storm (no, not Eunice or Franklin) has been created in the employment market within the travel sector.
It’s a result of the impacts of Brexit, the pandemic, and the big recent pick-up in travel bookings.
Brexit has affected the supply of labour at two levels. Firstly, staff who returned to their native EU countries, either because of Brexit or the pandemic, have not returned and probably never will. Secondly, we, as recruiters, might have previously searched and sourced in EU countries for candidates who have specialist skills which are in short supply in the UK. This was particularly the case with tech and digital roles. But now, of course, such candidates would require a visa or sponsored visa from the UK employer, which can be a laborious process.
The pandemic forced many travel employees to leave the sector and find work in other industry sectors. Some even quite senior staff took to driving delivery vans, not only to help pay the mortgage but also because it was preferable to sitting at home in lockdown, especially as delivery drivers were considered essential workers.
These staff have and will be keen to return to the travel industry, but others who have left and are working in management positions in healthcare, the NHS or online retail are not returning. Many take the view that they are learning new skills outside travel and want to give it another year until they can be assured that travel isn’t going to get disrupted again in the future by some vaccine avoiding variant.
The last aspect of the perfect storm is of course a good one, the unprecedented level of bookings, both for last-minute winter sun, the summer season and 2023. Travel companies, having run on skeleton staffing levels for so long, now have no choice but to resource-up. But it goes beyond just increasing staff numbers, its also that travel companies have had plenty of time to think about what they want their businesses to look like in the future, and they are starting to implement those changes now. Many of those changes demand that they bring in new skillsets that don’t exist in their organisations.
So, what is it that travel companies need to do to win the war on talent? You might think staff would be desperate to get back into employment and return to the travel sector, happy to accept whatever is on offer. But, as explained above, things have changed and candidates are more discerning than they have ever been.
Flexible working, once seen as a perk, is here to stay whether employers like it or not. The in-vogue modus operandi is now ‘hybrid working’, which essentially means 2-3 days in the office and 2-3 days working from home, or ‘WFH’. Travel companies demanding 9am-5pm Monday-Friday in the office are going to have a lot of vacancies open for a long time.
Salary is of course still important, and many employees took significant pay cuts during the pandemic, some of which have now been reversed. The acute shortage of qualified, experienced management is driving salaries up not down. But work-life balance has overtaken the financial gain when looking for new roles. Salary is not necessarily the primary driver.
“What is your company’s sustainability policy?” is also a regular question that candidates will ask at an interview.” “Do you have plans to apply to become a B Corp”? is another. And we must not forget that investment in learning and development departments is also expected from bigger businesses. Candidates also want to know what employers are doing to measure employee engagement and satisfaction.
If travel companies want to attract, and indeed retain, talent – they need to have a great employer brand reputation, where employees aspire and love to work.
More: Travel firms call for joint action to address staffing crisis