Travel needs to pay above the minimum wage and to “focus on retention ahead of recruitment” as a key strategy for 2022, according to the boss of Blue Bay Travel.
Commenting on the loss of talent from the sector and travel not being seen as an attractive industry to work in, chief executive Alistair Rowland said: “It’s not looking as attractive but it’s still a very powerful industry.
“People who are in the industry, when they go for other service-related jobs, never lose the bug for travel; that just doesn’t happen.”
But he said employers needed to make urgent changes – and said Blue Bay Travel would be doing just that for 2022.
“From next year, we are going beyond National Living Wage for all roles. We’re looking at retention ahead of recruitment as a key strategy, and I think the industry needs to do the same,” he said.
The National Living Wage applies to over 23s and is currently £8.91 per hour. It will rise to £9.50 in April 2022. The National Minimum Wage applies to workers aged 22 and under on a staggered basis. For apprentices it is currently £4.30 and will rise to £4.81 in April, and the four National Minimum Wage bands gradually increase to £8.36 for 21 and 22 year-olds, an amount which will rise to £9.18 per hour in April 2022.
Rowland continued: “I think what we’ve got to do as an industry is recognise the skill that we have, and know that hiring new and creating consolidation is not the way, because it costs five times to rehire as it does to retain.”
“The industry needs to think differently. It needs to pay above the National Living Wage, and it needs to find a way to look after its people. This isn’t just the people that sell holidays, this is back of house too.”
Commenting on the latest government guidance for people to work from home where possible, Rowland said: “We put our position to the workforce here. We have about 120 in our office and probably a quarter of them are now naturally remoting – sales and customer service are home-based, so that we have a wider pool of people to hire from.
“But in terms of the office operations, probably 70 to 80 heads, our guys want to work here. So we’ve changed our rules, again. We’ve increased some of those rules. For example, if anybody is in a household with somebody that has Covid, we’re telling them to work from home. And we’ve offered the flexibility to work from home.
“But we opened on the retail reopen date in April, so three months before government said you should come in. And that’s been great, because everybody’s worked here and wants to work here. And that will continue.
“Nothing the government said in its latest guidance has changed my mind in terms of running this operation. If the government rhetoric and narrative was joined-up, then I might be a bit more sympathetic towards it but, frankly, I’m not.”