#HospitalityProud

So you might be wondering why I’m wearing my #HospitalityProud t shirt and also holding a Hillingdon Half Marathon medal. Well conveniently there is a link and the connection is that back in 2016 Boris Johnson posted a video wishing and supporting the Hillingdon Half and runners approx. 350 of them, which is 3 Million or so less than the amount of skilled workers in the hospitality industry. I mean why wouldn’t he value the skills required to work in hospitality and show support to all the business's the hospitality industry, the 3RD Biggest sector in the UK contributing to over ￡100 billion to the UK alone, which is approx. 10% of all contributions of all sectors combined.

Its just mind boggling and makes my angry that Boris and Priti, and the Government don’t value the skills involved within hospitality, I mean how is this an unskilled industry!?!?

I started in hospitality at the bright young age of 14 washing pots at a private school in my village which is quite ironic as some of these kids born with spoons in their mouths are probably sat in the houses of parliament or commons making decisions such as this.

From there, I worked as a Waiter and Sommelier and learnt more about customer service, food, drink and wine. The knowledge to know everything that you are putting in front of people now compared to then has become so different and so much more to be learnt, ie allergens and dietary requirements, I mean that alone is a skill on their own. Then there is the health and safety / due diligence of working and running a work place, another skill with so many risks to be avoided to ensure customers and staff alike are always safe.

After working at team member level I crossed into management, WOW where do I begin in terms of the skills required here, basically being an oracle of everything (HR, Law, Finance, Marketing etc) and leader of people to make sure guests get the best experience they have ever experienced, and when they don’t there is another set of skills required to be able to easily deal with the problems that arise and the complaints that you get.

I then ventured into recruitment and spent a long time working for a couple of well known restaurant brands where myself and my recruitment teams were hiring 1000s of people to work within complex business’s with high customer expectations – both business’s having exhaustive training programmes and in house courses to ensure the staff and managers were given all the tools that they needed to run a successful business. Like an infinity pool of skills – just endless!

Someone like to bumbling Boris wouldn’t have a clue where to start if he was put into a restaurant and also likely most of the government, their ignorance and arrogance is shambolic.

Since 14 I can remember hundreds of people I have had the honour to work with who come from Europe and as well from outside Europe, I have learnt so much from them. I also met my wife who worked in hospitality 20 years ago, who is from Europe.

Now Boris, Priti and the Government want to rely on the UKs 8 million youth to fill the gaps that we will have throughout all sectors in the UK, well bloody good luck with that! We have bee hiring Europeans for decades because they are skilled, passionate, knowledgeable, flexible and bloody hard working and sadly the British youth (Im sorry to say) just don’t have the right attitude for this industry and haven’t for so many years – yes some do, but you can see the shortages we have, which demonstrates the huge problem that we have!

Obviously if the industry was more attractive to work in then it could be very different (thats a different argument), but for as long as I remember I / we have been trying to get more British workers in to our industry and it hasn't been that fruitful.

This new points system is a joke and we will see more shortages unless Boris and his Government wake up and smell the coffee which I’m sure they will do once they start getting poor service in the restaurants and hotels that dine out at everyday due to there not being enough people to serve them. Maybe they just wont get the coffee........

The industry and people I'm proud to be associated with deserves more respect and recognition for what it contributes this country.

Collectively we are strong and need to stand together to show we are all #HospitalityProud and unite to make Boris and his Government realise we don't need recognised qualifications to be skilled in our industry, But experience alone is exactly what makes us all so very and brilliantly skilled!!!!!!!