Strategy

People Excellence

Tourism is one of our State’s most significant industries. It directly or indirectly employs 159,000 Victorians – and it is rapidly growing. By 2016 it is expected to employ another 66,000 workers.

If the industry is to grow in quality as well as volume, much will depend upon the people we attract and the ways that we manage them; understanding of employee motivation and aspirations, recruitment methods, professional training and the development of career pathways.

On a purely financial basis, good people management has a major bottom line effect on a business. Staff turnover in the industry is estimated to be about 50% and it can cost up to 20% of payroll*. There’s a clear opportunity to improve what we do simply by aiming to keep staff longer. Industry research also reveals that a majority of employers value personal attributes above qualifications for many positions and that many employers do not equate skills gaps with reasons for the under-performance of their business.

This module aims to foster an innovative and creative workforce, through providing tools and tips to enable operators to attract the right people and to provide them with a professional career path, which will enhance their prospects within the industry.

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The challenge

We now operate in a vastly different labour environment than a generation or even a decade ago: major skills shortages, especially in regional areas, a rapidly maturing workforce and highly mobile and aspirational younger workers. We also suffer an outmoded taxation system that penalises the holders of multiple part-time jobs - the very lifeblood of the hospitality industry.

The challenge that lies before us is simple: we need to attract, develop and keep a workforce to meet the needs of an industry, a workforce that aspires to the highest levels of professionalism, and workers committed to continuous improvement of that professionalism.

What is not so simple is how we go about it. This is the aim of this module.

How can the challenge be met ?:

1. By encouraging people with appropriate attributes and attitude to enter the industry;
2. Provide Victorian tourism and hospitality businesses with the tools they need to create Australia’s most professional tourism industry;
3. Implementing strategies to create an environment that enables effective use of those tools.

Some of the tools are:

• ensuring industry has access to and knowledge of all relevant government assistance available through the training system, through the Office of Small Business and others;
• increase operator access to targeted programs such as Accreditation and the Victorian Tourism Awards, which will assist them to strive for best practice
• providing templates, policies, procedures and practical advice to enable businesses to operate at world’s best practice, through programs such as tourism accreditation, industry sector workshops and Office of Small Business programs.

The strategies will include:

• developing a ‘career atlas’ to demonstrate the depth and diversity of careers available in the industry;
• providing pathways, such as pre-apprenticeship programs that channel people into the industry and give them the skills to make a start;
• making sure that training programs provide the skills that industry wants;
• getting ‘on the agenda’ of careers advisers, so that the industry has a high profile and positive image;
• undertake industry research to better understand the incidence, the reasons and the costs of staff turnover;
• work with other States and the Commonwealth to reduce/eliminate the significant tax disincentive affecting those who work two or more part time jobs;
• develop a workforce action plan

Our success in meeting the challenge will be reflected through:

• increased staff retention;
• improved ‘return on investment’ from public and private expenditure on training;
• greater levels of customer satisfaction;
• improved skills through accreditation, qualifications and formally recognised skills;
• increased attendance at structured industry professional development opportunities
• more satisfying jobs, resulting in fewer people exiting the tourism and hospitality industry
• improvements to the taxation system so that it does not penalise people who work multiple part time jobs
• Annual forums to bring together educators and tourism operators

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