Following a hugely successful trial last year, the Government announced it will be rolling out our hospitality Sector-based Work Academies Programme - also known as SWAPs. Our SWAP will be expanded to 26 new areas in need of jobs and this is something we can rightly feel both proud of and excited about.
What, you may be asking, exactly is a SWAP? Developed by UKHospitality, it is a bespoke pre-employment training course that aims to help people back into work, aid our recruitment challenges and upskill our sector. In a nutshell, it ensures jobseekers have the skills they need to get a job in hospitality.
The initiative provides extensive training in key areas such as customer service, health and safety, hygiene and more, ensuring that successful candidates arrive ‘work ready’. The 20-day programme includes 10 days in a hospitality setting or classroom with an industry tutor, and five days of work experience with an employer that has apprenticeship or entry level vacancies. It also guarantees every participant a job interview.
The pilot phase saw an impressive 85% of the candidates complete the scheme and, what’s more, 80% of those completing the course are now employed in hospitality. This is testimony to the hard work of all those involved, to the positive role hospitality plays as an employer – with more than 50 of them involved in the pilot – and the Government’s decision to roll the programme out across the country is recognition of this.
The expansion of the scheme begins officially from April. It will set in motion a partnership that brings together employers, jobseekers, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Jobcentre network to ensure that more people are trained to come into the sector. Work is already happening at pace with DWP, local authorities, local colleges and training providers coming together with us to ensure we maximise this opportunity.
Our preparation will put hospitality businesses at the heart of the initiative, so operators can work closely with the schemes in relevant areas in order to benefit from newly trained recruits coming through.
I’d urge you all to take a look at this opportunity and to get involved if you can. Anyone can register their details on the SWAP page on our website, where they will be able to select regions where they’re interested in being involved.
I’m confident that this initiative will be a pipeline for tens of thousands of people to join our sector, helping to bridge the ongoing recruitment challenge and helping to shift attitudes towards embarking on a career in the sector.
However, this alone will not be enough for the sector to fill all the roles we have available and to upskill our workforce at all levels. And so, alongside this initiative, we we’re continuing our work to make sure the talent pipeline into the sector is as strong as possible, because that remains critical.
Of course, the elephant in the room is the £3.4bn of costs arriving in April, of which £2.9bn makes employing people much more expensive. Raising the impact of those costs has been our number one priority when it comes to our campaigning to government, and that has been done at the highest level – to the Prime Minister, Chancellor and numerous Secretaries of States and Ministers – where we continue to press for a delay and a rethink.
As we battle through these costs, however, we need great people joining our businesses that are job-ready and have the skills to hit the ground running. Initiatives such as this will help that.
Our sector prides itself on providing outstanding experiences for guests, but we are also one of the key driving forces for the economy, creating jobs and opportunities. One of the Government’s key priorities is getting those out of work back into jobs, and hospitality has been at the forefront of making sure those in Westminster understand how we can help achieve that goal.
Kate Nicholls is CEO of UKHospitality