Our call to industry to unite to promote hospitality to secondary school children across the UK

We are leading an industry alliance urging hospitality ambassadors to step forward and promote the industry to young people. The ‘Choose Hospitality Pledge’ has been created by Nestle Professional, Choose Hospitality, CareerScope, Springboard, and a growing number of hospitality and industry leaders.
More than 40% of hospitality businesses now face skilled worker shortages1, Over the next 5 years, the situation is expected to get worse, with experts forecasting a 13-14 million talent gap for positions suitable for hospitality graduates2. To understand why the hospitality sector is finding it particularly hard to recruit talent, we commissioned MMR Research to speak to young jobseekers, young hospitality professionals and industry influencers from across the UK.
The research, available in our new insight report, Opening Doors: Improving hospitality career perceptions among young people, reveals that, although some young job seekers are interested in the industry, they’re unaware of the breadth of roles and progression opportunities available. With exposure limited to less ‘skilled’ roles in hospitality, this could explain why many young people view it as a ‘back-up career’, with long hours and hard work. Furthermore, the research revealed that these perceptions are also the result of insufficient information and a lack of ambassadors to relate to. When it comes to advice, more than 1 in 4 young people ask people working in the industry, valuing their advice over that of their teacher or careers advisers. Fortunately, 62% of the young people working in hospitality say they love their role, indicating an untapped pool of potential ambassadors.
To address this, the ‘Choose Hospitality Pledge’, encouraging hospitality businesses and rising industry stars to put themselves forward as industry ambassadors. Hospitality leaders including Whitbread, Compass, Sodexo, Elior and PACE have already pledged support, plus industry organisations such as Bridging the Skills Gap and the Institute of Hospitality. These will be promoting the scheme and providing ambassadors to send out to schools in each region. Ambassadors will be given specially developed materials, speaking aids and opportunities at their local schools to help them engage youngsters and promote a career in the industry.
Katya Simmons, Nestle Pro Managing Director says:
“Hospitality businesses are more than twice as likely as other industries to experience challenges filling vacancies3. We were keen to understand why, in order to highlight ways in which our industry could come together to deal with these issues.”
“We learned that a lack of clear information and advice from key influencers has led to a serious image problem for the industry. Yet at the same time we have an untapped resource of bright, young individuals from within the industry who could be inspiring and educating young people on hospitality careers.
“Given the severity of current recruitment challenges, it’s important that we act now. The Choose Hospitality Pledge is all about inspiring the next generation of hospitality superstars. Helping us to get young people excited about our industry again, and showcasing hospitality as an incredibly rewarding career with a wide array of roles and progression opportunities.”