The Hospitality Flood Gates are Opening!

Patrice

As the owner of Patrice & Associates Hospitality Recruitment, I use my own business as a yardstick measuring the health of the hospitality industry. In 2020, our clients were being forced to close, job seekers weren’t looking for jobs as they were on unemployment – and there were no jobs to be found.

As more states gave the green light for restaurants to open, they have been in a frenzy. Many only got a 24 – 48-hour notice that they could open. They didn’t have the food ordered, they didn’t have any prepping options and they didn’t have the staff.

Restaurant owners started calling former employees to come back to work. They found that some were going to continue to stay on unemployment until it ended, and others had found a job elsewhere.

If this wasn’t enough to worry about, they knew their customers would be flooding in once the doors opened. Loyal customers who had been cooped up at home for a year were anxious to head to their favorite establishment. Restaurant owners everywhere wanted to make sure their guests had a great experience.

The next thing they needed, in addition to staff, was managers. Where could they find managers on such short notice that didn’t need a lot of training. This was where Patrice & Associates Hospitality Recruitment immediately acted as their trusted staffing partner. We were able to quickly source managers for them to interview and hire.

An interesting development I learned when restaurants were advertising for staff, they were mostly getting resumes of high school kids who wanted a job. My hunch is that some people are still on unemployment and if they were a good manager, they already had a job.

Our phone keeps ringing with restaurants that want our help finding them managers. They want managers who could “walk into the job” and didn’t need a lot of training. We have been very successful in quickly finding top talent for our clients.

Another development affecting the staffing business, is the Baby Boomers effect on the job market. Baby Boomers are retiring at a rate of 1 per every 6 seconds. This trend is projected to dramatically jump in the 3rd and 4th quarters of 2021 and into 2022.

These Baby Boomers are the managers of companies. There seems to be no succession plan and companies won’t have the hiring options of the past.

Who are the replacement options for Baby Boomers? The Millennials. Millennials don’t care about long term jobs, stability or career. They Work to Live. They will have had 5 jobs by the time they are 35 and changed careers 3 times. The job stability and career motivation is not there, which makes it even more difficult to replace the Baby Boomers.

As I continue to watch the trends in the hospitality industry, which affects how we can match top people with great job opportunities, I remember what hospitality recruitment was like 30 years ago. What a “ride” it has been.

If you don’t change to keep up with the times, you get left behind.