Marketing for staff recruitment and retention.

It’s been in the news A LOT recently. The hospitality and tourism industry are suffering from a massive shortage in staff. Many reasons are being blamed for this shortage. An unreliable industry, staff retraining elsewhere, the PUP payment and much more. Our industry needs to act now in retaining and recruiting staff if we are to return to normal service. Any service business will know that your human resources are the most important assets in your business.

TU Dublin School of Hospitality Management & Tourism in conjunction with the Tourism and Hospitality Careers Oversight Group, which is chaired by Fáilte Ireland, recently announced a suite of new 3^rd level education programmes for anyone wishing to upskill in the sector. A fantastic initiative, but what can businesses do now?

Marketing your vacancies online and on social media is one thing, but how do you attract the right staff and keep them? Here are our top 5 tips for marketing for recruitment and retention of staff.

1. Showcase your current staff

(Managers at Lough Rea Hotel recently rewarding their staff)

The staff that have been loyal to you through out the pandemic are the best people to market your business as a good place to work. Ask them to record a short video on the benefits of working there, ask them to be part of a case study in recruiting staff or even just ask them to share the job vacancies on their social media pages. Make sure and feature your staff on your social media pages and celebrate them as often as you can. Check out more tips on making the most out of your social media here.

2. Shout about the benefits

Of course, prospective staff will want to know about the monetary benefit of working in your business but what about the non-monetary benefits? What makes your café a better place to work than the next. When advertising a job, make sure to add in if you provide a free lunch, staff bonding activities, gym membership, social clubs etc. It just as much about having a good quality of life when you are at work these days. If you don’t have any benefits to shout about then we would suggest adding some.

3. Communicate

Social media is not the only place to advertise the jobs you are trying to fill. Recruitment agencies are still very useful, your local chamber of commerce, the local newspaper etc. Remember to have the same message across all platforms. If you are posting on social media then make sure its listed on your website so you can add a link from Linkedin, Facebook etc.

4. Training

If you are experiencing a high level of staff turnover, then you may want to look at your training activities. Training new staff is so important from their very first day. Shout about the training you provide to all your staff on social media and encourage your staff to post about it too! If you are outsourcing the training, then ask the trainer to feature it on their LinkedIn also. Continuous training is advised for everyone to keep them up to speed with new trends, upselling techniques etc.

5. Incentives

Providing incentives for your employees is a sure way to keep them focused and determined in their job. Incentives should be based on measurable results that they can work towards and be valuable enough that its worth getting excited about. Here are some great ideas that we found on Bonusly. Again, make sure to shout about your staff getting bonus’s or incentives on social media.

To survive through to 2022 its imperative that we give our staff the attention and time that they will require in a very changed environment. A lot of staff are new in the industry so it might be worth looking into some of the training supports that Failte Ireland have available online here.

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For more information on Back Office Marketing on how we can help you with all of your marketing activities please contact Helen on info@backofficems.ie