My name is Chris and I am the Food and Beverage manager at the Deep. I have been in the post for the last 3 and a half years and my role covers all aspects of any food and drink provision within the Deep. This covers the café, evening and corporate events, weddings, vending and pretty much any time you snack or drink whilst visiting us!
I think everyone is aware of the problems faced by the hospitality industry after he last few years. I have worked in the industry all my working life and have never seen so many issues hitting at once, from Covid 19 and lockdowns to supply shortages and Brexit. Staffing is another issue for hospitality just now, as a hospitality professional I feel it is the duty of managers to increase the talent pool, not only for current vacancies but for the trade as a whole.
This has, this year, led me to think out of the box for recruitment. Our crew come from various places and we do have high levels of crew retention but during the recent lockdowns many of the students who worked with us finished their degrees and moved on to the next stage of their career.
With a few gaps on the rosters to fill, I wanted to offer these opportunities to new people and new groups rather than just our regular crew applicants. We looked at people returning to work, those who have relevant skills but maybe not in a working environment like The Deep, or to those wanting to try something totally new to them. After trawling through google for a while I happened upon our local college, Hull College, and would you believe that they have been helping people re-train, re-skill and find roles which suited them, box ticked for me and for them!
After a chat with Gemma at HCUK, it became apparent that we could help some of their candidates with a potential end goal of employment and that Gemma and her team could in turn help The Deep spread the word a bit further than we would normally reach.
A training academy was launched between The Deep and HCUK we picked skills that would help push the candidates towards hospitality roles and Gemma and the team worked towards filling the course with eager future hospitality workers.
I visited the college to introduce the organisation and the roles available and I delighted to see a real cross section of ages, ability’s and backgrounds. We were lucky enough to get the guys over for a site visit, seeing the exhibits, the crew and the café I think helped cement us as a future employer for them.
By the end of the process we had received 16 CV’s, all of which had interviews. After reviewing, we took on 2 great new employees and made connections with another 4 who we hope to stay in touch with.
This was a great opportunity to interview new candidates who may not have been our normal applicants, a great chance to meet people that maybe would not have had this chance before. It was great to work with Gemma and her team and great to do things a little differently and change the usual process.
It was a very fulfilling experience and a great opportunity for Jon and Hayley who have now joined our team. I will without a doubt be doing this again in 2022 and hopefully we can recruit crew who will be with us in our 40th anniversary year.