Hospitality Career Perception Needs to Change

Hospitality workers carrying food trays at an event – catering job seekers

Employer values headline employee hospitality career perception

We need to change the hospitality career perception is a stopgap or weekend job to one that shows us as a career of choice, enabling people to think beyond entry-level.

We can create innovative, indulgent, and flavour-packed dishes, but if we don’t have the talent to complete the customer experience, it’s an opportunity wasted. Therefore, we have a responsibility to do all we can to ensure the employee experience is unbeatable, in order to attract and retain the very best.

Changing the hospitality career perception misconception that work in hospitality is low-paid and low-skilled is key to this. A recent study by TheJobCrowd found that hospitality is one of the very best industries for career progression and development.

But knowing the facts and figures simply isn’t enough. Progression and personal development within a company or even within the industry must not only be feasible, but visible, to show that loyalty and hard work is rewarded.

Highlighting aspirational, real-life hospitality role models who have risen within your industry can be an effective way to do this. Take a few of our Levy people for example – Compass Cymru MD and Levy Operations Director Jane Byrd began her career as a Compass graduate, David Hay, who leads our business in Scotland, started as a kitchen porter, and I started my hospitality career as a kitchen porter working my way up to MD of Levy UK+ I.

Demonstrating you have the structures in place to grow talent from within, such as graduate or apprenticeship schemes, shows that you are ready to invest in talent. For example, as part of our internal resource platform, Constellation, Levy has 25 Kickstarters and 17 apprentices on the ladder to success.

Emphasising the long-term pathways and the breadth and depth of opportunities available can help to ensure that a career in hospitality is recognised for the high skilled occupation that it is.

Constellation, and the team within it, has also provided us with a clear strategy for getting staff to where our teams need them and has allowed us to support all of our venues that tap into the resource. This has ensured that Levy is able to continue to offer our legendary experiences for our upcoming event schedule.

An added bonus is that the majority of the staff coming through are under 25, allowing us to show them how hospitality is a route forward in their careers.

With an ever-younger workforce, it’s not just the day-to-day job that matters to employees – it’s a company’s purpose. What is a business doing to make a positive impact, aside from boosting profits for shareholders?

Millennials, and now Gen Z, increasingly want to work for businesses that share their values, whether this is paying them fairly for the work they provide, something we are proud to do in Levy, or ensuring the company looks after both their physical and mental health. Our industry must be bold in communicating the company’s purpose with them and in practising what we preach. Ignoring what is important to them risks cutting off two-thirds of the young talent pool.

As both consumers and employees, millennials are the most sustainability-conscious generation to date: recent research has found over 70% would rather work at a company with a strong environmental agenda. With the hospitality industry contributing to a huge volume of food waste and greenhouse gas emissions, it may seem incompatible with young people’s desire to work for a ‘green’ employer.

For Levy’s part, we are pleased to be leading by example in driving new sustainable and ethical practices within the industry: increasing plant-based options, slashing food waste, and focusing on using local, seasonal produce. These initiatives also extend more widely to Compass Group, which has committed to reach Net Zero by 2030: the foodservice industry’s first commitment to a climate net-zero economy.

A company’s values are also judged on how its people are treated. Across the UK, the hospitality industry is incredibly diverse – not only in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity but also in its ability to cater to different lifestyles. It is well-placed to provide flexible working programmes that provide suitable career pathways as well as a work-life balance for many parents.

On average, 62% of requests for flexible hours come from women looking to fit work around childcare arrangements after maternity leave. Employees must be flexible in order to ensure anybody who wants to join the workforce is able to, without sacrificing their home life. This includes flexibility in employment contracts, working hours, and sufficient notice given regarding shifts.

Put simply, our industry offers our customers and teams everything we have craved over the last 18 months of lockdown, but without the talent to deliver it, the experience isn’t half as thrilling.

Hospitality has work to do to show potential staff that it is a rewarding career worthy of pursuit. Employers will need to draw in workers with promises of support at work, opportunities for meaningful career progression, and the assurance that they will reflect and uphold the values they hold close.

The original version of this article was first published in Hospitality & Catering News

We are a hospitality and catering recruitment company. We can support you to find a new role or the staff you need to grow your business.

The Gold Service Scholarship: Front of House Professionals Competition

The Gold Service Scholarship

Gold Service Scholarship launches masterclass video series

The Gold Service Scholarship young front of house professionals competition has launched a series of masterclass videos and announced the schedule of its 2021/22 competition.

Available to view on the Gold Service Scholarship website, the masterclasses have been created for front of house professionals wishing to further their food and beverage knowledge and develop their careers. The videos are presented by established industry professionals, including past Gold Service scholars and finalists.

The educational videos will provide tutorials on many key elements of front-of-house service, with subjects ranging from ‘decanting, opening and pouring Champagne’, ‘carving a châteaubriand’ and ‘table settings’, to ‘classic cocktail making’, ‘filleting a Dover sole’, and ‘preparing a steak tartare’.

The short videos will divulge tips and techniques on perfecting standards in front of house service, whether for restaurants, hotels or private catering establishments. More masterclasses, covering ‘carving a chicken or duck’, ‘preparing a Caesar salad’, ‘carving a rack of lamb’ and ‘serving an afternoon tea’, will be added to the library in the coming weeks.

Meanwhile, the 2021/22 Gold Service Scholarship competition will be open for applications online from 1 September at www.thegoldservicescholarship.co.uk, with a closing date of 4 October. The quarter final assessment days will be on 25 October at the Hotel Café Royal and 26 October at the Langham, both in London. The semi-final will be held at Rosewood London at the end of November and the final will be hosted by Corinthia London in January 2022, with the gala award ceremony in February 2022 at Claridge’s.

Trustee and chairman of the judges Edward Griffiths said: “Having paused last year’s scholarship due to Covid restrictions, the trustees are hugely enthusiastic about the plans for this year’s competition, and we look forward to many applications from interested candidates, supported by their employers. More than ever, we are championing hospitality as an exciting and rewarding career option, and the Gold Service Scholarship is steadfast in its role of mentoring, nurturing and celebrating young talent in our industry.”

Chairman of the trustees Alastair Storey added: “It has been an incredibly difficult 18 months for the hospitality industry, and we hope that these wonderful masterclasses will inspire a new generation to learn the skills and showmanship which attract and delight customers. The recent successes of the British athletes at the Tokyo Olympics show that, with investment, dedication and ambition, there are few limits to what can be achieved.”

The original version of this article was first published in The Caterer

We are a hospitality and catering recruitment company. We can support you to find a new role or the staff you need to grow your business.

Catering College Shortlisted for Award

Hotel restaurant staff serving guests – recruitment for hospitality professionals

CRC shortlisted for Catering College of the Year in the Public Sector Catering Awards 2021

Following on from the success of 2020, when they were announced as Catering College of the Year, Cambridge Regional College (@CRC_College) has been shortlisted in the Public Sector Catering Awards for a second consecutive year.

In total, Public Sector Catering have shortlisted entrants in 18 categories, with Cambridge Regional College featuring as one of three UK colleges to be shortlisted for Catering College of the Year 2021, alongside Edinburgh College and Eastleigh College. Winners will be announced in a live event which will take place later this year.

Team Lead for Service Industries, Graham Taylor said,

“I am absolutely delighted that we have been shortlisted in the Public Sector Catering Awards once again. It is testament to the hard work that goes into ensuring that our learners are at the heart of everything we do. The national lockdown has not held us back, we have been innovative with our delivery, and the opportunities we provide to learners, to ensure that our high standards have been maintained”.

Public Sector Caterers will be hosting a live event 9th September at the London Hilton Metropole when Cambridge Regional College will learn whether they have retained the title of Catering College of the Year for a second year.

The original version of this article was first published in FE News

We are a catering job agency. We have catering jobs to suit a wide range of catering experience and aspirations. Our candidates are the lifeblood of our business and as such we aim to offer more than other recruitment agencies.

We can support you to find a new catering job or the catering staff you need to grow your business.

UK Hospitality Strategy

Catering manager coordinating kitchen workflow – leadership in catering

Government’s UK Hospitality Strategy ignores today only looking to tomorrows

Government’s ‘strategy’ to flood hospitality with young, inexperienced, unemployed people totally ignores the here and now of hospitality’s tragedy.

This so called ‘UK Hospitality Strategy’ is devoid of any recognition that hospitality is on fire, and needs dousing, now, not repeats of the same unproductive Job Centre recruitment drives of years gone by.

The pandemic continues to decimate hospitality, every day sees more businesses forced to close, and more jobs lost. Hospitality like other industries did not cause the pandemic, but suffers from it. The government’s responsibility is to compensate hospitality for losses to date and minimise obstacles to recover. Meaningful and measurable urgent action is required now, not at some indefinable point in the future.

Reopening began on 12 April, immediately hampered by government policy created on the hoof accompanied by countless U-turns with a good sprinkling of mixed messaging for good measure.

Now, reports of consumers diminishing patience with hospitality’s reduced front of house resources are growing. How long people are waiting, and mistakes made with service are provoking the ever more extreme ire of disgruntled customers.

The people on the receiving end more often than not are young waitresses and waiters new to hospitality. Unprepared for dealing with such situations as they lack the experience to do so. They are also unprepared to suffer the indignity, and remove themselves from the firing line. And rightly so. The very people government see as hospitality’s solution.

The deficiencies of ending the free movement of people need to be recognised, by government, and by hospitality.

Government of course will not, despite all evidence to the contrary, instead they continue with efforts to brainwash you into accepting it is good for business. If there were some elusive benefit to it, surely it would have been unveiled by now.

Some in hospitality continue to politely look the other way, making a little noise but not so much as to inconvenience or disrupt government’s tune.

Government’s tune being their recently produced ‘strategy’ for hospitality, or possibly more aptly named strategy for the unemployed.

Hospitality like all industries needs a balance of experienced people operating it and new people training to in future. Hospitality’s good fortune pre-Brexit was that it attracted people from all over the world to work within it at all levels and across all sectors. A diverse mix that enhanced hospitality.

Pre-Brexit the UK hospitality industry enjoyed a significant proportion of staff being EU Nationals, 12 -24% of hospitality’s total workforce. Regions and sectors varied with waiters and waitresses that were EU Nationals in London making up 75% of the total workforce. Many of the jobs were temporary and taken by transient workers, some moved on and some stayed, seeding a constant inflow of talent that was part of how hospitality grew organically. No more, that has been removed.

The removal of this process seeing people develop and grow in an industry they want to be a part of replaced rudely with laws shaped purely by the employee’s nationality.

The world defines hospitality as: Noun – The friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers. Maybe in the UK we need to now add, except working with them.

Government are being asked to address this subject in a cross party parliamentary debate. If you have been politely looking the other way to date, please change that by signing a petition today to at least ask if non UK nationals can return to work in hospitality.

The original version of this article was first published in Hospitality & Catering News

We are a hospitality and catering recruitment company. We can support you to find a new role or the staff you need to grow your business.

Hospitality Staff Crisis

Waiters setting up outdoor dining for a hotel event – catering and event staff hiring

Stop blaming the industry for the Hospitality Staff Crisis
By Sarah John, director, Boss Brewing

Those of us within the hospitality industry are well aware that we face a hospitality staff crisis; there is no disputing that we are experiencing rising worker shortages, with job vacancies at higher-than-ever levels.

According to industry bodies, one in five workers have left the sector since the coronavirus pandemic, and Covid and Brexit combined are often cited as being at the heart of the staff shortage.

But the narrative goes one step further than this, and that’s when alarm bells start ringing for me. If you scour the articles across various media channels, the story goes that Covid-19 shut venues across the UK, ousting hospitality staff and forcing them to find jobs elsewhere.

Upon finding said jobs, these former hospitality workers then discovered that the grass is greener outside of the world of bars, pubs and restaurants.

They kissed goodbye to what is being generalised as low wages, zero-hour contracts and long working hours, and unearthed industries where they could work fewer hours for more money, turning their backs on hospitality forevermore.

The baddy in this narrative then? The hospitality sector and all the dastardly employers that operate within it, under-valuing and demeaning their staff and pushing them onto pastures new. The insinuation is that the sector itself is to blame for this shortage for not looking after their staff.

Squeezed profit margins

Now I do not believe anyone wants to run a business where staff feel overworked, under-valued and under-paid.

As a bar operator myself, I for one would not feel good getting up in the morning to eke out as much toil and graft as I can from my staff, working them into the ground and getting away with the bare minimum in terms of how I remunerate them. It would not be a working culture that you could be proud of.

However, what I am aware of as a bar owner is that profit margins have been squeezed to incredulous levels and that for every weekly or monthly staff rota planned, we have to ask ourselves very real questions about how many staff we can afford​ to have on a given shift.

As much as many pub and restaurant owners would love to pay their staff more, we do not have the luxury of running on high profit-margins and making money in this sector can be hard, plain and simple.

In other words, it is fundamentally unfair to blame the operators within the hospitality sector for the staff shortage crisis, the pub and restaurant owners trying their best to make it work in a competitive and tight sector. Instead, the question we should be asking is, how can the Government do more to support the hospitality sector so that businesses can grow and pay higher wages, attracting potential employees to the sector?

There are three initiatives that I can think of straight away that would help. Firstly, tax cuts on alcohol would be a massive boost. As a brewery, we pay an extortionate amount on beer duty, a taxation that comes into play alongside VAT and corporation tax and everything else.

Stop blaming hospitality

Cuts in alcohol duty would enable us to sell beer to our hospitality customers at a better price, improving their margins significantly and giving these outlets more money in the pot to be able to afford higher wages.

Secondly and based on the exact same rationale, the Government could make permanent the 5% reduced rate of VAT that was introduced for hospitality during the Covid-19 pandemic. This would encourage custom, support businesses to grow and command greater profit-margins, and make pay rises affordable and therefore possible.

Lastly, another idea could be a special low rate of beer duty that applies to draught beer only, providing a potential cost advantage over packaged beer sold in supermarkets and again enticing more people to visit pubs and bars. More money spent out in hospitality venues means more money into the economy, which is win-win for everyone.

These are just some suggestions of course and I do not propose to have the all-encompassing solution to the question I posed.

The solution is not as important here as getting across the point that we need to stop blaming the hospitality sector itself for this staff shortage crisis.

It is not helpful, nor is it morale-boosting, after the deeply distressing year that the industry has had. Instead, what the industry deserves – an industry, it is important to add, that is still struggling to get back on its feet – is the commitment that the government will back it and do what it can to help make the sector an attractive place to work.

Blame gets you nowhere; surely it is better to look for ways to tackle this staff crisis head on?

The original version of this article was first published in The Morning Advertiser

We are a hospitality and catering recruitment company. We can support you to find a new role or the staff you need to grow your business.

 

Hospitality Staffing – Pingdemic Easing Helps

Hospitality industry professionals working during a busy service – recruitment agency support

Hospitality Staffing Industry welcomes NHS Covid-19 app changes to ease ‘pingdemic’

Hospitality Staffing and Trade associations have welcomed news that the Government is to update the NHS Covid-19 app to reduce the numbers of people being forced to self-isolate.

The so-called ‘pingdemic’ has been bringing major challenges to the hospitality sector causing staff shortages and even forcing some premises to close.

A UKHospitality survey of 17,000 businesses has suggested that six in 10 hospitality businesses have had staff off work after being ‘pinged’ and that 267,000 people or 13% of the industry’s workforce have recently been, or are currently, self-isolating.

The Government announced yesterday that the NHS Covid-19 app would be updated to ‘ping’ contacts that are made two days prior to a positive test for someone who is asymptomatic and not the current five days.

Health and Social Care Secretary, Sajid Javid said: “We want to reduce the disruption that self-isolation can cause for people and businesses, while ensuring we’re protecting those most at risk from this virus. This update to the app will help ensure that we are striking the right balance.”

Trade associations welcomed the news.

Kate Nicholls, CEO of UKHospitality said this would alleviate the pressure being experienced by businesses but admitted it was not a ‘silver bullet.’

“With our research showing more than 250,000 hospitality workers being affected by ‘pings’ at any given point by the NHS Covid App, this intervention from Government is absolutely necessary to prevent a complete loss of summer trading for the hospitality sector following prolonged periods of severely disrupted trading,” she said.

“The fact that fully vaccinated staff will still currently have to self-isolate is a significant barrier to venues operating viably and moving towards recovery. We urge Government to update guidance and bring forward a workable test to release scheme at the soonest possible opportunity. ”

Meanwhile, the British Beer & Pub Association (BBPA) also welcomed the news while revealing that as many as 1,000 pubs have been forced to temporarily close due to large numbers of their staff being pinged on the app and having to isolate.

Further analysis conducted by the trade association found that on average per week, being forced to close due to the pingdemic costs a pub £9,500 in trade.

“We welcome any changes to the NHS app which reduce the severity of the pingdemic and prevent unnecessary isolation,” said Emma McClarkin, chief Executive of the BBPA.

“On top of changes to the NHS app, more investment is needed for our sector if it is to recover and play a leading role in building back better. The Government must do this by reforming VAT, Beer Duty and Business Rates by which pubs and other hospitality businesses are greatly overtaxed.”

The original version of this article was first published in Harpers.co.uk

We are a hospitality and catering recruitment company. We can support you to find a new role or the staff you need to grow your business.

Green Hospitality Initiative Makes Waves

Commercial kitchen full of chefs preparing high-end meals – hospitality career opportunities

UK’s largest pub company and WSH join Green Hospitality Initiative

The UK’s largest pub company Stonegate Group and hospitality giant Westbury Street Holdings (WSH) have joined the Zero Carbon Forum Green Hospitality Initiative, which is developing a roadmap to net-zero for the industry.

The Zero Carbon Forum first launched in December 2020 and, with the addition of Stonegate Group and WSH, now convenes 27 businesses across the hospitality sector, including pubs, bars, restaurants, cafes, caterers and food-to-go outlets.

Stonegate Group manages and owns more than 4,500 sites across the UK, with owned brands including Be at One, Slug & Lettuce, Walkabout, Craft Union and Vixen Pub Company. It is yet to develop a corporate responsibility strategy that covers the entire Group but, according to the Zero Carbon Forum, has begun making interventions to improve energy efficiency, recycling levels and the use of renewable energy.

“The Forum represents power and knowledge in numbers, and we look forward to sharing and learning best practices from fellow industry Forum members,” Stonegate Group’s director of risk Spencer Bloomberg said.

As for WSH, the firm’s brands range from restaurants, to delis, coffee shops, to hospitality catering. Brands include BaxterStorey, Benugo and Caterlink. WSH has been a carbon-neutral business since 2007 and is now working to develop 1.5C-aligned science-based targets for reducing emissions in-house further.

WSH’s director of sustainable business Mike Hanson said: “The Zero Carbon Forum makes working together as an industry possible. WSH has committed to the highest level of ambition in the short and long-term to reach net-zero. We welcome the collaboration of the Forum and its members to help us to deliver a roadmap to be net-zero and achieve this, at speed, together.”

“We’re thrilled that these collective industry powerhouses, driven by highly inspiring and experienced leaders, have joined the Zero Carbon Forum,” the initiative’s founder and chief executive Mark Chapman said.

The Zero Carbon Forum is planning to unveil its roadmap to net-zero ahead of COP26 in Glasgow this November. The deadline remains to be seen but is expected to be ahead of the UK’s legally binding 2050 deadline. Interim targets will be included in the document.

Low-carbon Revolution

In related news, Revolution Bars Group – one of the founding Zero Carbon Forum members – has posted a 19% reduction in energy consumption between 2017 and 2020.

The firm, which operates 67 bars across the UK, is striving to reach net-zero by 2030 and claims that the energy efficiency measures have reduced its carbon footprint by 1430 tonnes over the three-year period.

Revolution Bars Group worked with consultancy Net Zero to measure and reduce Scope 1 (direct) and 2 (power-related) emissions, making moves such as switching to green electricity tariffs and fitting more energy-efficient lighting, as well as new building energy control systems. The Group also developed and launched a new employee engagement scheme called ‘Zero Hero’, whereby a sustainability ‘champion’ is appointed at each location and trained to engage their respective team.

“Climate change is a massive issue that’s not going to be solved overnight, but it’s a huge positive for me that the company has taken the initiative and become one of the first big Bar operators to commit to sustainability targets,” said the champion for Revolucion de Cuba in Birmingham, Brett Johnson. “Hopefully, many others will follow suit.”

Revolution Bars Group’s next step on the road to net-zero will be developing 1.5C-aligned science-based targets. It has 24 months to submit targets and achieve verification from the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi). Earlier this summer, the SBTi announced plans to phase out 2C targets and to raise minimum target-setting requirements to 1.5C.

The original version of this article was first published in Edie.Net

We are a hospitality and catering recruitment company. We can support you to find a new role or the staff you need to grow your business.

5 Reasons you Need a Food Hygiene Certificate

Chef preparing a gourmet dish in a professional kitchen – catering recruitment

Clare Grantham from The Safer Food Group talks us through why it’s important to gain a Food Hygiene Certificate when you are part of the hospitality and catering industry.

Whether you are an established cook or looking for your first role in catering, a food hygiene certificate is an important part of your toolkit. We look at the top 5 reasons for passing your food safety course before you apply for that dream job.

1 Training makes you a safer worker

This one should go without saying. The fundamental reason for taking a food hygiene course is to learn the principles of preparing safe food – it’s that simple! Understanding food safety challenges such as cross-contamination and knowing the difference between a Best-Before and a Use-By date are really important skills in a kitchen. Having an up-to-date certificate to show you have already mastered these skills gives an employer confidence before you even arrive for an interview and helps you hit the ground running.

2 A Food Hygiene Certificate sets you apart from other candidates

This one is especially important when you are starting out in the food industry, perhaps looking for your very first food industry job. A food hygiene certificate demonstrates that you are genuinely interested enough in the sector to invest in your own training. For an entry level job, you won’t need to break the bank –  Level 2 Food Safety (aka ‘Basic Food Hygiene’) is usually sufficient, and you can buy a single online course for £12+ VAT. BUT – there are lots of courses out there, and they vary in quality – make sure you look for a course that is accredited by a reputable body, such as Qualifi or CPD

3 Training gives you confidence to make the right decisions

Roles in catering and hospitality are generally busy and at some point you may be working without supervision. You need to be able to make the right decisions when working alone, and taking food related training courses, such as Food Safety, HACCP and Allergy Awareness, will help you to do that.

4 You need to understand your personal, legal responsibilities

This is the scary one. As a food handler, you have a legal responsibility to do everything you reasonably can to make sure the food you serve is safe to eat. A good food hygiene course will explain your legal responsibilities and those of your employers and supervisors.

5 Good food hygiene helps you prevent waste

The food industry is becoming increasingly focussed on the environmental impact of food waste. Having a good understanding of food safety practices – especially fridge and freezer temperatures, food labelling and hot-holding, cooling and reheating methods – will enable you to do your bit in the war on waste. And for your employer, that means cost savings too – a big win-win!

Food Safety courses are readily available online, and can generally be taken in your own time, at your own pace. Good training providers will allow you to sample course content before you buy to check it is right for you – so perhaps a better question would be: ‘Why wouldn’t I need a Food Hygiene certificate?’

KSB Recruitment provides free training for all candidates who will be working with food. Not only will this ensure you have the knowledge to be confident in your job but it also supports our clients know you are up to speed with the latest information.

You can register with us and search all of our lives jobs by clicking the jobs button below. If you would like support with your recruitment efforts, click the Hiring button below.

The Safer Food Group provide online food safety training.

Careers in Hospitality for Offenders

Catering assistant plating starters for a banquet – catering job market

Careers in Hospitality for Offenders

Prisons Minister announces government’s significant expansion of The Clink

Thousands of offenders will be steered away from a life of crime thanks to the roll-out of The Clink training kitchen scheme to 25 jails by the end of the year, Prisons Minister Alex Chalk has announced.

The Clink careers in hospitality is already running at eight prisons including HMPs Bristol, Downview, and Styal, the programme sees prisoners train in professionally-run prison kitchens for up to 35 hours a week – preparing and cooking thousands of meals daily – while simultaneously working towards professional qualifications which will help them find employment on the outside.

The Clink has already helped over 2,500 offenders into stable and secure careers in hospitality since launching just over a decade ago through their training initiatives, with the expansion announced today expected to support a further 2,000 prisoners into employment.

In 2019 alone, The Clink trained up over 440 prisoners – a total of 330,000 training hours – with over 280 employers across the country taking on Clink graduates upon release from prison.

Research shows that ex-offenders in work are more likely to turn their backs on crime for good, with prisoners who have taken part in The Clink’s training scheme almost a third less likely to go on to commit further offences – reducing the £18bn a year cost of reoffending and keeping communities safe.

Prisons Minister, Alex Chalk, said: “Prisoners with a job on release are far less likely to reoffend – meaning if we can provide the path to employment, we can make our communities safer.

“As we continue to build back safer from the pandemic, it is absolutely vital that we continue to address the root causes of crime by supporting offenders to turn their lives around – and this scheme will do precisely that for thousands of ex-prisoners.”

The Clink Chief Executive, Christopher Moore, said: “The roll-out of The Clink Kitchens project over the next three years to 70 prisons in England and Wales, will enable us to continue to repair society and support the hospitality industry that has a major skills shortage.

“Social mobility is at the heart of many companies’ recruitment agenda and employing a highly trained Clink graduate not only is a benefit to their business but increases the diversity of their workforce.”

The partnership with The Clink Charity is one of many government schemes aimed at supporting offenders into employment with the ultimate aim of cutting crime. Other initiatives include work placements for dozens of offenders during the construction of HMP Five Wells (Northamptonshire) and the new prison in Glen Parva (Leicestershire).

Boosting access to work and safe accommodation for prison leavers will also help build back safer communities by cutting crime and reducing reoffending.

H&C News congratulate Prisons Minister Alex Chalk on providing an extended path to employment for trained ex-offenders, making our communities safer, and bringing people into careers in hospitality. We also congratulate Christopher Moore and the whole team at The Clink Charity for making such a difference to so many people’s lives.

The original version of this article was first published in Hospitality and Catering News

We are a hospitality and catering recruitment company. We can support you to find a new role or the staff you need to grow your business.

Catering Careers Run in the Family

Kitchen staff chopping vegetables during prep time – catering job vacancies

Food for thought as mother and son caterers develop their skills at Borders College

A mother and her son are both reaping the benefits of studying at Borders College (@BordersCollege), helping to further develop their catering careers and skills in the sector.

53-year-old Shirley Boylan from Selkirk trained as a chef and worked in the private industry for most of her career, before taking up a management role as the Deputy Catering Manager at NHS Borders.

This led to her studying management and in February 2020 she completed the Team Leadership in Management level 7 with the College. Deciding to enhance her skill set further, Shirley enrolled on the Management level 7 qualification, which she is currently undertaking.

Shirley’s son Ryan, who is 17 and lives with his parents in Selkirk, grew up with both his mum and dad having catering careers in the industry so it was no surprise that he decided to follow in their footsteps and begin studying on the Professional Cookery SCQF NPA Level 4 programme at Borders College, where he is one year into his studies. Ryan will continue this September, studying NC Professional Cookery and NPA Hospitality Level 5.

Shirley has a wealth of experience in the industry, having worked in top restaurants such as Cameron House in Loch Lomond, The Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh and also as Head Chef at The Woll Golf Club in Ashkirk.

Both she and her husband Gerard have worked in 5-star restaurants throughout their careers and were delighted that Ryan decided to take the same career path. Shirley commented:

“Ryan has always had a passion for cooking since a young age. We have spent many hours in the kitchen showing him the techniques we have learned over the years so it’s great that he has that head start in his career. He is thoroughly enjoying his first year at College.”

Within her role at NHS Borders, Shirley’s team of 170 staff are responsible for providing meals to the Borders General Hospital and the Community hospitals in Hawick and Kelso, as well as other private sector areas.

Talking about her time studying Management and how this has benefitted her career, she added:

“It is very important to constantly develop and improve your skills with Borders College. It has been possible for me to work, alongside studying that best fits me, to give me a recognised management qualification. I’m in a very rewarding job within the Catering team at NHS Borders. A future career path supported within NHS Borders and opportunities to build on my management qualification levels through Borders College is what I strive towards.“

The original version of this article was first published in FE News

We are a catering recruitment company. We can support you to find a new catering job or the catering staff you need to grow your business.