Tourism Sector looks overseas to address skills gap
FANTASHA LOCKINGTON SAID LOCALS WERE ATTAINING ACADEMIC DEGREES WITHOUT WORK EXPERIENCE
A remuneration survey - a first for any industry in Fiji, is being carried out to determine how the tourism sector can capitalise on its human resources.
Fiji’s hotel and tourism sector could be looking overseas for replacements to address the skills gaps, it has been revealed.
It also aims to get some support through the relative Government agencies, such as the Immigration department, over the need to be more flexible in such processes, Fiji Hotel and Tourism Association said.
“You can not shut down a hotel on account of insufficient staff numbers,” chief executive officer Fantasha Lockington said.
“It should never have to come to that.”
The tourism industry preferred to plan in advance, into the future, she said.
Mrs Lockington cited one hotel that was booked to the max but needed an additional 30 staff.
“It is replicated across the industry,” she said.
“It’s an issue.”
As an example, when a chef loses three of its six chefs, it becomes a bigger issue, given they are not positions that can automatically be trained for, Mrs Lockington said.
“You can’t suddenly go overseas to find three chefs; you can’t suddenly train a local to take over those positions, because there’s a whole lot of training that needs to go behind that position,” she said.
“It puts everybody on the backfoot.”
Mrs Lockington said locals were attaining academic degrees without work experience, because of the promise of better paid job offers from abroad. “It’s hard to compete with them,” she said.
REMUNERATION SURVEY
A remuneration survey - a first for any industry in Fiji, is being carried out to determine how the tourism sector can capitalise on its human resources.
Commissioned by the Fiji Hotel and Tourism Association, the survey will collate much needed data for the industry, to determine measures that would further the sector’sl interests.
“It will also help individual members understand where they are in terms of sourcing the right skills, the wage rates they started with, and having a clear understanding of what the job descriptions are,” Mrs Lockington, said.
Speaking after the association’s annual general meeting, which was held at Hilton Beach Resort and Spa, Denarau, Nadi, she said the survey would position them to formulate better policies and procedures where human resources were concerned.
“We’re up against the likes of the union telling us we need to lift our rates for particular positions, because the neighbor next door is paying so much,” Mrs Lockington said.
“If you don’t know that, you could be lulled into a false sense of reality.
“If we’re all fighting for the same sort of skilled workforce, then we all need to be paying correctly.”
The remuneration survey will give everyone a better appreciation of the going rate, Mrs Lockington said.
The survey will provide an improved appreciation of the little things that matter, which include meal allowances, paid sick leave, and transportation, she said.
“Understanding these things helps the human resources sector and general managers understand what they need to do to attract the right people, and provide the right remuneration to start off,” Mrs Lockington said.
“We want to be able to have data, and a fair idea and understanding that the industry already pays fairly high rates.
“We want to make sure that we can back this up with actual real data, so that we can put these forward in industry submissions put forward to the Government, and anybody else.”
Skills gap
The tourism industry was suffering skills gap concerns prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Mrs Lockington said.
“But the situation has gotten considerably worse,” she said.
“Post COVID-19, we had people not coming back into the industry, because they wanted to join industries where they could have full time work
“When we opened up, we did so fairly slowly.”
People have turned to farms and fishing, which has changed the working landscape in the tourism sector, Mrs Lockington said.
Some people opted to stay home, and work from home, or become their own bosses, she said.
“And kudos to them; things change,” she said.
“What’s made the situation worse is the demand from Australia and New Zealand, where they need hospitality workers.
“It’s not just tourism that is feeling it as an industry.”
Other industries have raised concerns about the challenges in finding people, Mrs Lockington said.
The association met with the Ministry of Employment to raise such concerns with the Fiji Commerce and Employers Federation, she said.
“We have asked for a couple of things,” Mrs Lockington said.
“It’s been quite hurtful to different businesses when your worker suddenly turns up and says, ‘Boss, I’m not going to work for you anymore. I’m going overseas’.
“We’d like some lead time, in terms of time frames, so that we know that we need to find other people.”
The Ministry of Labour has since been quite accommodating, she said.
“They’re going to put forward some policies to make sure that any support they’re providing for workers going overseas, somehow provides or requires a three month timeframe where you give your notice to your employer.
“That would provide us with a little bit of leeway.
“It’s not answering the problem fully, but at least it’s giving us a little bit of breathing room.”
Training
Trending within the tourism industry is the provision of a lot of training, Mrs Lockington said.
But training at the cost of staff leaving for greener pastures, is costly on matters such as productivity, she said.
“It’s a costly exercise for you to be consistently training,” Mrs Lockington said.
“The industry is training a little bit more because they’re having to replace the gaps more and more often.
“We don’t know how long this going to last.”
The tourism sector couldn’t compete with the kinds of wage rates offered by foreign countries, she said.
“That’s just not who we are,” Mrs Lockington said.
MEMBERSHIP
is
For the past two years, the association has given its members a 50 per cent discount for annual subscriptions.
Such subscription runs the secretariat, pays salaries, enables it to tap into legal counsel,and carry out research, Mrs Lockington said.