When I stand in front of the grill to feed the weekend lunch crowd I laugh to myself as I remember being told to ‘go to school so you don’t end up flipping burgers.’ And yet, Ivy League master’s degree and all, I find myself flipping and serving burgers every week. I have worked in hospitality for over a decade. It is a career I have left twice, once for graduate school and again due to the pressures of a post-pandemic industry. It is also a career I keep coming back to.

Why? In my personal experience as a chef, I find the creative outlet in the kitchen as beneficial to my work as a writer. I am engaged with my community in a way I couldn’t be when I worked in an office. Still, my choice to continue working as a chef can be confusing for people who see hospitality work as little more than a means to an end on the way to getting a ‘real job’.

Hospitality can offer a lot of potential for people who may not have many other options, but that does not make it a ‘last resort’, and this perception only serves to hurt the industry. In 2016, food-related A-levels were scrapped and this caused a decline in food education throughout secondary schools in the UK, amplifying the poor perception of hospitality work. 

Charitable organisations, such as School Food Matters, have stepped in to provide funding for food education programmes, but a lack of exposure to food-related studies makes it highly unlikely for young people to even consider what a career in hospitality would look like. Despite my own efforts to connect with youth employment groups and mentorship programmes, I have heard zero response from employment officers actively avoiding placement in hospitality jobs for young people. It can be easy to be frustrated with the public for not valuing the work and expertise required to run their favourite eateries, but the industry itself also has a lot to answer for. Low pay, long hours and unsafe working conditions are only a few of the reasons employment groups avoid hospitality placement. To change this, we need to be changing these practices from within. 

Hospitality education non-profit Saira Hospitality is doing this by implementing localised education programmes and partnering with hospitality businesses to provide subsidised payment to its students. Historically the organisation has been focused on placing students in hotel jobs or with bigger hospitality brands.

“Hotels offer such a vast variety of roles. No other hospitality business can offer such breadth, which means that anyone, regardless of their background, can find a role and career that’s suited to them,” says Greg Früchtenicht, Saira Hospitality’s director of partnerships. “Our work in London has focused on hotels in 2022, however in 2023 we’re also beginning to work with local restaurants for those candidates that are more interested in the world of F&B. Restaurants are suffering as much as hotels at the moment, and our ambition is to support as many businesses as possible.” 

Larger F&B groups have already identified a need to give employees access to benefits that help them to pursue a clear career path. ETM restaurant group provides employees incentives like staff discounts, private healthcare and long-term employment benefits; it also offers a fully-funded graduate management programme.

“We spent money on a campaign to drive high-quality applicants, and we are paying them a good salary for an 18-month period where we aren’t banking on getting a huge amount of productivity out of them at certain periods of that duration,” says Rachel Masing, director of people at ETM. “By extending our talent pool of candidates and fast-tracking managers into roles we can reap the rewards of high performance, skill and brand loyalty later down the track.”

While groups like ETM are working to set a new industry standard, organisations like Countertalk and Healthy Hospo are working to change the industry from within, by directing a lot of their efforts at individuals working in the industry, as well as business owners. Countertalk arranges online seminars and meet-ups for industry professionals to network and share knowledge with one another and offers access to vetted job listings, which give hospitality professionals a higher sense of security when they apply to jobs. 

Meanwhile Healthy Hospo takes a holistic approach to changing how hospitality operates, starting with the mental well-being of those working in the industry. “Instead of fishing people out of the water, we basically walk upstream and try to figure out where these people fall in the water in the first place and prevent them from doing so,” says Jason-Candid Knüsel, Healthy Hospo’s managing director.

A fifteen-year veteran of the industry himself, Knüsel knows all too well how low profit margins, long hours and low pay can impact the health of people in the industry. The organisation works to push industry players to change their practices through implementing healthier communication between management and staff and more sustainable rotas to avoid burnout. By working with large and small groups to capitalise on partnerships with bigger brands, Healthy Hospo is also able to fund other free mindfulness events like yoga classes, in-person training and a range of free online education programmes for industry professionals.

“I firmly believe that if you want to see change, you’re going to have to be the change, and then actively work towards that goal,” Knüsel says. 

Public perception is that employees in this sector are unskilled and expendable, yet there are signs in the windows of bars, restaurants and hotels all over the country asking for  ‘experienced staff’. Those of us picking up the slack for a near 700 percent increase in job vacancies over the last year know that the skill required to do this work is irrefutable. Like any other industry, institutional knowledge is valuable. Losing employees means we are also losing skills that would help to train a new generation of hospitality workers. 

Hospitality has always pulled me back because I enjoy the creativity I find in kitchens. I love the flexibility of the industry and how it allows me to have three projects on the go, but that shouldn’t come at the expense of stability. Making workplaces safer and providing clear employment paths for our teams can only benefit the industry. It is hard to get someone to invest in a career they can’t see a future in, so we need to start making that future a reality.