Page 66 - Regional Employment & Skills Plan

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The Work-readiness of New Entrants to the Sector
The majority of employers engaged with feel that new entrants to the sector are not work ready. This is exclusively prevalent amongst young school leavers and young entrants generally.
The evidence indicates that effective communication skills are essential given the customer focused nature of the sector. These crucial skills are lacking amongst new entrants with many unable to converse effectively with customers and unable to deal with confrontation. The social skills of individuals were also found to be a barrier.
In conjunction with this, many are unaware of what is expected from them in a working environment e.g. a lack of commitment, no willingness to learn etc.
‘Younger employees have no concept of working within a professional environment and how to behave within this world. They struggle to communicate effectively, and do not know how to verbalise their thoughts and ideas in a coherent and productive way. They have valuable and interesting thoughts that should be capitalised on, but it can be difficult for them communicate these within a professional setting.’
‘Can sometimes lack key employability skills such as communication and understanding of what is expected in roles such as the importance of following policies and procedures, dangers in social media and basic guest service skills.’
Numeracy, Literacy and ICT Skills
The majority of employers spoken with feel that the majority of their staff possess the required level of numeracy, literacy and ICT skills to undertake their role. Those reported as having the weakest skills in this area are young new entrants.
For those that reported experiencing challenges in this area, ICT skills were cited as the most lacking;
‘The main area that is lacking is IT skills. Technology is moving at such a pace that most are not able to keep up or have a grasp of how social media / Cloud-computing / Wireless is progressing.’
Welsh Language
The Welsh language was cited as being either very or fairly important by the majority of employers. The primary reason for this is the belief that visitors enjoy hearing the language whether they themselves can speak it or not. It is equally important for staff to be able to converse with visitors and customers who are fluent in the language.
‘Guests from across the border are keen to see and immerse themselves within the culture of the places that they are visiting.’
‘We try to create a sense of place, visitors enjoy hearing the language spoken and locals are more comfortable when they can use Welsh.’
‘I would love to increase my own ability to speak Welsh... and for customer-facing staff to be able to welcome guests in Welsh. It is not critical... and I believe would add a valuable aspect to our offer.’
Barriers to Training
Analysis of the evidence indicates that the most significant barrier to training is the lack of fit for purpose training available locally. This then exacerbates further barriers such as cost and time as this results in employees having to be sent away further afield to receive training.
Regional Employment & Skills Plan South West & Mid Wales Sector Profiles