Why Hospitality in South Australia “Doesn’t work”! First part – Labour force

Introduction

It has been a couple of years since I have been working and living in South Australia. I am working within the business of Hospitality as a Manager, and I have 25 years of experience in the field. I am working in a café and cellar door in the countryside, where I have had the chance to deal with all problems correlated with the local industry and its stakeholders.

Hospitality in South Australia does not work!

Why and how could we fix it!?

There are three main motives for this situation:

1. Labour force motivation
2. Customers’ requirements
3. Food environment

I would like to discuss with you the labour force motivation in the post below. Stay tuned for the remaining three coming, plus the conclusion and solutions.   

Labour force motivation:

As we know, Hospitality is a tough job to work in, and workers’ motivations are really important and have to be taken into consideration. Yes, maybe you could say working in a mine or being a builder is a tougher job; however, in Hospitality, you deal with problems that make it pretty ‘difficult’ and sometimes silently harder and impossible to stand.

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  People:

  
  

Working with human beings adds layers of difficulty, psychology is highly involved in the business, and to be a happy, good worker in hospitality, you have to possess a pretty unique profile and interpersonal skills, which nowadays are getting rare to find.

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  Social Needs:

  
  

Hospitality is famous for being a working sector with no social life unless you are working for your friends, obviously. You work during weekends, school holidays, public holidays, evenings and social events. It is also a job with long shifts, which leaves you not in the mood for meeting other people or participates to external activities. If you have a family, you skip the majority of family reunions; if you don’t, you will struggle to make one, unless, obviously, you do not marry a colleague. (which often happens)

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  Professional Gratification:

  
  

Unfortunately, while there are segments of Australian cuisine that are World standard, the majority of the population does not experience eating at such a level, and for at least one meal in three, sustains itself through fast food outlets. Quality-food appreciation is generally relatively low, with people often opting for convenience and price over nutrition and taste, (often forced on them by poverty and cultural expectations) and so many professional chefs (who have huge portfolios of skills and experience) do not achieve the appreciation and the skill/financial recognition they deserve, and thus find it difficult to settle down here. The skills of these chefs will not be passed on to future generations, who will suffer as a consequence.

Note: I still remember one of the first times I visited when an airport customs guard had stopped me, asking to describe my job as she was not aware of the sommelier as a hospitality profession.

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  Money:

  
  

Working in a restaurant or a café is a low-paid job here in South Australia; In comparison with Italy In Australia you gain a bit more money, but if you do compare with the local market, working as a café or restaurant Manager in Australia, you are way below the average.

Let’s have a quick look at the data:

In Italy, as a manager in Hospitality, you gain an average EUR31.800 equivalent to USD36,258 per year (ref:1). The GDP per capita in Italy is USD31,952 (ref:2). You gain $+4,458 more than the average person, which gives you advantages in terms of purchasing power and can justify sacrifices correlated with the profession.

In Australia, the average wage for a manager is AUD54,630, equivalent to USD38,564 per year (ref:3), while the Australian GDP per capita is USD53,799 (ref:4). You gain $-15,235 less than the average person, which makes you pretty disadvantaged in comparison with easier and more socially friendly professions, especially with family and kids.

This is an economic discrepancy which is not creating incentives for the generations to come; It may be argued that money is not the primary factor for human self-actualisation but they do a great difference when all the other factors are missing or not influential enough.

In conclusion:

In conclusion, the labour force is mainly made up of temporary workers who aim to collect some money for other purposes and then quickly leave the sector once their goals are achieved. Turnover is high, creating instability in the industry and making the relationship between business/worker difficult; business owners are not investing in career development, and workers are not really caring about their knowledge in the field. Customers’ habits also have a strong impact on this difficult relationship (which I will discuss in the following post). The final outcome is a constant struggling sector, a vortex of dissatisfaction in which automation will soon breach in. (Automation in Hospitality post – coming soon)

Thank you for reading me, and please leave your comments below. I will be happy to share and discuss the topic.

The second part will be available soon here.

Enjoy your work and greetings from South Australia.

Simone Berliat

Manager – Consultant in Hospitality

References:

1.    RESTAURANT MANAGER SALARY (ITALY)

In-text: (Payscale.com, 2018)

Your Bibliography: Payscale.com. (2018). Restaurant Manager Salary (Italy). [online] Available at: https://www.payscale.com/research/IT/Job=Restaurant_Manager/Salary [Accessed 28 Oct. 2018].

2.    GDP PER CAPITA (CURRENT US$) | DATA

In-text: (Data.worldbank.org, 2018)

Your Bibliography: Data.worldbank.org. (2018). GDP per capita (current US$) | Data. [online] Available at: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD?locations=IT [Accessed 28 Oct. 2018].

3.    RESTAURANT MANAGER SALARY (AUSTRALIA) | PAYSCALE

In-text: (Payscale.com, 2018)

Your Bibliography: Payscale.com. (2018). Restaurant Manager Salary (Australia) | PayScale. [online] Available at: https://www.payscale.com/research/AU/Job=Restaurant_Manager/Salary [Accessed 29 Oct. 2018].

4.    AU GDP PER CAPITA (CURRENT US$) | DATA

In-text: (Data.worldbank.org, 2019)