VENUE FEATURE: HAMLET
A solution to the hospitality industry staff shortage could be right under many employer’s noses – they might just need to think outside the square in terms of their “ideal employee” SINCE opening the doors to Hamlet six years ago, CEO Emily Briffa has helped provide more than 30,000 hours of work experience to over 300 Tasmanians, many who have struggled with unemployment. Around 60 per cent of the participants who come through Hamlet’s training programs identify as havingadisability –whichhas playeda significant role in their challenge to find full time jobs. The café provides course inductees with basic hospitality skills in a range of different areas, which Ms Briffa says arms them with the required tools to land a role once they have graduated. Importantly, participants also feel a sense of belonging while increasing self-esteem and morale. However, completion of the course doesn’t always lead to a job, despite the gaping holes across the industry as it emerges from two years of Covid-19 carnage. “One of the biggest things we want to do is start
to build pipelines with potential employers for our participants,” Ms Briffa says. “We’ve got a really good relationship at the moment with a few larger scale employers, but we want to sort of build that out so participants who have graduated from the Hamlet training program have the potential to move straight into work. “The one thing that’s missing for us is that next step for a lot of our participants, especially those who have a disability. “They do so well here, they sort of build all these skills and they get so confident on the floor, but then it doesn’t necessarily translate very easily into paid employment elsewhere.” Ms Briffa believes the stigma attached with hiring someone with a disability is a factor in the hesitancy to offer them a position in the often- chaotic nature of hospitality. Breaking down those barriers via education is a focus for Ms Briffa, who has seen firsthand the real benefits of giving those who have faced difficulty in securing full time employment an opportunity. “I think everyone in the industry is a bit guilty of doing it. We sort of have this idea of the perfect employee, like they’ll have all these skills and
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