Angela Aveyard, specialist recruiter in the Hospitality & Legal sector at PCS, took us through some of the developments in this sector. Interesting to note is the buoyancy of the sector this year compared to last, and recruitment demand appears to be back to where it was pre-recession.
Q: How has 2015 been so far in terms of recruitment in your section?
Angela: This year has started off well and continues to uptrend compared to previous years. March was a particularly good month for us in terms of number of placements and placement fee. I think it is going to be an exciting year ahead as businesses continue to strengthen and expand within the Hospitality Industry.
Q: What do you believe are the reasons for this?
Angela: Our department at PCS is currently nicely structured and we have a great team of professionals from the industry in place to properly service our clients and fully understand their needs, which is essential. People value good quality service. We certainly appear to be back on track in regards to number of assignments (very close to the numbers we enjoyed pre-recession) and generally morale out there appears to be very positive.
Q: There has been a lot of talk about a slowdown in infrastructure spending in SA. Is this affecting your sector?
Angela: Not really as the industry is already pretty well established. South Africa is a very industrious country and I think many businesses within our sector are working smarter and using their current facilities and amenities but are coming up with different innovative ideas to utilise their space and offerings better within the industry. Marketing strategies have also evolved.
Are companies expanding abroad to compensate for the slack in SA? Our industry has always relied to a large degree on international visitors and clientele so this remains unchanged in my view. I think innovative and rather aggressive marketing remains key here to ensure that we still get the influx of international leisure trade and local corporate and government trade.
Q: What would you say are the major trends recruitment-wise in 2015?
Angela: We are seeing a lot more in-house corporate hospitality positions on the horizon. It is often cheaper for corporates to get permanent in-house hospitality staff to handle conferences/meetings/events than to pay outsourced companies especially those that need to conference/entertain/team build their staff/clients regularly. Social Networking/Media is continuing to dominate marketing trends in the industry. Speed of delivery is certainly key in recruitment currently, with so many agents available in the current market, only those that provide fast and efficient service are generally rewarded with the business and survive.