By Glenn Mandziuk, President and Chief Executive Officer of Thompson Okanagan Tourism Region
Glenn MandziukTourism throughout the country, and certainly in our Thompson Okanagan Region, continues to experience challenges due to growing labour shortages.
Attracting, retraining and retaining individuals to our industry is of primary concern and certainly affects our Industries’ long term ability to deliver remarkable experiences and in some cases prevents operators from providing any experiences at all, particularly in the high season.
Through a partnership between the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Association and go2HR established in 2016 we were able to initiate a jointly funded Regional Tourism Specialist based in Kelowna which go2HR has subsequently continued to maintain.
Over this past year through this partnership, we have embarked on several innovative projects including a recent Alberta recruitment trip where several industry stakeholders joined us, as well as the development of online recruitment brochures and videos focused on attracting both Millennials and Baby Boomers to tourism employment opportunities.
Our approach to creating these online pieces was slightly different than traditional methods. Our teams collaborated with Millennial’s and Boomers through a series of in person meetings and interviews.
These unscripted conversations focused on exploring their interests, priorities, current plans, considerations for the future and potential motivators for employment. Surprisingly, or perhaps not so surprisingly, we discovered that these two groups, while polarized by age, were not polarized by interests which often overlapped.
Many of their goals and aspirations relating to potential job opportunities were very similar whether considering a “first” or “next” career.
Frequently both groups expressed their desire to ensure work/life balance, to take on positions that involved being outside or in nature, to do something that made a difference in their life, community, region, or even the world.
They cited that achieving some form of personal growth, helping others and having a variety of experiences were often factors in their consideration of potential positions. These ideals married nicely with many tourism opportunities and aligning the two became our focus for the video development.
View these new tourism recruitment pieces We hope you will take the time to watch and share these videos and to consider the comments of the participants as you recruit for the coming season and into future years.
Although Millennials and Boomers have been raised in vastly different eras and exposed to dramatically different forms of technology, yet both are navigating their way through life in unique and yet often very similar ways.
Glenn Mandziuk can be reached via email or through the Thompson Okanagan Tourism Region website.