Scots Shunning Service Sector Jobs
It appears that, in Scotland at least, workers are shunning job opportunities in the burgeoning customer service sector, preferring instead to claim unemployment benefit..
There are in excess of 6000 tourism-related vacancies in Glasgow alone,
which are proving impossible to fill. This is despite the fact that an
estimated 100,000 people are jobless in the city. For a number of reasons,
this is an extremely worrying development, the most obvious of which is the
sociological impact. However, I’ll leave that to the sociologists and
economists to worry about, except to make one observation.
In recent years there has been a groundswell of opinion, fuelled by a
combination of the tabloid press and certain politicians, that gangs of
‘asylum seekers’ are invading our shores in a manner not seen since the
rampaging Viking hordes. The only difference is that whilst the Vikings
tended to specialise in rape and pillage, these latter-day immigrants are
merely pinching our jobs. The masses are up in arms about this. Indeed there
is a small, but significant number who rank this as the biggest problem
facing our nation today – higher than health, education or crime. Yet,
without immigrant workers our service industries would be facing extinction,
going down the same rocky road as manufacturing in the UK.
Thank Goodness for the Poles then, for it is predominantly they who are
coming to rescue of our hoteliers, restaurateurs and retailers. The number
of Poles living in Scotland has risen by almost 150% since their homeland
joined the European Union in 2004. It is they, along with economic migrants
from other states, who are keeping Glasgow’s service sector afloat. Without
them, recruitment would become increasingly difficult.
There would appear to be a number of reasons why Scots don’t seem to find
the jobs on offer attractive. It is partly an esteem issue, with many people
perceiving that the roles are somehow below them. Perhaps this perception is
more widely held than previously recognised.
Part of the problem is the Big Brother syndrome. We live in a society today
where a cheap shot at fame is everything. From Big Brother to Pop Idol,
wannabees are being converted into ‘stars’ overnight. From dead-end to front
page of The Sun in the blink of an eye. It doesn’t matter that their descent
is even more rapid, everybody wants their fifteen minutes, whether
they have any talent or not. People aspire to be famous, that, irrespective
of the fact that there’s only a one in a million probability of it ever
coming off. Sadly, they do not aspire to serving customers. Wrongly, very
wrongly, they see it as demeaning.
It would be unfair to pile all the blame onto poor old reality TV. It gets
enough bad press without me adding to it. There is no doubt that businesses
themselves have to shoulder some responsibility. For years now it has been
the norm within organisations to shove their most junior, most
inexperienced, least skilled members of staff onto the ‘front-line’ to deal
with the customers. God forbid that they should be allowed to do anything
important, like administration or management. No way. People work up to such
positions within organisations. The longer you work there, the further away
you get from the customer. Such an approach is fundamentally flawed. The
most important job in any organisation is serving the customer. Get that
wrong and you won’t be in business for long. The reality is that service
staff should be treated like royalty in organisations. Unfortunately, it
doesn’t work that way.
Front-line staff in service industries are generally left to fend for
themselves, often untrained, unsupported, unloved and unappreciated. Any fly
on the boardroom wall will tell you that they don’t talk about customers in
the corridors of power. They talk about big stuff, like turnover,
cost/income ratios, cost per acquisition and return on investment. Anything
but customers. And maybe that goes some way towards explaining why
prospective employees look down on jobs in the service sector. Could it be
because the employers themselves don’t think that their front-line staff are
very valuable?
There is one silver lining, though. The economic migrants from Poland and
the rest of Europe regard employment in the service industries as worthy.
They have come from a culture where good service is highly valued and is
seen as a prerequisite by organisations. They take great pride in providing
a high standard of service, unlike the current situation in the UK. Here, by
whatever measure you choose, customer service standards are in decline.
Recently, I have encountered surly, bad-tempered, rude, sarcastic,
unintelligible and downright unhelpful customer service staff. Maybe it
comes back to the fact that they don’t really want to be serving us in the
first place. After all, I’m certain that the ones who opt-out by claiming
the dole are only the tip of the iceberg. But I’m hoping that by introducing
service workers who actually still believe in delivering good old fashioned
customer service will mean that we all get better service in the future.
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