PLS REVIEW
Pub Leaders Summit 2022 Around 200 of Australia’s top publicans and industry leaders headed into Sydney for an action-packed day of presentations, panel discussions, and networking on April 4. Here are some highlights from the day.
Some key learnings
Keynote speaker Alicia Stephenson.
The staffing crisis was a key theme at this year’s Pub Leaders Summit and tackling the topic head on was workforce change expert Alicia Stephenson who took the stage as keynote speaker. In her presentation, Win the talent war: How to attract and retain Millennial Leaders and Gen Z workers, Stephenson kicked the day off with a research-backed analysis on cutting-edge recruitment, retention and leadership strategies for the recovering sector. As CEO of the Centre for Generational Dynamics and an organisational psychologist, Stephenson explored the key motivators for Millennial and Gen Z staff based on four years of data and deep dive discovery interviews. “What we need to realise is that in this industry, we capture
Stephenson outlined a number of research-backed techniques to keep new staff engaged and in the business for longer, including reward and recognition programs, mentorship, future
workers young. Now this is undeniably one of the industry’s
business owners training to encourage those with a side-gig, and
strengths… but the question is, what keeps young people in
‘meaning matters’ programs that bring staff together to make the
roles longer?”
world a better place.
With this in mind, Stephenson stressed the importance of the first six months of employment. “We need to understand that the longer that person stays in our organisation, the better that is for our bottom line. “The more we have to offer them, the less we will have to
“We need to break down that traditional idea of ‘this is where you begin and this is how you learn from the ground up’. “I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with that – everybody needs to learn the ropes,” she said. “But if we can have some exciting things injected into those first six months, new
attract and retain new people, so is it not incumbent upon us to
staff will get a much broader picture of the ecosystem and of what
make that first six-month experience a little bit more exciting?”
it’s like to work in hospitality.”
8 | Australian Hotelier
