Rather than focusing on whether there's a skills gap, we need to consider what new employees, especially young people, bring to the workplace, and from there, ascertain how employers can best tap into their potential.
Like many businesses in the retail and hospitality sector, we take on thousands of young people each year - many in their first job - and what they may lack in specific skills they more than make up for in enthusiasm and appetite to learn. They energise the workplace and allow you to nurture your own talent, build loyalty and boost retention rates.
But no young person is the finished article, and you can't and shouldn't expect this when they join the company.
This is where employers come in. By offering high-quality training and qualifications, we can help people develop transferable skills that strengthen their natural abilities, help them perform better at work and create broader benefits for the individual too - whether that's accelerated career progression or newfound confidence to try new things in their out-of-work lives.
What remains a stubborn challenge for our sector is that not everyone recognises what a career in hospitality has to offer, and that can put them off before they even apply.
This means talented people are missing out on great opportunities to gain genuinely valuable, transferable skills, such as teamwork, communication skills and customer service.
If we can make people more open-minded about what all jobs have to offer, no matter what sector they are in, we'll boost the quality of job applicants and employees even more - and that is how we can start ensuring an even stronger future for our sector and for our jobs market.
