In relation to the identified priorities in the Guidance & Essential criteria what will your idea achieve and who will benefit from your project?
We aim to make our South Ayrshire Key Worker role more sustainable, increasing hours; to offer ongoing support/mentorship for trainees, leading to more skilled, confident and passionate people steadily employed in the hospitality and tourism industry, especially in costal tourism areas
Please describe what you plan to do and what the money will be used for? (i.e., purchase equipment/resources)
We are requesting funding to increase the hours of our Ayrshire Key Worker – Bridging the gap of the Ayrshire key worker wage will support year-round support on the ground to meet new and existing candidates and support them to retrain and gain skills and encourage them into the vacancies that the tourism industry has due to the staffing crisis in the sector.
Funding to expand the scope of this role would not only provide essential ongoing support to the trainees but also make the Key Worker job in South Ayrshire more sustainable, increasing hours from the 20-25 up to 35-40. This would increase their income, benefiting their family as well as allowing Hi People to provide a more dedicated service for the communities we are working in in South Ayrshire; particularly those in rural and coastal areas where there are additional barriers such as transport links and lack of local work experience opportunities.
Hub International (Hi People CIC) deliver pop-up Hospitality Schools across the West of Scotland which are employability courses to engage and motivate trainees whilst using the themes of hospitality and tourism to make it relevant to in-demand sectors in the regions. We work directly with referral partners such as Thriving Communities, DWP and individual JobCentres to encourage eligible candidates to engage with the programme; it's intended to capture the attention of anyone over age of 16 and unemployed with an aim to maximise inclusion.
We use our passion, skills and experience to motivate & upskill the workforce through innovative, fun & hands on training, qualifications and mentoring support.
Hub’s work organically has a strong link to local place plans as we are passionate about developing local tourism destination development and we understand that communities and the people working in tourism businesses are the key to success. We need more skilled and passionate people in the hospitality and tourism industry, especially in costal tourism areas where there is also high deprecation such as Ayr.
Our work supports people and families to build futures that benefit generations through the honing of immeasurable skills that can help them secure work to provide for their families, cookery skills to support families to grow their knowledge of food, and budgeting to get out of food poverty.
If we were funded for increasing Key Worker hours - ongoing aftercare support would be possible, with more support and mentorship in the region, which will lead to more sustained employment and less people leaving and reduce the risk of any candidate returning to unemployment status.
Location: Our key worker would support candidates up and down the South Ayrshire coastline – with a focus on the coastal areas which are our tourism destinations – this includes larger places like Ayr, Prestwick and Troon, but also extends to the smaller villages such as Dunure, Maybole and Maidens who may face more challenges with workforce.
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