Tourism group's new staffing service leverages Florida's off-season
Photo / Laurie Schreiber
Maine’s growing tourism market is also increasing the need for seasonal workers. The Maine Tourism Association has launched a staffing service to help tackle the workforce shortage.
The Maine Tourism Association is creating a nonprofit staffing service to help its members meet their seasonal and year-round staffing challenges.
The Hallowell-based association recently hired Kathryn Ference as a staffing and recruitment specialist for the new initiative, Maine Tourism Staffing Solutions.
The staffing service helps members address their workforce challenges by bringing in workers from other states whose busy season is the opposite of Maine’s, according to the association's newsletter.
The program is funded by the trade association's revenue. For a fee, Maine Tourism Staffing Solutions will advertise jobs, find and interview candidates and perform background checks. In addition to the fee, the client pays for the transportation and must have housing available for the workers.
The program got started in response to a labor shortage that today is the Maine tourism industry’s largest obstacle, Maine Tourism Association CEO Chris Fogg told Mainebiz.
“The lack of workforce is negatively impacting businesses,” he said. “They’re closing a little early, or not opening sections of hotels or have limited hours.”
In the past, he said, solutions revolved around partnering with entities like the state Department of Labor, universities and workforce development programs.
“Those are important and are a piece of the puzzle to solving the workforce crisis,” Fogg said. But in addition, “We decided to take a different tack, to get into the recruiting business and talk with opposite-season destinations like Florida, California and Utah.”
The program has been ramping up to begin recruiting an initial round of workers from Florida for the summer of 2020, he said.
“We’ve had some companies say, ‘If you could give me 25 new workers next season, we’ll take them,’” Fogg said. “Our goal for next year is to recruit 50 employees. This is a work in progress and we’ll learn a lot as we go. The partners we’re working with understand that we have to build program together.”
Many Maine tourism businesses experience their biggest labor crunch in the summer, Ference said. However, the planning process revealed there’s a growing need for year-round employees. “So we’ll do both seasonal and year-round recruiting,” she added.
Ference, formerly a supervisor at Bonney Staffing Center Inc. in Augusta, said she’s working on two job orders now. Both are for employers in south coastal Maine that hope to recruit year-round, higher-level workers.
The process for connecting with employees involves face-to-face interaction, she explained. She plans to travel to Florida for two weeks this January to hold job fairs and do some marketing to potential recruits.
“I’ll meet them in person and tell them about the properties here, where they could be working: ‘This could be your summer,’” she said.
The program is also building an online presence through social media and jobs websites like Indeed. Maine Tourism Association has set up a staffing page on its website.
“This is not the silver bullet that will solve the workforce problem,” said Fogg. “But it’s a key component.”
Job openings for summer hospitality positions in Maine are expected to number 2,000 to 3,000.
Another association tackling the workforce shortage with new programs is HospitalityMaine in Augusta. Earlier this year, the trade group launched an apprenticeship program for the state’s hospitality industry. In August, it brought together 80 educators, businesspeople, government officials and nonprofit leaders in a symposium to discuss opportunities for using apprentices to solve the state’s labor shortage.
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