Mildura hospitality course serves up the jobs

SIXTEEN people started a three-day Mildura training course to connect jobseekers with hospitality work.

By the start of the third day, 12 had already secured jobs, and the rest were expected to do the same within weeks.

Meanwhile, another 46 people have their names down for the next running of the course, which business owners will monitor in a sort of draft camp for waiters, bar workers and other front-of-house staff.

Such is the dearth of workers in Sunraysia’s COVID-gutted hospitality industry, which is still thought to be 200 workers short as a post-pandemic summer tourist season looms.

But the unprecedented success of the training model, set up by the Local Jobs Taskforce and MADEC as an emergency response to the shortage, has been so great that it now will be expanded and extended to other industries.

Taskforce member and MADEC regional development manager Tim Jordan said he had never seen an industry training program work so effectively or so quickly.

The Hospitality Bootcamp had been organised within a fortnight, applicants had flocked to the opportunity provided through their job-search networks, and employers had embraced the chance to identify and hire ready-to-work staff.

“We have several local employers here who can engage with the clients after they’ve done their practical skills to talk to them about the benefits of the industry,” Mr Jordan said.

“We know that through the pandemic, the industry is really suffering … (the course is) a proactive approach to get new people engaged in the industry.

“There is a lot of demand (for workers) there. There is a lot of people who have left the industry because of COVID, but that enables people who a year ago might not have had to the opportunity to join the industry.”

Funded by the Federal Government, the course is free for participants and provides three days of specific training, the first two focused on responsible serving of alcohol and food handling, and the third “is all about enabling them with the practical skills to go out there and hit the ground running in the industry, which is essentially new to them”, Mr Jordan said.

Prospective employers have taken part in the course, posing as customers on the third day to enable interaction with trainees. Among them was Joseph Carrazza, of Pizza Cafe at the Grand, and Francois Lotter, of the APCO service station chain, who agreed that being able to actually see what potential workers could do was an invaluable hiring tool.

Mildura Rural City councillor, restaurateur and taskforce member Stefano de Pieri also acted as a customer, using his experience to create challenging experiences for trainees, such as complaining that he’d been served the wrong order.

Trainee Siairah Lanza, 24, of Mildura, has worked in hospitality before and said the course was great for providing participants with confidence in face-to-face industry.

“It’s a challenging job sometimes because your nerves can strike and sometimes you don’t know what to say, sometimes you don’t know how to act, what to do,” she said.

“You can get flustered, under pressure, but you’ve just got to take it at your own pace … and smile all the time, and you’ll find your way.”

Fellow trainee Priscilla Paisley, 40 and a mother of five, said that after being a full-time parent for years, opportunities in the hospitality industry had offered her “my time to get out there”. She said the course was “very useful, there’s been a lot to learn”.

Local Jobs employment facilitator Tony Laria said the success of the program had been “extraordinary”.

“The employers really appreciate the opportunity to meet (a group of ) applicants all together and engage with them,” he said.

“This is a pilot. We’re currently drawing up a couple of pilot programs with the same model in tourism, in particular, housekeeping and the accommodation industry, which we’ll be rolling out next,” he said.

A second course in Mildura, this time with 25 places, will begin on December 28. MADEC is also planning to set up similar course at Swan Hill and Horsham. Potential applicants for any of the courses can find out more through their job-search providers.