Wake up to the reality of hospitality

It's too easy to sit here and write about the exciting and quite forward-thinking ideas (well, they are in this sleepy neck of the woods) we plan to implement over the next few months, when really what I want to do is throw a cat among the pigeons.

Forever, it seems, I have been reading letters from people in this industry who lament the terrible conditions in which they work, the long hours, the low wages.

Well, I would like to be one of those who stands up and says: "Wait a minute - in many cases, things aren't so bad, and I resent being tarred with a brush when it doesn't apply." Maybe it's time we started to name and shame those establishments which don't recognise or acknowledge the value and importance of staff.

We don't claim to be perfect, but we work hard to ensure the lot of our staff is as happy as it can be in this business.

Like any business, we have our problems when it comes to personnel. Recruitment down here is difficult, mostly because we can't find many people with a decent attitude to work or an understanding of hospitality.

If you recruit through a JobCentre, you are lucky if they even turn up for an interview.

Then you get some people who turn up, are offered a job and are never seen again.

You get others who start work and think that, because they have done the job well for two weeks, they are entitled to a pay rise and promotion - or they'll leave.

Then there are those who don't accept the basic need to turn up on time and deliver a service to a standard expected by guests.

Bad apples who develop a self-centred, negative attitude often threaten to break the spirit of those who take the philosophy on board, and make the job much harder than it needs to be - and the law doesn't allow us to weed them out.

Re-establishing morale and team spirit is time-consuming and exhausting but nonetheless essential for management.

Hospitality is a tough business, and people have to accept that it involves working unsocial hours. It doesn't necessarily mean they have to work more than eight hours - management just have to ensure they are rewarded for it.

Extras such as a bit of a "do" for staff, as a reward during and after a busy season, go a long way to reviving flagging morale.

Simply recognising their effort and thanking them for it should be a matter of course.

So, come on, management - try not to forget what it was like when you were doing the job.

And employees - get with it and enter the industry with your eyes open.

Yvonne Scott is general manager of the Idle Rocks hotel, in St Mawes, Cornwall, a privately owned, 27-bedroom property. She has been there just over a year.

Next diary from Yvonne Scott: 20 June