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2021: General Discussion

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Dave said:
Seasonal staff will have been paid overtime or given the time back (overtime doesn’t have to be at a higher rate but people are not allowed to work extra hours for free).

Breaks between shifts are legally required, must be 11hrs minimum. Also the maximum working week is 60hrs.

That’s obviously assuming you worked there post WTD
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It was in your contract (back when I was there) that you opted out of the WTD. This way they could get away with 8:30am-9:30pm days at Fireworks. Valley staff got hit the worst here, as ERT was on Nemesis so we had to be open for 9am. You could tick a box to opt in to WTD, but this would probably mean your application would conveniently be overlooked.

I can assure you, seasonal staff got zero overtime payment. It was a flat hourly rate. The only "Brucie bonus" on 12hr+ days was a free meal at Magic HQ (as it was).
 
AstroDan said:
It's important to note Alton are seriously stretched at present in terms of staffing. I'm hopeful the recruitment drive currently underway will give them a buffer for summer.

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Just been away for a couple of days at the coast.
Never seen so many "Staff wanted" signs in windows in my life.
Even farms with HGV/pickers adverts at the gate.
 
pluk said:
The issue seems to be they don't have any buffer for issues. They plan for the absolute minimum resources possible then if anything changes late on with gate figure or sickness they are screwed. A false economy. They need to build in a resilience.
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AstroDan said:
It's important to note Alton are seriously stretched at present in terms of staffing. I'm hopeful the recruitment drive currently underway will give them a buffer for summer.

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It's all very well saying they need a buffer and they need to build in resilience, but as AstroDan says, as there are staff shortages due to recruitment issues it will be near impossible to do any of that in any meaningful way
 
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rob666 said:
Just been away for a couple of days at the coast.
Never seen so many "Staff wanted" signs in windows in my life.
Even farms with HGV/pickers adverts at the gate.
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I'm recruiting at the moment and it's incredibly tough. You also have the national shortage of HGV drivers which is incredibly crippling to almost every retail and hospitality business in the country. More so than the so called "front line" recruitment issues I'd say

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This is what happens when you rely on cheaper foreign labour and cut the wages of British people because of this. When the cheap foreign labour is not available any more in sufficient numbers British people don't want to do it any more as the wages are terrible. Totally self-inflicted and down to greed and pushing for ever-increasing profits at the expense of existing staff.
 
The neverending furlough story certainly won't be helping recruiters either.

I think the HGV driver shortages are also down to a lack of new people coming through to do the job. I have to deal with logistics companies in my job and over the past 6 years I have yet to see one driver who's younger than 40. Those that are still doing the job are overworked due to staff shortages.

Merlin are just one of many who have taken their ground level employees for granted and now it's coming back to bite them. I mean, if there's a choice between stacking shelves or working in guest services at AT taking abuse from 'Karens' all day, I know which I'd prefer to do for minimum wage.

I hope the penny starts to drop and they increase wages and benefits to make the roles at the Resort more appealing to applicants, but knowing Merlin, they'll just stick their head in the sand and hope it sorts itself out.
 
The medium term goal of opening the park for more periods (day visits over Christmas and brining back Feb Half Term for example) could well help them in terms of staffing issues.

The fact they only offer Mar-Nov contracts for many roles will always reduce the number of people who will apply. Being able to offer longer period contracts or even annualised hours permanent contracts could help them attract more applicants.
 
To be honest, I think most employers are sticking their heads in the sand with this. For years they've offered false pay rises by offering a higher rate of pay whilst destroying pension schemes and attacking shift premiums. Contracted hours seem to be getting smaller and smaller, flexibility demands appear to be getting higher, organic progression opportunities have been slashed back by never ending culls of management positions, the management positions that remain are on lower wages than they used to be. Adverts are now whacked up under these conditions despite the fact things have changed and few are applying.

As for HGV drivers, 2 decades ago before WTD drivers could put in loads of overtime (I'm not making opinions on WTD by writing this post by the way) and many companies were offering to train drivers to get their HGV license for free. This is no longer the case.

Curtail your expectations, AT will not resolve their recruitment problems by the end of this season.
 
What with the planning application submitted for a temporarily permanent stage for the next few years, and this, it does look like Towers is finally taking entertainment seriously! Very good to see :)


They must be pretty confident about this planning application, even though I have just seen this on the planning application http://publicaccess.staffsmoorlands.gov.uk/portal/servlets/AttachmentShowServlet?ImageName=274969

Typical NIMBYs. Do they not realise the stage is already up and running?! I know nothing about the planning process so this could be just "paperwork" rather than an actual objection that could scupper the application - anyone know if this is enough to reject it?
 
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Matt.GC said:
To be honest, I think most employers are sticking their heads in the sand with this. For years they've offered false pay rises by offering a higher rate of pay whilst destroying pension schemes and attacking shift premiums. Contracted hours seem to be getting smaller and smaller, flexibility demands appear to be getting higher, organic progression opportunities have been slashed back by never ending culls of management positions, the management positions that remain are on lower wages than they used to be. Adverts are now whacked up under these conditions despite the fact things have changed and few are applying.

As for HGV drivers, 2 decades ago before WTD drivers could put in loads of overtime (I'm not making opinions on WTD by writing this post by the way) and many companies were offering to train drivers to get their HGV license for free. This is no longer the case.

Curtail your expectations, AT will not resolve their recruitment problems by the end of this season.
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It's not just Towers - the hospitality industry as a whole has been hit hard by Covid. In lockdown one many of the Eastern European staff who work in this sector just returned to their home country. It's amazing how heavily this sector relied on staff from Eastern Europe.

I used to work for a Motorway Services operator. Quite a few synergies with Towers here. Mainly minimum wage roles, locations that are hard / impossible to get to without your own transport. Long & anti-social hours (24/7 in the case of the services). I've just looked at the company in questions website and there are over 150 vacancies listed. Of these, about 120 are for minimum wage roles & they have even upped the rate to £9.21 at some sites (& in some cases provide free on-site accommodation) to try and attract people to the roles. From what I gather, they are not having much luck either as the Eastern Europeans are staying away.

If you browse the Center Parcs careers website there are 8 pages of jobs up there at present. The vast majority are all minimum wage (or slightly over it) roles in Bar work / Waiting staff / Kitchen staff etc. Yes, Center Parcs locations are remote, but they do provide some staff transport times to match common shift start & end times. Whilst a car is useful if you work for them, you can get away without one.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the hospitality sector when furlough ends. I think a lot of UK workers entitled to furlough quite enjoyed it - stay at home and still get paid 70% (down from the original 80%). For some, having to return to work is not going down well & there are no Eastern Europeans to fill the roles.

I remember just after the Brexit vote I was chatting to a Polish friend over here. She said that if the Polish workers all went home there would be food supply-chain issues to the supermarkets as it was mainly foreign workers who pick food in the fields, pack food, make the pre-pack sandwiches for supermarkets etc. How true her words now sound.

I can see that Towers will have to improve it's pay in order to attract & retain seasonal staff. Given the location of Towers & the cost of getting to/from the park for staff, Towers pay will need to be above the minimum wage to cover transport costs. If the hospitality sector in Uttoxeter / Stoke on Trent etc is offering roles at / just over the minimum wage, but with vastly reduced travel costs / time for the staff, they will vote with their feet and take a role closer to home. I can't say I'd blame then either.

Nick Varney has made clear his desire to pay staff at the Southern RTP's more to cover the higher cost of living down there. He may well find those words come back to bite him if he wants to successfully recruit and retain staff at Towers.
 
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I work at towers and I know so many staff this season are fed up with the pay and the treatment from managers and so are just leaving because they’ve found jobs closer to home/with better pay. There’s so many people leaving each week and in general so many staff are fed up this season more so than previous ones
 
lol said:
I work at towers and I know so many staff this season are fed up with the pay and the treatment from managers and so are just leaving because they’ve found jobs closer to home/with better pay. There’s so many people leaving each week and in general so many staff are fed up this season more so than previous ones
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That is worrying. I know all was not rosy when I worked there many moons ago, but it sounds like nothing as bad as it is now. Could be a very eventual Scarefest / Fireworks if the covid restrictions continue to relax & Towers have to turn to agency staff who have not had the benefit of a season's work experience.

Back in about 2003 they had to employ a load a Slovakian agency workers to make the staffing numbers up on the rides in the Valley. One was hilarious - he turned up with his briefcase every day to put his rota into. Hmm... 2hrs on, 30mins off. Repeat. You really need a briefcase for that?!
 
Some new outlets appear to have cropped up on the lawns:

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