As a former prison chief, Trevor Wilson Smith spent much of his career dealing with teenagers who committed serious crimes. Now he is solving hotel guests’ problems at a luxury country retreat in North Yorkshire.
The 68-year-old left his retirement in 2022 and worked as a concierge on the vast castle grounds of the Swinton Park Hotel, joining the ranks of seniors and alleviating a critical staff shortage in the hospitality industry. Previously managing a team of around 200 people, he has reported to a 24-year-old supervisor.
A study from HR Management System’s employment heroes shows that a generation of baby boomers has increased by just 10% to supplement their income and maintain their activity by returning to the role of casual hospitality. The sector has the second highest employment growth for this age group after finance and insurance.
A previous survey on Caterer.com found that people in their 50s and older account for more than a third of the hospitality industry’s workforce, with 165,000 people participating in the sector over the past three years, as it is based on ONS data.
Their return partially reverses trends seen early in the pandemic.
Today, hospitality is once a highly turnover culture of long, hard grafts, evolving into a more flexible working environment, thus bringing back older workers. Employers say they are drawn to the wide range of roles and social factors that the industry offers. They found that more recruiting in this age group increased staff retention compared to, say, more temporary younger people and students.
Wilson Smith says he has rejoined the labour market to stay active mentally and physically, not for financial reasons. He usually works two eight-hour shifts a week. This is a flexible arrangement that benefits him and his employer. He is well suited to accommodate last-minute ROTA requests that may be more problematic for employees with other commitments.
Some of the UK’s biggest hospitality companies are now targeting seniors directly. For example, Pub and Hotel Chain (Fuller’s) has partnered with Rest Less, a digital community and job venue for people in their 50s and above, and employs a recruitment strategy to attract this cohort. Measures that include more recruitment materials including age – including fine-tuned language depicting older workers – helped twice the number of people over 50 at 185 managed venues in Fuller. According to people and talent director Dawn Browne, age group currently accounts for 12% of the company’s workforce.
“I thought, for example, I still thought the employment of a 60-year-old is modest because of a particular role, but (the manager) is on board entirely,” she says. “A team of mostly very young people can actually deal with it. Managers need to take on the role of parent from time to time, and it helps to have older team members with more life experience to support their younger colleagues.”
“We’ve been working hard to get the most out of our business,” said Clare Anna, co-founder of Hotel Asset Management Business Business Londo Rock Partners. “The interviewees have always been under the age of 30. Now it’s much more common to see a wider range of applicants across a variety of roles.”
For those over 50, some are drawn to the sector as their responsibilities evolved to suit them.
“It’s not just a waitress all day now. There’s more complexity and scope to hotel work, especially as operational models change,” Anna says.
“We see seniors really excel in areas like sales roles and facility management because we appreciate that it’s about building relationships. Whether it’s a supplier or a customer, they tend to stay unsatisfied in unexpected ways.”
Hotels in London Rock Partners’ portfolio include Hilton Garden Inn in Abingdon, Oxford, have over 50 10% of the workforce – older staff will be mentioned by name in guest reviews, and are more likely to chat and build connections with customers. Like other industry experts, she discovers that customer engagement can be even more challenging for younger generations.
Employers had to adapt. “Previously people were expected to get paid a fixed salary and work, but they needed a lot of extra time, which was clearly not fair,” says Ben Mayou, chairman of the Lake District Hotels Association and manager of Lakeside Hotel, the area’s four-star venue. “Why should people work for free? That’s the image we want to get away, and why we’re paying more and more with each hour.”
This includes a quarter of Mayo’s 120-person strong team is over 50 years old, and have retired and semi-retired, returning to work in roles spanning reception, porter and housekeeping.
Many are former experts who seek less responsibility, but are attracted to the social nature of their busy environment. According to Mayo, his business has a retention rate of 75% against an average of 33% in the sector.
This stability has proven to be a key benefit in an industry that has struggled to hold for a long time. Adding to this, he adds that the longest holiday season will mean that students will no longer be able to rely on in the summer.
The Lake District Hotel Association is targeting older workers more robustly by holding in-person recruitment events locally.
“We realised you need to get out there and scream about opportunities because older people can stop them from applying for positions in the sector, which has been a young person’s game for a long time. That’s confidence.
For Wilson Smith at Swinton Park Hotel, the benefits include improving fitness. He says that you can walk up to five miles on a shift. Teaching a 20-year-old colleague was an unexpected perk.
“He used a language that was OK with his peers, but he wasn’t that much with retirement age guests, so we were going to cover the basics,” he says. “But I also learned a lot from the perspective of his views and his perspective on life, that is mutual.
