Labour-tech for the Scottish hospitality sector
Ongoing project | January–March 2022
Hotels and restaurants are facing significant challenges when it comes to recruiting, managing and retaining their labour force. Socio-economic, political and public health factors have all played a part in accentuating these challenges in the past decade.
Digital solutions and technologies could offer a way to make businesses in the hospitality sector more attractive, fair and accessible for employees, more efficient and better equipped for future challenges.
To better understand labour challenges faced by businesses in the Scottish hospitality sector and the potential offered by digital solutions and tech, we are running a 3-month rapid scoping project. As part of this project, we are working with the research and design company Science Practice.
The first phase of the project will focus on learning about the labour challenges faced by hotels and restaurants based in Scotland through an online survey and in-depth interviews.
The second phase will aim to scope existing and emerging digital solutions and technologies able to address labour challenges in the sector such as recruiting and retaining staff or improving operations.
The third and final phase will aim to match 2–3 hospitality SMEs with tech businesses developing relevant labour-related solutions and support them to pilot these solutions.
The ambition of the project is to start building a clearer picture of the labour challenges faced by the hospitality sector in Scotland, understand how digital solutions and technologies could offer support, and start addressing barriers preventing wider adoption.
Support available
Funding to pilot digital solutions and technologies
We are looking for 2–3 SMEs interested in piloting digital solutions or technologies that could help them tackle existing labour challenges. We are making up to £2,000 available per pilot to cover resourcing, training or implementation costs.
Data analysis support
Data analysis has the potential to identify opportunities to increase the efficiency of a business, improve working conditions for employees and
We’re making available data analysis support for 2–3 SMEs based in Scotland to help them identify possible opportunities to increase their operational efficiencies or answer any other questions that the SMEs might have.
To express your interest in accessing this support, please fill out the following survey. DEADLINE EXTENDED FOR SURVEY - 12 NOON, 9 FEBRUARY 2022
Eligibility
This support is only available to SMEs (fewer than 250 employees) that are a restaurant, bar or hotel venue based in Scotland. You must also have 5+ vacancies.
If applying for support, please consider the following:
Time commitment: SMEs should be able to allocate at least one intensive week (5 days), including key responsible staff in March 2022. This would be to help us scope out problems and potential tech to make efficiencies for their business. We expect there will also be an implementation period for the selected technology in April 2022 (to be defined once needs and technology are matched). If applying for piloting support, the SMEs will be expected to be available for a short interview with the project team to better understand their labour needs. If applying for data analysis support, the SMEs should be willing to provide analysts with relevant business data available, as well as support to contextualise the data.
Collaboration: SMEs should be open to collaborating with other venues/businesses to share knowledge and key learnings.
Interest: SMEs should have an open and collaborative mindset when it comes to digital solutions and technologies and an appetite for trying out new solutions.
Get involved
At the moment, there are two ways in which you can get involved:
If you’re a hotel or restaurant owner or manager based in Scotland: answer this survey to help inform our problem scoping and sign up for the pilot and/or data analysis support. DEADLINE EXTENDED for submissions: 12pm, 9th February 2022.
If you’re a company developing relevant labour digital solutions or tech – add your details to this list so we can include them in the tech scoping piece and make this information available to interested SMEs.
Get in touch
If you have any questions about the project, would like to share your experience or suggest relevant digital solutions and technologies in this space, please get in touch with Josh, Traveltech Director at joshua.ryan-saha@ei.ed.ac.uk.
We will be updating this page as the project progresses.
Photo by Louis Hansel on Unsplash