We have received a number of complaints this morning about our job posting on behalf of the Bay Hotel, Pevensey Bay, (December 2)
A job post in which the hotel said ‘vacancies for a kitchen assistant and waiters’, clearly broke employment law with the phrase waiter, rather than the non-gender phrase waiting staff or the alternative waiter/waitress.
The legislation related to this area of employment is clear.
Anyone advertising for a specific sex, sexual orientation, age, nationality or religion could be breaking the law.
Guidance is clear on how to place job postings. Recruiters should avoid descriptions that suggest the role could only be done by someone of a certain gender.
The legislation says: “to avoid direct discrimination because of sex, an employer should advertise for ‘waiting staff’ or a ‘waiter or waitress’.
In this circumstance, we believe that what is important here is that best practice is adopted by the management of the Bay Hotel with all promotions, not just to potential visitors but also to potential staff.
The hospitality industry is fundamentally important to the locality, not just in relation to Pevensey and Pevensey Bay as a visitor destination, but to all the hard working staff that are employed in this sector of our fragile economy.
We published the job posting verbatim, we recognise that we should not have made this decision without checking first with the management of the hotel about the basis on which they were promoting this job posting.
We have seen that a great deal of work is going into the planning of the restaurant, with voluminous information being discussed about standards by chefs and staff.
Perhaps in this circumstance the haste with which the success of the restaurant is being envisaged, has not yet devolved to the question of sound employment practice and the fundamental need to see that the hospitality sector here with staffing arrangements all comply with employment legislation and are fair, robust and sustainable.
Perhaps there is a need to see that further training is given to staff that are involved with the delivery of job postings.
We believe that the job posting was a simple error made in all innocence.
In the interim we have altered the job posting on behalf of the hotel to comply with legislation and apologise for our role in posting the job promotion without raising this point with the hotel first.
What is happening at the Bay Hotel, in our view, is exciting.
In our view, with the restoration of the hotel, what has been done here, has the potential not just to transform the Bay Hotel public house, but Pevensey Bay.
We feel sure that sound employment practice will be part of this story.
