New Hilton Head hospitality association aims to fight labor shortage

Faced with a widespread labor shortage, Hilton Head Island hospitality leaders are seeking outside help to focus on workforce issues for restaurants and hotels.

A group of owners and managers in the Hilton Head hospitality industry will finalize the Hilton Head Island Chapter of the South Carolina Restaurant and Lodging Association on Feb. 15, said association vice president Douglas OFlaherty.

The trade organization currently operates throughout the state, with chapters in Charleston, Myrtle Beach, Columbia and Beaufort, among others.

The island chapter came as a result of months of meetings between a small group of hospitality managers discussing ways to combat a shortage of the about 8,400 hospitality workers needed to run the island’s tourism economy.

Meetings included small business owners as well as managers at some of the island’s largest employers such as Sea Pines Resort, SERG Restaurant Group and Coastal Restaurants and Bars.

The formal discussions began after the The Island Packet’s series “Propping Up Paradise” brought public attention to the issue in August, members of the group said.

“It’s something that we’ve discussed for a long period,” said Clayton Rollison, chef and owner of the Lucky Rooster restaurant on Hilton Head, a member of the statewide SCRLA. “But we didn’t feel like there was a group that had just our interests. There is no unified voice that had the time to go to the town and ask ‘What are you going to do about this?’”

The group will be different from the Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce in that it will have a more specific focus on hospitality and workforce issues, OFlaherty said.

“We will likely often work in-tandem with the chamber,” OFlaherty said. “But they represent the whole business community. We can have more resources and focus for hotels and restaurants on the problems they’re seeing.”

The chamber said it plans to work with the new group to push some of the same goals in curbing the island’s workforce shortage, chamber spokesperson Charlie Clark said.

According to group leaders, the association’s initial goals include:

Combating labor shortages for a skilled workforce

The number of workers who both live and work on Hilton Head dropped by more than a third from 2002 to 2014, plummeting from 11,525, to 7,444, according to census data.

The decline hit the hospitality industry especially hard, leaving restaurants and resorts often understaffed, the Packet reported in August through interviews with dozens of island employers.

The decline in the local workforce is mostly attributed to increases in rent on the island and new employment opportunities springing up in both Bluffton and Jasper counties, creating competition for local workers, employers told the Packet.

Fighting that labor shortage will be the first priority of the new SCRLA chapter, OFlaherty said.

Develop a local education pipeline for our industry

Many local hospitality leaders are pushing for investment in local culinary and accommodations education to develop a more skilled local workforce.

For example, SCRLA currently supports 63 high school culinary-training programs in South Carolina, and is working with the Beaufort County School District to start a program on Hilton Head, OFlaherty said.

The organization also plans to support two hospitality campuses coming to the area over the next few years.

A $24.5 million hospitality-management campus of the University of South Carolina Beaufort is expected to open for fall classes in 2018. And the Technical College of the Lowcountry plans to build a $12 million culinary institute starting in 2017.

Between the 550 students expected to enroll in both programs, resorts and restaurants hope the schools will develop more skills in the local workforce.

Housing for middle income managers and workers

Housing for hospitality employees on Hilton Head will also be a top priority, OFlaherty said.

This will include lobbying at the statehouse as well as pushing local officials on the issue.

Currently, there are state laws that virtually take Hilton Head out of the running for affordable-housing grants and funding.

On the business side, resorts and developers say some town-owned land should be made available for workforce housing — or at the least, town officials should rezone some commercial sites for residential use

Leadership, mission to be established

A meeting to formalize the new chapter will be held at 9 a.m. Feb. 15 at the Lucky Rooster, where members of the hotel and restaurant industry will discuss the chapter’s bylaws, elect board members and set a mission statement for the group.

There are 19 active local members of SCRLA already, including the Sea Pines, Marriott, Sonesta and Westin resorts who joined the statewide group before the formation of the local chapter. The group plans to clarify the local chapter’s membership and identify possible new members at the meeting, OFlaherty said.

Those with questions about SCRLA or the new chapter should contact the association at info@scrla.org.

Special report

Propping up Paradise: Hilton Head's workforce crisis

 

Aug. 6, 2016 Hilton Head Island is grappling with an unprecedented shortage of hospitality workers that, according to island employers, is nothing short of a crisis. | READ

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This story was originally published February 12, 2017 at 12:00 AM with the headline "New Hilton Head hospitality association aims to fight labor shortage."