The first employee survey of the Bad Gleichenberg Tourism Schools – status quo and proposed solutions.

For the 38th time, the students of the Tourism College conducted a fully standardised personal and telephone survey under the direction of Mag. Claudia Brandstätter. For the very first time, the aim was to determine the current employment situation of the respondents and to map their attitudes towards employment in the tourism, care and retail sectors.

A total of 694 Austrians were interviewed.

Almost 50 % of all respondents can basically imagine working in tourism. (Styria: 46.7 %) – just under a quarter can imagine working in retail – a fifth in care.

The general willingness must therefore be consciously nurtured in the future.

Interest in the industry, contact with people and varied activities are the three main reasons for a general willingness to work in tourism.

A discussion with the tourism students revealed that the main reasons for the lack of highly competent employees include inadequate remuneration, lack of appreciation, the time factor or an unbalanced work-life balance – or to put it briefly, incompatibility with one’s own ideas of life.

Graduate Melanie Franke, long-time and successful director of Rogner Bad Blumau: “The human being and, in the front line, the employee, should be at the centre. Flexible working conditions are needed and you have to look at what basic conditions someone brings with him/her and how and where he/she fits into the company. Quality stands and falls with people. At Rogner Bad Blumau, we have managed to create a place for our employees where people enjoy coming to work. But it’s not about the basics like food, or employee kindergarten, etc., it’s about creating meaning.”

Graduate Daniel Freismuth from SHR Beteiligung GmbH/Kurhaus Bad Gleichenberg also confirmed the results of the employee study: “Above all, it is important to us to present Bad Gleichenberg as a place where to live. To show our employees what advantages and qualities of life there are in their own region and to promote these.

Graduate Felix Urbanek, founder of the start-up Rex Eat, which is very successful at its locations in Vienna and Graz, added: “In our very young team, company goals are set together and celebrated together. For us, the time our employees invest is not the decisive factor either, but rather the output of their work.”