This Lancashire training firm is offering free courses for hospitality businesses

PHX Training, which has offices in Blackpool, Preston and Morecambe, is offering a range of fully funded courses to help businesses train up employees to increase skills.

Businesses in the hospitality sector, from restaurants to pubs and takeaways are all able to benefit from the courses, which can help employees gain qualifications in customer service, cleaning or team leading.

The courses are aimed to help companies retain staff by offering a route to growth and potential career pathways, at a time when the hospitality sector is struggling to recruit enough people.

Government figures suggest around 177,000 hospitality vacancies are still unfilled across the country, a rise of almost 800 per cent from last spring.

With a busy summer ahead, losing a member of staff is estimated to cost small businesses thousands of pounds in time, advertising, interviewing and training for new roles. Offering incentives to retain employees is vital and can save employers time and money.

Darren Pond, business manager for Work Based Learning at PHX Training, said: “Hospitality companies are experiencing a difficult time right now when it comes to staff retention, but we can support them to make their workplace an area that staff want to stay in by offering progression routes and training opportunities.

“Our courses are fully funded and can allow staff to learn a relevant new skill which can improve the efficiency of your business and allow you to promote staff internally rather than relying on external hires which are notoriously more expensive and time consuming.”

PHX Training, which has offices in Blackpool, Preston and Morecambe, is delivering 1,500 qualifications with Lancashire Local Enterprise Partnership to help businesses skill up their staff with a range of short courses.

The programme, which is funded by the Department for Work and Pensions alongside the European Social Fund, is aimed to help businesses become more productive and plug skills gaps across the county.