Creating local jobs and developing lifelong skills
Working closely with local residents and stakeholders, Aspers ensures that delivery of community benefits goes far beyond the creation of a dynamic new leisure and entertainment facility.
Aspers is committed to hiring from within the local community wherever possible. In fact, our experience indicates that staff turnover is reduced where local hiring policies are adopted. Employment categories vary from waiting staff, chefs, security and receptionists through to accounting, IT and marketing professionals. The majority of these positions (over 70%) are permanent and full-time. Some of these jobs require existing skills, while others involve training as part of our pledge to invest in and develop local skills. Integral to the success of Aspers is a commitment to training and development of training facilities. Aspers will work with local educational establishments to create such facilities. While such training and development is essential to the day-to-day co-operation of Aspers, these lifelong learning skills will also benefit tourism and hospitality generally within the community.
Aspers Academy
Aspers training programmes cover the full range of skills development required to be successful in the leisure, entertainment and gaming industries.
There are a variety of courses, varying in length from two weeks for a hospitality course up to nine weeks for the trainee croupier courses. The courses are prepared by Aspers management team and incorporate not only the technical skills required but also customer service and compliance issues. Aspers aim is to introduce a customer service philosophy to the industry. All our trainees are chosen following an intensive recruitment campaign, which includes company presentations and a 'casino familiarity session' at the Academy, before successfully passing the interview stage.
Working Links
When Aspers at the Gate in Newcastle opened, Aspers worked with the Job Centre and Working Links to identify and train 60 young people, most of whom had never worked or had been unemployed for more than 12 months. Following eight weeks of training at Aspers Academy, during which time all attendees were paid for their participation, 43 of these people were recruited. This retention rate is exceptional in an industry where retention rates from training schools of 10% to 12% are the norm.