Businesses seek student workers in order to meet summer demand
Tess Ware, The Petoskey News-Review
6 min read
Despite staffing shortages, Northern Michigan businesses are gearing up for what looks like a successful summer.
Businesses are preparing for what is expected to be an even busier summer than last year, and they are looking for new ways to bring in seasonal workers.
While the seasonal nature of Northern Michigan’s tourism industry is beginning to level out, with more interest in fall and winter activities, a significant portion of the region’s annual commerce still takes place during the summer. That means summer workers are an important part of the regional economy. Due to the temporary nature of the positions, most of the jobs go to high school and college students.
This is why businesses like Stafford’s Hospitality and The Belvedere Club in Charlevoix are going into schools and colleges to tell students about summer opportunities.
Stafford’s tries to recruit students around the age of 14 or 15 so that they can spend their high school and college summers in different hospitality positions.
“We want to keep them engaged in how to work in hospitality,” said Stafford’s president Brian Ewbank. “We usually start them out very young and we try to get them in bussing and food running or maybe baggage handlers or that type of thing and have them progress throughout their school career and do many different jobs in the hospitality industry. As we have both hotels and restaurants, we keep them engaged and not having the same job every summer over and over.”
Stafford’s offers summer internships to college students that includes housing, which it markets to colleges around the state. Another way it brings in seasonal employees is by participating in the J-1 Exchange Visitor Program through Bridge USA, which brings students from other countries to work and travel in the U.S. during their summer break.
Stafford's employs and houses the students for the summer and this year, will be hosting 17 students from Romania and Turkey. It is the first time Stafford’s will be participating in the program in two years because of COVID-19.
The Belvedere Club in Charlevoix is another business that tries to bring in students that will return every summer break. The club goes into schools to speak with students about summer opportunities, has an employee recommendation program where employees can get $150 for suggesting Belvedere as a good place for summer jobs and offers scholarships to students who have worked at the club for three or more years.
The four-year renewable scholarships are awarded through the Charlevoix County Community Foundation and can be used at any university the student wishes to attend as long as they are a full-time student. This offer is also extended to the children of full-time employees.
The number of students who accept scholarships varies from year-to-year, as does the scholarship amount, which comes from an endowment fund and grantmaking fund through the community foundation that club members contribute to. According to general manager David Gray, this year, the club is trying to make the average scholarship $2,8000-$3,000 per person, per year.
These efforts, in addition to flexible schedules, have been fairly effective in bringing in seasonal workers, Gray said.
“We know that a lot of these kids have extracurricular activities that go on through the summer, so we try to work with them as well as we can," he said. "We'll also cross train, so if we have someone working on youth activities program, we may bring them over. If they're looking for extra hours, we'll get him into the dining area or the kitchen around the golf course. Those that want a lot of hours, we try to accommodate that, those that want restrictive, we'll take those as well. So, I think all these businesses probably found out that you have to be flexible in this day and age.”
While Belvedere has been fortunate enough to be almost fully staffed during their peak seasons the last few years, Stafford’s Hospitality has had to make adjustments to hours to make up for its smaller staff.
Before the pandemic, Stafford’s employed around 435 people during mid-summer. Last year during peak season, there were 280 employees, a reduction of almost half.
This reduction in staff has come with an increase in tourism as people wanted to leave their homes during the pandemic, which forced Stafford’s to adjust by closing for some lunches and closing early so the staff weren’t overworked. The hotels were unable to fully book all of the rooms because there weren't enough housekeeping staff to get them clean in time.
Now with decreasing COVID-19 restrictions, this summer is expected to be just as busy, or even busier. Beard’s Brewery co-owner and Petoskey Regional Chamber of Commerce board member Ben Slocum said the chamber and other organizations have been trying to move Petoskey towards a more stable, year-round economy.
“The goal was to stretch out our year as much as possible and bring balance from the dregs of winter to the absolute insanity of summer,” Slocum said. “And we've been making pretty good headway on that, but the lack of housing is starting to impact that pretty significantly. So we do need a lot more staff in the summer months, simply because there's more people up here demanding more services. So we're doing everything we can to hire.”
Beards' summer employees usually consist of college students, but Slocum said the brewery tries to focus on maintaining its year-round employees through good pay, benefits and reasonable hours.
“Morale can get kind of low in the summer months,” Slocum said. “We ran less hours. I think almost everybody in Petoskey was either running less hours or days or closing as they needed to as people were out ill or just didn't have enough to staff. So for the ones that are still here, it's kind of brutal. Just in that summer grind, trying to keep up with demand and keep (the) pace going.”
Like Stafford’s, Beards changed hours in order to accommodate the staff’s need to rest. Bringing in seasonal employees and even new, year-round employees is made more difficult by the lack of work-force housing in Northern Michigan, which is why companies like Stafford’s provide housing for exchange students and summer interns.
For businesses that can't afford to house employees, it can be difficult to find incentives that will attract seasonal workforce, which is why so many rely on college and high school students.
Despite staffing shortages, businesses are gearing up for what looks like a successful summer. Ewbank is confident that people will be visiting Northern Michigan. He said current gas prices are actually helping Stafford’s businesses as high flight prices will encourage people from downstate to vacation Up North.
“Airline tickets are going up and everything else is going up,” Ewbank said. “People still get their tank of gas and go drive somewhere and we're perfect for that. (Those in) downstate and surrounding areas, they'll still make that trip.”
