A lot of the research carried out on HR practices in business assumes a fairly large organisation—one with a dedicated HR professional, if not an entire team. But the overwhelming majority of tourism businesses in Canada are small and micro-sized enterprises: around 80% have fewer than 10 employees. When a business is owner-operated, and gets by with a handful of employees, HR can look very different than it does in a much larger organization.
In tourism, many small businesses are launched to fill a very specific gap in the local market, or because the owner has a real passion for something that they want to share—whether that’s exploring the outdoors, creating great food experiences, or highlighting the beauty of their community. The amount of HR training the owner has had will vary enormously, depending on the size and needs of their business, what kinds of jobs they offer, and how much experience they’ve had in other jobs.
So how do organizations like Tourism HR Canada make sure they’re creating the right tools to support these entrepreneurs? We don’t know what we don’t know—so we’re doing some research to get a better understanding of what tourism operators are doing in terms of managing their workforce, what they find the most challenging, and what they think would be most useful to them. We want to use what we learn to shape the resources we have and how business operators interact with them.
At Tourism HR Canada, our research team is looking for insights from tourism operators; there are two ways you can share your expertise:
- A short survey open to all tourism businesses in Canada, regardless of their size
- An online interview with one of our researchers, aimed at tourism businesses who have between 5 and 50 employees for at least part of the year
Both the survey and the interview are available in English and in French, depending on your preference.
We would love to hear from you and learn more about how you manage HR alongside running your business, while maybe also being the chief tour guide or head baker or main front desk agent. Your experiences can help us serve you better, and help your business thrive.
As with all our initiatives, the results, analysis, and insights from this research will be available on our website in early summer.