Leading Australian accommodation provider, Mantra Group has announced three new appointments to its Regional Human Resources (HR) management team.  Alison Adie has been appointed as HR Manager for the joint region of Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory; Catherine Johnson as HR Manager for Northern Queensland and Laura Adamson as HR Manager for the Victoria/Tasmania region.

With extensive careers in human resource management within the hospitality, travel and hotel industry; Alison, Catherine and Laura are all well placed to ensure the ongoing development of Mantra Group’s regional workforce.

In the current resources boom, attracting and retaining talent has become a challenging task for many industries, particularly hospitality in regional areas.

Alison Adie finds it particular hard in her geographically dispersed region of 10 hotels across WA, SA and NT; citing the resource boom as the biggest challenge in recruiting and retaining employees, particularly in Darwin and Perth.

“The growth in the resources sector has certainly impacted on attracting employees to the hospitality industry,” says Alison.

“Competing with their lucrative salaries is a challenge but we’ll be identifying strategies as to how we can combat this and continually re-evaluate our employee value proposition to understand how we can attract and retain employees.”

In North Queensland, Catherine Johnson – who oversees 23 resort properties - says attracting good staff is often based on lifestyle: 

“People generally choose to live in North Queensland for the climate and lifestyle.  The resources boom has certainly attracted skilled workers away from the region however we market our vacancies to appeal to people who prefer the balance; a rewarding career whilst living in great locations.  There are still a number of people attracted to our region for a sea change which means our pool of talent is often sourced from the major CBD locations.”

For Victorian based Laura Adamson, a competitive marketplace contributes to the pressures on her workforce of 12 hotels across Victoria and Tasmania.

“It is a very dynamic marketplace, particularly in Melbourne, where it’s both competitive for business and for good staff, but because of the size of Mantra Group we can attract great staff looking to grow their experience in all areas of hospitality,” she said.

With their combined experience and expertise, the newly appointed HR managers are set to strengthen the current Human Resources team at Mantra Group who employee over 3500 Team Members at properties throughout Australia and New Zealand.