Racing Welfare's Annual Review 2022/23

IMPROVING
RECRUITMENT AND RETENTION LEVELS
A major area of focus for the Industry People Board will be around positioning racing as an attractive career option with a viable longterm
outlook for its employees.
The industry’s most recent recruitment, skills and retention survey (Public Perspectives, 2021) indicated that 40% of trainers felt
recruitment, skills and retention of staff were a problem for their business. It was estimated that the staff shortage across racing yards
lay at approximately 400 to 500 employees.
A proportion of trainers who responded to the survey felt that there were skills gaps amongst their current workforce (27%), however,
only 53% of trainers said they had funded or arranged training and development for their staff – this is lower than the national employer
average. Of course, we are living in challenging times and we know that trainers have been some of those hardest hit by the economic
crisis. That is where our Careers Advice and Training Service (CATS) provides invaluable support to employers experiencing skills gaps
amongst their team, taking the pressure off employers and upskilling their workforce.
Perhaps the most worrying of all the results of the 2021 survey was that 29% of staff surveyed said they planned to leave the industry
within two years, citing working conditions and pay, as well as a lack of career opportunities as their reasons.
The survey highlighted the need for a change in culture and the modernisation of working conditions to fit in with expectations of wider
society, and the Industry People Board have already made clear this is a priority on their agenda. A holistic approach to people wellbeing
must form part of this change, and this is something Racing Welfare has been striving towards for some time now with initiatives such as
our Wellbeing Across the Horseracing Industry Conference and, of course, our Workforce Wellbeing Programme.