Alan Sciascia has served his last year in hospitality since starting in 1973. Photo / George Novak
Alan Sciascia has served his last year in hospitality since starting in 1973. Photo / George Novak
Last Wednesday was a big day for Alan Sciascia.
It marked the end of his nearly 50-year career in hospitality and his battle with cancer.
Sipping a long black in a bustling Tauranga cafe, the 67-year-old begins to ponder a hospitality career that began in 1973.
There is the noiseof coffee being ground in the background, people gossiping and the clinking of cutlery hitting plates, while the smell of food fills the air.
It's a fitting scene for a man who served his last day in hospitality on June 30.
He was a brewery auditor for about eight years before being offered a job in Auckland as the commercial manager.
"It meant I had to compile the trading accounts, financial profitability for a group of about 30-odd hotels.
"Every month I had to work out their profit and loss by department, then consolidate it into an overall title."
In 2007, Sciascia ran a company called Hospitality Accounting Systems before moving to Tauranga.
For just a brief moment in time, he moved from hospitality to real estate as the financial controller for First National.
Then the Global Financial Crisis hit.
"Suddenly everything was tumbling down around you."
Coincidentally, the job as Hospitality New Zealand Bay of Plenty regional manager came up and Sciascia applied.
It is a role he has had for the past 14 years.
"It's been quite a ride," he says.
Alan Sciascia has served his last year in hospitality since starting in 1973. Photo / George Novak
Industry changes
Sciascia says there has been a lot of changes to the industry in the past few decades and businesses have had to adapt to survive.
What has stayed the same, however, is that hospitality has always been a low-margin industry.
"About a third of every dollar that walks in the door, walks out the door in staff wages.
"Another third goes to pay your suppliers. So you're only left with a third for everything else. That includes trying to make a profit, which many don't."
Sciascia says hospitality is an easy industry to get into.
"You don't need a degree or anything special other than money and a dream or belief that you can do this."
But at the end of the day, it is a business.
The challenge now is what's happening in the employment space, especially wage increases, he says.
Sciascia earned about $100 a week working at his first barman job in the late 1970s. Now, employees are earning about $800 a week on a minimum wage of $20 an hour.
"If that wage cost is going to keep climbing, the logical move is for the businesses to increase their selling price to the customers.
"Workers would like to earn more and employers would like to pay more but they can't. The margins are too slim.
"If you've got a business that has been well run and in good times you can get about 10 per cent out the bottom."
Plus, he said with the borders still closed it was becoming harder to find skilled staff.
"We are short of workers. We can't get staff.
"We're almost at a point now where there are no more workers available and so businesses are being forced to pay more to get or keep staff."
Things aren't so bad in the Bay of Plenty, he says, but there is "poaching" going on.
"When a business needs good staff, they go out looking for them and the shortage of people means they are looking where people are already working.
"So they entice them with money."
Lifelong friends
Sciascia says what's kept him in the industry for so long is "the people".
"I've got lifelong friends in the industry.
"There are a lot of people who I've known and met over the years who I will still stay very close with."
He's also enjoyed helping the people he's met along the way.
When his phone rings with the theme song of New Zealand television series Country Calendar it's usually someone needing help with a problem.
"I help them with that problem. I feel good about that. It gives me purpose."
Quick fire questions with Alan Sciascia
If you were ordering at a restaurant, what is your go-to meal? I love roast duck, pasta, and you can't go wrong with fish and chips.
What is your biggest mistake in this industry? Sending a detailed email outlining the correct processes in how a business owner could fire a business manager, to the wrong person - the one being let go.
What is your biggest success? Three happy children, five happy grandchildren.
What is your biggest pet peeve in hospitality? When somebody puts a plate in front of you and says: "Enjoy". They've either learned to say that or have been told to say that and they don't mean it. You have to be genuine.
What is your favourite thing about dining out? Being with a person who I am with.
What are three things we don't know about you? 1. I am currently making earrings, bottle openers and other things out of rimu 2. I am secretary of the Tauranga Woodcrafters' Guild 3. I have been into motorcycles for a long time. But I sold my last motorcycle, a 650 Suzuki Burgman, about 18 months ago.
