Meet Purple Umbrella Awards Sponsor: mum
mum, Mental Health and Me
Written by: Craig Prentice
Founder of mum
When I launched mum two years ago, I knew I wanted to do things differently.
For me, recruitment has always been about so much more than targets, numbers and CVs; it’s about relationships and service, sharing goals and celebrating individuality. It’s about recognising talent and offering people opportunities to grow where they’re supported and most importantly, respected.
Apprenticeships are a vital part of our industry, which is why I am delighted mum is back for a second year sponsoring Umbrella Training’s Purple Umbrella Awards.
Umbrella Training’s values of recognition and respect are aligned with ours; they too see the importance of celebrating and sharing in success. It’s a difficult time for young people who want to work in our industries or for those in the early stages of their career, and it’s more important than ever that we not only offer our support in any way we can, but also shout about the many positives in our industry.
One of the things I love most about hospitality is the fact it is such a huge rich melting pot of diversity, with people from many different backgrounds.
There is no “traditional route” into many of the roles in our industry - in fact many people fall into it accidentally - but we can’t get complacent, or we risk missing out on some incredible talent. We have to take every opportunity to promote the industry to those who want to take the first step in their new career and use apprenticeships as an invaluable and life-changing opportunity to get real-life, hands-on experience with practical training, mentoring and best of all, to actually get paid for it!
Hospitality is a fast-paced, energetic world, where tensions can run high and the pressure is often on to deliver; but that’s what makes it so exciting, what gets our adrenalin running, and why so many of us have such a passion for it we can’t ever imagine doing anything else. It’s also why it’s so important that we look after ourselves as best we can, and look out for each other too.
Over the past eighteen months, I’ve been fortunate to have the time and headspace to focus on my passion projects.
At the beginning of the first UK lockdown last Spring, I launched nowpause.org, a free wellbeing toolkit and then created Walk for Calm last Autumn, to promote wellbeing in our industry and support the work of two amazing charities close to my heart, Hospitality Action and Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM). With the help of many incredible people and partners, I am delighted to bring Walk for Calm back for a second year, bigger and better than before. We have a wonderful opportunity to bring people back together again and anyone can get involved wherever they are.
As Hospitality begins to heat up again, it’s more important than ever to look after ourselves and those around us. The more people we can support in looking after their wellbeing, the brighter the future of our industry looks.
If you fancy having a chat about Walk for Calm, or would like to learn more about my day job and how mum can support you, please feel free to get in touch, by following the links below.
