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Staff at some of the Channel Islands largest hotels are getting a £3 an hour pay rise to help support them through the cost of living crisis.
The £3 per hour pay increase is equivalent to a 30% pay rise at the lowest pay levels, according to the Hand Picked Hotels Group.
Hand Picked Hotels owns the St Pierre Park and Fermain Valley hotels in Guernsey and the Braye Beach Hotel in Alderney. It also owns the Grand and L'Horizon hotels in Jersey.
The Group also owns the former Ambassador, Chalet and Ziggurat hotels in Guernsey. It has applied for permission to reclassify the latter for use as staff accommodation.
The Ambassador hotels is already in use as staff accommodation while the Chalet was subject to a planning application to redevelop it as residential accommodation. That was approved in 2019 with work having to start within three years or the permission would lapse.
Pictured: The former Ziggurat Hotel at Constitution Steps, St Peter Port, will be used for staff accommodation for employees at the Fermain Valley and St Pierre Park Hotels, if the Hand Picked Hotels Group is given planning permission to reclassify it.
The Hand Picked Hotels Group operates numerous sites across the British Isles, including many which are styled as 'country house' or spa hotels.
The Group's Chairman and CEO, Julia Hands MBE - who lives in Guernsey and is frequently seen working 'hands on' at her two St Peter Port hotels - said the £3 pay rise is being given to every employee.
She said it was to "support staff given the unprecedented cost of living crisis which is most severely impacting those on lower salaries including many in the hospitality industry".
Mrs Hands said her staff deserve the additional pay after their hard work during the covid pandemic which has been quickly followed by huge rises in the cost of living.
“To help our staff through the cost of living crisis we have given each and every employee a pay increase of £3 per hour which is also in recognition of their amazing efforts in working so diligently to welcome back our guests as we reopened when Covid restrictions were lifted."
Mrs Hands also sought to dismiss descriptions of staff within the hospitality industry as 'un-skilled' saying that continued training is also high on the Hand Picked Hotels agenda.
"Alongside the pay rise we will invest even more in training for our people," she said.
Pictured: Staff at the Fermain Valley Hotel will all be paid an additional £3 an hour from this month going forward.
"The hospitality industry requires highly skilled and well trained staff at all levels in order to provide the very best guest experience. This is not a low skilled industry but a highly skilled industry.
"Our ambition in Hand Picked is to grow and develop future leaders of the industry. This pay increase is about us, a family-owned family of hotels looking after our family of colleagues who are at the very heart of what Hand Picked does.”
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