Inside AGE 2022

austgamingexpo.com | #1 AUG 2022 | INSIDE AGE | 49 have reduced days or hours of trade to avoid burning out their staff and to ensure they can deliver a genuinely good experience during the hours when t hey c an open . And almost every club has reduced the available items on their menus because they don’t have access to all of the produce or the qualified chefs to deliver a consistently quality experience at all times. So it has been incredibly difficult. Clubs have had to get creative in adapting with fewer staff and navigating through that challenge. We just don’t have any idea when we will come out the end of that and have enough staff to meet demand. But I keep saying to people, that’s a good problem to have – when demand outstrips their ability to meet it. It’s so much better than when we were simply closed. BB: Staffing and COVID aside, what are some of the main challenges currently facing clubs in NSW? JL: There are still some financial challenges where we need to fill in the hole from COVID because we weren’t able to operate for quite a considerable period. It was basically one in every three days for 18 months that we were closed. That’s hard to make up. And clubs in Victoria shut down six times, which meant throwing out their food supplies six times. That makes them appear an unattractive place to work as well, that uncertainty, so there is some reputational damage we need to address to encourage people to come and work in our industry. They are the key challenges facing us. Interstate and around the country there are a number o f r e g u l a t o r y c h a l l e n g e s . Regu l ator s are comi ng out of COVID and in some cases thinking they need to act. That’s a problem – not only coming ou t of COVID bu t i nto an environment that is increasingly being constrained. I’ve witnessed first-hand club CEOs picking plates up off the tables because they just don’t have enough staff.