STOP THROWING RESOURCES AT FINDING STAFF - Here's a few things you can do instead

Are you working as hard to keep your staff as you are to find them?

Over the past several months whether discussing this with clients, peers, or just chewing the fat about the state of hospitality, I keep hearing how hard it is to find staff, talent for various hospitality roles at all levels. 

Whilst I don’t disagree It has never been tougher, I would caveat that by saying it’s been hard to find talent for over 20 years, especially within kitchens. There is no doubt we benefitted from free movement of people within the EU, but the problem was always there even if it appeared dormant.

A lot of energy from management is often spent bemoaning this problem, and beyond spending huge amounts of money placing adverts on expensive jobs boards, little in the way of an actual strategy is applied.

Personally, I’ve always tried to remain pragmatic & explore all options, create solutions to provide better outcomes, and deal with a problem at root cause,

The question I ask, is what are you prepared to do about it, beyond pay & benefits?

A good start is enhancing packages, absolutely, although anecdotal I believe this has moved in the right direction. Offering 30 plus holiday entitlement, enhanced pensions, other little perks, these are all fantastic attraction tools.

Are you offering real flexibility? This is a huge opportunity not only to attract but to retain talent. The harsh reality is that post pandemic the landscape changed, as operators we must evolve the thinking and attitude here. 

People’s priorities have changed, this is not some generational quirk either, they’ve had a chance of spending more quality time with loved ones, being home on weekends, and now seek regular working hours and improved work life balance.

We must meet this demand. One mimosa within our industry is that part time staff are not as committed as full time employees. I do not agree!

Granted, not every employee will want to pursue a career trajectory, why should they? Sadly, it’s been my experience this has created an invisible barrier for some managers, stopping them from hiring amazing people, the irony being that “said manger” started in in a part time capacity and fell into the industry themselves, as often is the case.

I would encourage that you don’t distinguish between the two types, whether someone wants to work 20hrs a week, are at university, or someone who wants a career. 

Their commitment in terms of hours should be irrelevant; as the customer doesn’t know or care about this. For as long as they are passionate, professional, knowledgeable in their role, it really shouldn’t matter.

This lack of flexibility in this regard is holding some businesses back, I am open to part time supervisors and managers as well as chefs, waiting staff. Whilst I recognise the investment in training is the same, a squad mentality, should be at play here, i.e., rotating full timers weekends off, not simply using part timers to fill the gaps, if you are accommodating to your whole team everyone can win.

Surely having15-20hrs from someone who is awesome is better than none at all

Now you have them, keep them on board, have a proper and well defined recognition program. Recognition of good consistent performance is a powerful tool, and ensure you take action with those who are not pulling in the same direction, nothing makes a good employee leave faster than a bad one “getting away it”. 

How you make your team feel about where they work is more important to them than pay. Are you living up to your company values, are you promoting a positive inclusive culture, inspirational even? Where people want to belong!

Retention is key to the cure to your recruitment problems; finding staff is hard, so why let up when you find a good one? Stability within your team will promote consistency, which will lead to better standards which will grow covers, sales and improve sentiments.