Nine tips for navigating the staffing crisis

The recruitment crisis is casting a shadow over many restaurants, and unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you are likely aware of the lengths to which employers are going to hire and retain staff.  

The latest data from Office for National Statistics, for March to May this year, shows 174,000 unfilled posts in hospitality – up 8,000 on the previous quarter. Research by the drinks brand S. Pellegrino in April found that it is taking restaurants five months on average to recruit and to onboard chefs.  

How many restaurants have had to reduce their opening hours due to staff shortages and a fear of burning out the team members left standing? Maybe it would be easier to ask how many haven’t.   

If it is any comfort, UK restaurants are not alone in feeling this pain. In France there are currently 250,000 vacancies, and in Italy around 350,000.   

Worryingly, a survey in May found that just five per cent of 18-24-year-olds were considering hospitality as a career.  

With wages up an average of seven per cent, National Insurance costs rising and the prevalence of a post-pandemic perception of hospitality as an industry of anti-social hours and bad treatment, what can businesses do to recruit and, crucially, retain staff in what so many of us know to be an exciting, varied and captivating sector to work in?  

If you take a close look at the businesses that have avoided the worst of the recruitment crisis and compare them with lists of current best employers, you start to see a correlation. ‘Treating Staff Fairly’ – one of the 10 key areas in the Food Made Good Sustainability Framework created by the Sustainable Restaurant Association – is the foundation from which you need to build.  

Read on for nine pieces of advice from well-known industry names who, though they may not have every post filled, are riding out this storm better than most thanks to a progressive approach to hiring and employment practices that expand beyond just thinking about pay.    

No single one of these will be your staffing shortage silver bullet, but follow these principles for fuller, healthier and happier team. 

Stay ahead of Gen Z  

For those who don’t believe they need to change, it would pay to listen to Dan Hudson, founder of the mobile job platform Gigl: 

‘The current job market is broken. Keep playing the same game and you’ll get the same results. People want to be a TikTok star first. You have to market the benefits of the job and what people can do on the side. Yes, hospitality is hard work, but you need to make people want to come to work.’  

In short, you need to create an attractive package and sell it well.  

Collaboration not competition  

It sounds counterintuitive perhaps, but Steve Rockey, people director of Home Grown Hotels, recommends teaming up with like-minded neighbouring businesses to build your team  

‘It’s all about collaborating now, not competing. What you do well as an employer, the business next door might not be so good at and vice versa. So why not share teams and have people work a few months in each? We need to work as a collective,’ Rockey said.  

Flex more to turnover fewer  

Young’s pub group has launched the Ram Agency, which offers casual workers the chance to select shifts in more than 200 sites, while Rick Stein Restaurants is now happy to entertain applications from people looking to work as little as one shift a week. 

At Home Grown, management is now planning rotas much further in advance.  

‘We’ve found this has had a really positive impact as it means people can plan their lives,’ Steve Rockey said. 

Treat everyone individually  

Being managing director of Dishoom, named best hospitality company to work for by the jobs website Glassdoor, makes Brian Trollip about as well qualified as you can be to share thoughts on this subject. And his recipe isn’t complicated. 

‘We’ve always worked hard at making Dishoom a brilliant place to work, making whatever role someone does a rewarding one, both in terms of pay and training and other benefits’, Trollip said. 

‘We also try and help people understand not just what they’ll be earning but also how they can grow and develop so they can look ahead to the future and see that they can be the best possible version of whatever they want – whether that’s as a waiter or progressing into management.’  

Empower your managers to manage  

Gillian Lambden, director of people for Rosa’s Thai, decided to tackle the chef shortage by opening a wok training school with a view to developing 100 new wok chefs a year. She shared a wider point about how to create an environment in which people want to work: 

‘The biggest thing we’ve done this year is give our restaurant managers more ownership around recruiting and onboarding their own teams and therefore building relationships early and keeping their teams happy. We have re-trained all our managers on recruitment and onboarding skills and have launched initiatives to reward those managers who have the happiest teams as this is the most important thing to us.’ 

Remember your staff care too  

A recent survey by the Intranet company Unily found two thirds of people said they would be more likely to work for a company with robust environmental policies. Steve Rockey says that highlighting the good things you are doing can be a genuine dealbreaker.  

‘How you run your business is as big as it’s ever been. Shouting about your guiding principles all helps with the narrative’, Rockey said. 

Hire nice, play nice  

At The Culpeper, managing director Sandy Jarvis said he’s been thanking his lucky stars as he looks on and sees many other operators who had to either close temporarily or reduce opening hours.  

Sandy tried to put a finger on the group’s recruiting success: ‘We’ve always been able to attract people and retain them. I think the reason is that we’re really good at identifying people we like and prefer that as a quality to work with rather than years of experience. We can teach people the hard skills, but you can’t teach the soft skills. So far, taking on people who are nice and are up for it has worked for us.’ It helps of course, that in return, The Culpeper is nice to its staff and invests in their training and development.’’ 

Make mental health matter  

Wagamama, YO!, The PIG and many others have benefitted from taking the mental health and wellbeing of their teams seriously.  

YO!’s introduction of a team of trained mental health first-aiders resulted in staff absences falling 40 per cent in six months, while turnover among salaried staff dropped almost ten per cent.  

Invest in the next generation  

Another of the SRA’s key areas in its Food Made Good Sustainability Framework is ‘Supporting the Community’. Developing a meaningful relationship with local schools and colleges will lay the foundations for you to sell the dream of hospitality as a career.  

Through our Food Made Good programme, we define, assesses and celebrate sustainability, as well as connect a global network of hospitality professionals to share challenges, ideas, resources and solutions. If you’d like sustainability advice for your restaurant, we’d love to hear from you. Find out more about the SRA and its Food Made Good programme. Or get in touch [email protected]