By Emma Eversham: How hospitality is battling its people problem.
As hospitality continues to be plagued by worker shortages, Emma Eversham finds out how some operators are filling vacancies – and keeping their hard-won recruits.
Recruiting and retaining enough people to work in the UK’s hospitality industry has been a challenge for decades, but in May 2022 the issue hit crisis point.
As the UK emerged from the pandemic and dealt with Brexit’s fallout, the number of vacancies across the industry hit a record high of 180,000 (ONS) leaving owners and operators of hospitality businesses desperately questioning how they’d be able to function.
While the number of vacancies across the sector dropped to 132,000 in May 2023, the figure is still 48% higher than pre-Covid levels.
Figures recently supplied by UKHospitality to the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) highlighted acute issues with chef vacancies – currently 10% for head chefs and 21% for production chefs – prompting further calls to add chefs to the Shortage Occupation List.
“A simple move that can have enormous benefits,” claims UKHospitality chief executive Kate Nicholls, who warned that a quarter of its members would be forced to restrict trading hours if these vacancy levels were maintained.
Indeed, some businesses have already adapted opening hours to mitigate the impact of these gaps in their workforces. Many have also increased pay (by an average of 9.5% according to Caterer.com’s Hospitality Hiring Insider report) and used other benefits to make themselves more attractive.
As the industry chips away at its high vacancy rates, we take a closer look at how some hospitality operators have reduced the number of vacancies in their businesses over the last year, and find out what they’re doing to retain their hard-won recruits.
Recruitment drive
To address the ‘challenging spike’ in vacancies at the Oakman Group in the first half of 2022, the business went on a recruitment offensive to fill the skills gaps across its 40 sites, explains HR director Jill Scatchard.
The first step was to bolster the company’s recruitment team so it had the resource to find additional team members, particularly for its new openings. More money was also put behind digital campaigns and CV databases were used to locate active job seekers.
“The situation now is that we have reduced the resource on recruitment centrally and no longer see it for us as the significant issue it was,” says Scatchard. “Our applicants per advert have increased, and we have access to a higher calibre of teams wishing to join us.”
There is a ‘critical caveat’ to this strategy, however. While Oakman Group’s reinforced recruitment team was finding people to fill empty roles across its venues, the business was making changes to its recruitment model to enable it to retain people.
Changes included hiring a talent and development manager to oversee training initiatives such as a leadership programme to retain managers, maintaining its Chef Academy to develop chefs, and operating a Ninja ‘train the trainer’ scheme which sees dedicated trainers pass on craft skills to new recruits and team members at individual sites.
‘Careful and intelligent rota planning’ now means the group, employer of 1,600 people, has enough cover at key times and can avoid amendments to opening hours experienced temporarily post-pandemic.
There have also been changes to pay and benefits: Senior roles receive an allocated London Weighting uplift for sites easily commutable to London (in addition to Tronc payments) while team members can increase their hourly rates by developing skills.
Like Oakman Group, hospitality services supplier Restaurant Associates has taken ‘proactive steps’ to boost its workforce. Over the last 12 months it has invested in digital to streamline the application process for potential candidates while ramping up its marketing to highlight the ‘dedication and passion’ of its team and showcase the opportunities at the company.
The company, which recently announced a series of promotions and new hires, has ‘prioritised the development and well-being’ of its existing workforce through training initiatives, volunteering opportunities and by introducing flexible working.
“This flexibility not only promotes work-life balance but also attracts a wider range of candidates who may have previously been restricted by traditional working structures,” explains Victoria Marshall, head of people and culture.
Retention focus
Not all businesses have access to the same resources or share the same luxury of scale as Oakman Group and Restaurant Associates, but like the larger business, retention has been a key strategy for independents.
At boutique hotel The Gallivant in Camber Sands, where current vacancies are consistent with those pre-Covid, the focus has been on keeping its people.
“As a small business, we can’t afford to be understaffed, so we work hard to retain staff and attract great people before we need them,” says owner Harry Cragoe, adding that the business is currently recruiting for additional support ahead of the summer peak.
The Gallivant’s attraction and retention strategy is to ‘build the happiest team in hospitality’ which it aims to do through its Team Wellness Charter (offering gym membership, yoga classes, mental health support and monthly team socials) and running a recognition and reward scheme among other benefits. It also prefers to recruit based on whether a candidate will fit the company’s culture rather than if they have the required skills.
Operating three inns in rural locations (The Felin Fach Griffin in Wales and The Gurnard’s Head and The Old Coastguard in Cornwall) means EATDRINKSLEEP has a smaller talent pool to recruit from, so like The Gallivant, retention is essential.
“Even through the pandemic, we stressed and stressed again to our senior team that it was all about retention,” says co-owner Edmund Inkin who gave a small bonus to those who worked over the busy summer season, applied a discretionary service charge and improved benefits to strengthen appeal. The business also restricted opening hours last year.
“We hoped that these plus a more thoughtful approach on work/life balance would maximise retention and also create a bit of a feeling about our places that would improve recruitment,” he says.
The strategy has worked – a handful of staff have been with the group since it was established 20 years ago and almost all senior managers have grown up through the business. New blood is also joining. Last month former Lush by Tom Kerridge senior sous chef Gwenann Davies started at Felin Fach Griffin as head chef.
No operator is resting on their laurels, however, and strategies are continually reviewed. The people problem won’t be solved overnight.
“It’s a long haul of training, improving conditions and societal changes,” summarises Inkin who also urges operators to focus on the positives.
“Honestly, I think it’s a great industry to work in and we need to stop beating ourselves up about it. Make the changes we need to, communicate the positive side of the industry and recruitment will look after itself.”