5 staffing solutions to rebuild your hospitality workforce

5 staffing solutions to rebuild your hospitality workforce

With restaurants and bars opening to full capacity and travel restrictions lifted globally, patrons are returning to venues in droves, eager to immerse themselves in Melbourne’s famous hospitality scene.

While this is exciting news for the hospitality industry, if you work in this sector, you know that staff shortages are a major hurdle for businesses opening their doors. With an estimated shortage of 95,000 hospitality staff in Australia, it’s no wonder that managers and owners are struggling to staff their businesses.

Here are some useful tips to help you hire hospitality staff in this challenging landscape.

1. Alleviate COVID-related staff anxieties

Given the changing rules and regulations for the hospitality sector throughout the pandemic, workers may have concerns around their job security and their safety. These anxieties are best deal with through honest conversations.

If staff are concerned about their job security, acknowledge that these concerns are legitimate as the hospitality landscape may continue to change. Reassure your staff and candidates that they will be kept in the loop regarding any updates or changes as soon as they’re known.

If employees are nervous about working with other staff and customers due to the risk of COVID infection, it can help to have discussions with staff about their specific concerns and how you can work together to resolve them. It’s also important to be clear to your staff that your workplace is complying with COVID 19 workplace safety practices.

2. Cultivate and promote your company culture

For many hospitality workers, the social element of this industry is its main drawcard, so it’s important to grow and maintain your workplace culture to retain and attract the best staff. Workplace culture is about more than just having fun. While staff parties and after-work drinks are valuable workplace traditions, to really foster a healthy culture, a welcoming and inclusive environment – where staff feel comfortable being themselves – must be nurtured.

The best way to promote this culture is to prioritise respect throughout your business – you want your staff to feel valued regardless of their role in your company. Teaching and practising respect as a grounding principle of your company is a proven way to help you find and keep higher quality staff.

Another effective way to build a positive culture is through being flexible with your staff. Your employees should feel comfortable taking time to deal with other responsibilities in their personal lives. Finding compromises to help your staff keep a work-life balance will give your business a reputation for being accommodating and kind, and in turn will help you attract elite candidates.

3. Encourage growth and reward performance

Through countless discussions with hospitality workers, we found that a major reason for staff dissatisfaction was the lack of career progression offered by employers. A simple yet underappreciated way to improve your staffing solutions in hospitality is to provide your staff opportunities to grow and take on more responsibility.

While it’s common for some hospitality workers to only seek casual hours, there are many who view hospitality as a career path into the future, and hope to become a manager or open their own venue in the future. It’s essential to provide these staff with a clear path to gain more responsibility and earn a higher salary within your company.

The best way to do this is to be honest with your employees about the expectations of their role and make clear that, if they perform to a high standard, there will be plenty of opportunities for them to move up the ladder. If your business is relatively small and there are no senior positions up for grabs, allow your staff to take on more responsibility in your business and teach them valuable skills they can use in their future roles.

4. Prioritise effective training programs

Are you struggling to find staff for skilled positions, such as barista or cocktail bartender roles? Now is the perfect opportunity to invest in your staff to teach them these skills. While it can take time and resources to train staff, picking the right people to train is an investment in the future for your business.

If you have staff or candidates with the right attitude, don’t be afraid to invest in training for them. If you or another staff member can train them in-house – fantastic! If this isn’t possible, there are plenty of (link) outsourcing hospitality training programs that your staff can attend. Not only will you gain a more skilled and knowledgeable worker, but training staff is also likely to create a more loyal workforce and give your business a better reputation.

5. Utilise a staffing agency

For many business owners in hospitality, recruitment is one of the most challenging aspects of running their company. Conducting a recruitment process can take up so much valuable time and resources from your HR team or hiring manager, and a specialisation in recruitment is often lacking.

Using the services of a skilled and experienced recruiting company has a number of advantages:

• It will save you time. Recruitment agencies will identify candidates faster, which means that your business won’t have ongoing vacancies.
• You’ll find better quality candidates. You will be choosing from a pool of qualified candidates, and you won’t have to pore over sub-par resumes
• You’ll be more adaptable in the new hospitality landscape. If you utilise a staffing agency, you can quickly recruit temporary staff as needed. This will lower costs and create a more versatile workforce in these uncertain conditions.

If you’re looking to hire a hospitality recruitment specialist, Platinum Staffing offers superior hospitality staffing solutions for your business.

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