Christmas Staffing Challenges

In a recent article from Restaurant Magazine, Access Hospitality outlines staffing challenges over the Christmas period. A few key takeaways:

Planning ahead is crucial
With Christmas being the busiest time of year for hotels and restaurants, you may need to bring in seasonal staff, especially if your permanent staff are taking holiday leave.

Agency staff need to be trained prior to starting work
For effective staff management over the festive period, agency staff need thorough training prior to their start date, and have clear expectations about their role and responsibilities.

With increased staff comes increased cost
To remain cost effective, you need to analyse hourly rates, overtime pay, and bonuses, with precise attendance records to ensure wage bills are correct.

The bottom line
Sometimes bringing in more staff causes more problems than solutions. Consider the needs of your kitchen and the hours required to train and manage agency staff. For smaller kitchens, it may be more cost effective to partner with a high quality supplier.