How to tackle hospitality staff shortages

Delving into the sector's diversity, Street emphasises the importance of core values and strategic marketing for fostering an exceptional workplace.

How to tackle hospitality staff shortages 

The hospitality industry encountered a severe staffing shortage in recent years. Restaurant, pub, bar and hotel operators across the UK struggled to fill vacancies for kitchen and back-of-house positions. 

A survey conducted in 2021 by UKHospitality revealed the extent of the problem across restaurants, pubs, bars, and hotels in the UK. The data showed that 80% of hospitality businesses were finding it hard to fill front-of-house roles, while 85% had openings for chefs. With an estimated active vacancy rate of 9% at the time, the industry was missing around 188,000 workers, according to the survey. Though no longer at peak levels, the impacts of the recent shortage underscored major workforce challenges. 

How is hospitality addressing the staff shortage?

Initiatives from charities and organisations such as Springboard and UKHospitality aim to address the staffing issue by promoting jobs in the sector and getting new candidates work-ready. 

UKHospitality's workforce strategy, launched in May 2022, examines and supports the workforce to support people into jobs in hospitality and help equip them with the skills needed for these roles. The strategy is based on a partnership with the government and covers the whole United Kingdom. 

While these initiatives will certainly help hospitality address the skills gap in the long term, they are of little comfort to operators who need staff to work in their kitchens or serve customers right now.

How can technology help with staffing challenges?

An advanced hospitality-focused tech can be a valuable tool within your business- from optimising staff scheduling to streamlining hiring and recruitment to training management systems where your employees can acquire the necessary skills and knowledge. But it can also help businesses be more adaptive. It can help develop a workforce plan based on previous patterns and sales data, accurately predicting your staff needs.

Tackle management challenges by minimising staff churn, strengthening employee engagement and ultimately, attracting the new generation of talent. Access People for Hospitality takes care of all your people processes. 

Creating a work-life balance for hospitality staff

The importance of using workforce management technology to give employees ownership of their working lives is incredibly important in helping them manage their work-life balance better. The wide use of hospitality rota and scheduling software across hospitality has transformed workforce planning and given staff more power to manage their own work-life balance, creating a more content workforce and efficient operation. 

Investing in employee well-being can help address staff shortages by increasing resilience, better employee engagement, reduced sickness absence, and higher performance and productivity. 

Read more about the importance of wellbeing and mental health in hospitality here. 

Focus on financial wellbeing

Historically, the hospitality industry has been impacted by the effects of poor financial wellbeing, with it being one of the leading causes of lost working days in the UK. According to a report by Aegon, the hospitality sector loses over £200 million each year due to workers’ financial difficulties. It also highlighted that workers in the hospitality and leisure sectors had the lowest financial wellbeing score of 48, and the highest absence rate due to financial worries, with 6% of workers having taken time off work in the last 12 months due to financial difficulties.

There are simple ways of relieving some of the financial stresses your employees may be facing, with little impact on your own cash flow such as:

• Offering free meals on shifts
• Increased employee discounts
• A clear and fair tips policy
• Flexible pay options such as on-demand pay 

Which can all contribute to the overall satisfaction of your team.

The staff shortage issue will not be resolved overnight, so hospitality businesses will inevitably need to continue adapting if they wish to survive.

For all operators – whether adapting work practices or not – one way to help manage staff shortages over the next few months is to draw on the support of hospitality workforce management software. By investing in systems designed to support the staff who are already employed and making processes more efficient, operators stand a greater chance of retaining those employees and attracting new ones in the future.

Webinar: 'Hospitality - Solutions to the Staffing Crisis'

Back in 2021, Access Hospitality sponsored a webinar - which features a panel discussion with HR leaders within the hospitality sector looking at the current staffing crisis within the hospitality industry.

On the panel, we had Andrew Bush, Chief People Officer, Greene King Plc, Caroline Marais, Group Director of HR, Edwardian Hotels London, Chris Gamm, CEO, The Springboard Charity and Jamie Campbell, Director, CPL Learning - an Access company.

The discussion is hosted by hospitality and leisure strategist Ann Elliott and looks at why has the staffing crisis occurred, what are people currently experiencing within their businesses, how can we make hospitality a career of choice and much more.