The shortage of hospitality venues staff all over Australia continues.
A recent article from The Sydney Morning Herald talked about the current hiring moves of hospitality venues to address staffing shortages by shipping in workers from overseas. While this is nothing new to the industry, staff shortages have persisted throughout the pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of temporary visa holders left Australia over the past few years, putting significant strain on the labour market.
An article from WA Today agrees with this sentiment. Several factors affecting staffing, such as staff falling ill to Covid-19 and no interstate or overseas talent, have left many businesses struggling to stay afloat.
In a pretty shocking article from The West Australian, staffing issues have reached “desperation levels” as baristas are offered an extraordinary $92,000-a-year pay-packet to make coffees in a takeaway restaurant in Broome.
The staffing crisis that the hospitality industry is facing now has a long way to go, but business owners cannot afford to wait. Each day comes for yet another business door to close.
Many restaurants are forced to decrease operating hours, which is counterproductive since it may seem to cut operating costs. Still, fewer opening hours will result in fewer customers, equating to less revenue.
Another scenario in most kitchens is having employees stretch their work responsibilities. The restaurant kitchen is already notorious for long gruelling working hours, and they must push that even further.
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With these challenges facing them, how else can hospitality venues support their businesses?
Short term hire is a smart staffing option to address staffing issues. Hire only for times and events when you need more than your regular number of people without the standard requirements that go along with when you traditionally hire someone.
Anytime Chefs has supported various hospitality venues all over Western Australia by providing professional chefs, waiters and stewards that business owners can hire for a specific duration of time when they need to support the most. Hiring from competent agencies can help maximise productivity as you are already getting support from skilled people who may know how to handle various tasks in your kitchen. Instead of hiring new staff, you still need to train.
Business owners are willing to risk hiring people on the spot to fill kitchen roles and operate right away. They offer multiple incentives, and they are not shy from saying that these are desperate times.
While there are many roles and vacancies to be filled, hospitality businesses can benefit from connecting with chef staffing agencies. The latter may provide insights on which areas need to be addressed until they can truly stand up on their feet and staffing has become more stable.
Anytime Chefs provide consultation services to help create an overall solution while the industry lacks physical staffing to operate. Perhaps some businesses need a more well-rounded approach to address sales challenges that they can focus on while still looking for staff to fill vacancies.
Anytime Chefs can help hospitality business owners create efficient kitchen logistics plans to manage their venue effectively. By creating cost-effective recipes and seasonal menus, sourcing better products and prices from suppliers, we can help centralise operating procedures to ensure consistency in service,
In Summary:
The creativity of business owners is most apparent during times of crisis. Covid-19 has undoubtedly brought the industry to its knees, but we still need to keep pushing on. It never hurts to keep an open mind to different angles to reach a solution.
Give us a call at Anytime Chefs, and let’s talk about how we can support your hospitality business.
That’s it for this week.
As always, Professional Chefs on Call at Anytime!
Ciao for now,
Thomas
