Retain Your Team and Elevate Customer Service 

Workforce retention is perhaps one of the hospitality industry’s largest issues, with vacancies still overwhelmingly high. However, this issue is not new, and hospitality businesses have historically struggled to retain their workforce. 

In November 2023, Brigad organised an event last November at London’s Amano Hotel for hospitality businesses owners and managers to connect and to hear Peter Avis, General Manager of fine dining restaurant Galvin at Windows in Mayfair, and award-winning hospitality journalist, Millike Milliken, discuss workforce retention, staff training, and customer satisfaction.     

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Below are the key takeaways from Peter’s presentation at our event:

Flexibility in the New Hospitality Landscape

Going into 2024, it seems that the industry is changing for the better. For older generations, career progression in hospitality was mainly based on how many hours you could work, and those that were willing to work 60-hour weeks were often those that would move up and become managers. However, this is a dying trend; today’s workers crave flexibility above all else. 

Businesses need to be flexible if they want to work with the new generation. This doesn’t mean that your workers don’t want to work -  what it does mean is that businesses have to make more of an effort to learn what schedules suit them, as well as their needs and desires outside of work to make the necessary adjustments to allow an adequate work-life balance. For example,  businesses should be making adjustments for students during exam time, or around parents with young children.

Not only will this make their working life easier and more enjoyable, but it will reduce absences, whilst also showing staff that the company cares about them and is willing to be flexible. This perception will also boost workforce morale.  

After all, workforce retention isn’t all about the staff, it’s equally about the business. A workforce will want to know your vision, your revenue, about your sustainability ethos - they want to know that they are coming into a company with both structure and integrity. It is this kind of transparency which will lead to invested workers.  

It is important not to overwork or create unnecessary stress for staff since retention is based largely on business strategy, with staff leaving if they are not cared for, or being well managed. The importance of making use of platforms, such as Brigad, to find flexible and casual workers, as opposed to overworking permanent staff, cannot be understated. The initial cost of extra staff might be costly, but it will be far from the cost of training and recruiting new staff if a permanent member leaves because of burn-out. 

Investing in Your Workforce

When it comes to retaining staff, businesses should consider how they can better invest in their workforce. Peter shared a story of how he lost four sommeliers through the pandemic, often as they returned to their home countries. On opening again in 2022, he was left with just three sommeliers and knew that he needed to keep them to reach his year-end targets on wine sales. To do this he invested in his team and sent them to education programs to give them teaching qualifications, enabling them to gain new skills, whilst also allowing them to train new sommeliers for the company. 

This investment has paid off - there is now a culture among the business that workers can become trained in recognised wine and spirit qualifications. In terms of numbers, since investing in the workforce, the business has seen a 33% increase in wine sales since 2019, proving that staff investment pays off. 

“I believe that if you want to retain your teams and to make your team feel valued, it’s more than being nice to people. You need to create a culture with values.”

Concentrate Training Smaller Teams

In the current climate, most hospitality businesses will be operating on a smaller team than pre-pandemic. The industry is facing mass vacancies and thanks to recent changes in geopolitics and government policies, it looks as though this will continue to be an issue. In response to this, businesses should be focusing on better levels of staff training to maximise these small teams. Better training will boost efficiency, quality control and customer satisfaction. 

Peter recalled how a focus on staff training saw an increase in the levels of customer satisfaction and engagement at Galvin at Windows: 

“When I took the role at Galvin at Windows, the restaurant was aiming for a Michelin-starred experience, which involved a lot of staff, and sometimes eight people serving a single table. We’ve realised that guests don’t want that - they want to build rapport with their server, and a single waiter means that they make more meaningful engagements with the customer.”

Lower staff numbers when compared to pre-pandemic may not be such an issue if there are better training and development opportunities for staff, enabling them to level up and become highly skilled in their roles. 
Spend time researching courses and qualifications that you could enrol your team into, or ask your team directly which skills they would like to learn or strengthen. This kind of investment will elevate your team with new skills and experience, as well as renewing their confidence and their passion for the job. People want to work for businesses that want to grow and invest in their workforce - and so businesses that put in the extra effort to elevate their staff will find that these people will want to work for the business for far longer. 

Businesses should also consider investing their time in specialised recruitment. Take the time to connect with local universities and colleges to build rapport with young people who want to pursue a career in the industry, people who will be a long-term investment for the business. 

Hospitality as a Stop Gap

The industry has historically struggled with retaining staff. There are a few key reasons for this. Firstly, the industry relies too heavily on young people making the bulk of their workforce, with a large majority of workers being under 25 years of age. A young workforce is not always a bad thing, but it does suggest that the type of people that hospitality attracts are people at the beginning of their careers who will see their role in hospitality as temporary, or a stopgap. 

The industry attracts transient workers - meaning, workers who will take the role temporarily, whilst they aim to move on to another industry. Transient workers are often students, or people looking to make ends meet while they prepare for a role in another industry. Hospitality also lacks a clear route of career progression, which will make a workforce look elsewhere if they struggle to see their future at the workplace. 

The industry may never truly escape hiring transient workers - however, a business may be able to boost staff retention by putting more energy into making their business an enjoyable place to work, whilst also investing in their staff, encouraging them to train and showing them clear development routes.  

Businesses should embrace people who want to work with them whilst they pursue other career paths. However, at the same time, they should also do their best to show them great career they could have in hospitality.

Peter admits that many of his best staff are students who see their role as temporary whilst they train in another field. However, sometimes people fall in love with the industry. He recalls a staff member who was studying for a marketing degree, who ended up becoming Peter’s reception manager and working with him for ten years. 

Build a Reputation and Strategy For Your Business

The reputation of your business is crucial for both staff retention and recruitment. At the end of the day, if you are known as a great place to work, people are going to want to work for you and, once in, will stay with the business. It may seem obvious to state, but staff retention is largely based on how a business treats, grows and develops its staff. 

Staff are more likely to stay if they can see how a business is progressing, and what the business wants to achieve. To do this, a business must have a clear vision, and this vision must be made apparent to all staff, permanent and short-term. Nevertheless, this vision must also be achievable, and it must be instigated at every level.

Peter shared the following anecdote on the importance of a vision for a business:  

“You can’t sell them a dream of a brand, build up your image as a great place to work, then treat staff poorly with little training, little guidance or leadership. It will only damage your reputation. People stay at Galvin because they believe in our mission, they are changing lives, and they are in a warm and welcoming culture. This doesn't change if they are permanent or working for a few hours through the Brigad app.”

Hospitality and Tech

A hospitality business’s success hinges on the ability to satisfy its customers. So, in the face of evolving technology, hospitality businesses will still prioritise people with customer service skills in their recruitment and training. However, the future of the hospitality industry is also largely reliant on businesses using up-to-date technology. 

Peter recalled going to an industry event 20 years ago and being astounded by the idea of online bookings, believing that there was no way that his customers would make an online booking for a restaurant. Today, 90% of bookings are made online. 

With tech, businesses have to be brave and embrace it. At the end of the day, hospitality is people, “we are hospitality,” Peter stated, “but tech evolves to make our jobs easier, allowing us to focus on the customer. “ 

It is technology like the Brigad app which can save hospitality businesses time and money. Through Brigad, you can connect with skilled and experienced self-employed hospitality workers who are looking for short-term work. Not only does Brigad allow businesses to skip lengthy recruitment and training periods by giving business owners access to a network of industry professionals, but it can also help cut costs in the long term when businesses only want to hire for brief windows, such as high seasonal periods, or relief work to cover staff sickness or vacancies.  

Retaining Your Team 

Customer service and staff well-being are intertwined. Staff must be well trained, motivated and, crucially, content in their place of work if they are to deliver exceptional customer service. Likewise, staff retention should be expected to increase if the staff remain happy in their job and are shown clear roots of progression. 

The key takeaway from Peter’s presentation is that staff investment is an investment for both the business and the individual. Businesses that take the time to grow their employees, keeping them happy, motivated and learning, have a much higher chance of that individual becoming invested in the success of the business. 

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