We understand that in the last few years a lot has happened to the hospitality industry. Between Brexit and COVID, there has been a real shift when it comes to recruiting staff into your venue. While there used to be a lot of contenders, application rates are a lot lower than they were. A lot of the talent that used to work in the industry moved back to their home countries after Brexit and during the uncertain months that COVID gave us.

According to a recent poll from CV-Library, more than 40% of all hospitality workers have left the industry since 2020. This left a lot of businesses struggling to find enough staff to reopen completely. So if you find yourself struggling to find people to hire and are looking for the best ways to recruit into your venue, we have put together a few tips to help you stand out.

This is an Employee’s Market

Recruiting staff right now may seem tough for a number of reasons. One of those may be that it’s an employee’s market at the moment. It’s a competitive market between businesses in the hospitality industry because you have to offer the best pay to get skilled workers into your venue. That may not always be possible, so it’s also important to be a good employer. Take care of your current employees so they aren’t tempted by a bigger salary somewhere else. If you show them that you care, you’ll have a higher retention rate.

With that being said, you have to show prospective employees that you’re the best when it comes to looking after them. You can use social media to do this. A lot of restaurants have set up Instagram and TikTok pages. They let their staff join in with creating the content if they want to. This is a great way to attract new people to your business and recruit into your venue. 

It All Starts with Good Management

Managers set the standard in both the front of house and back. Ensuring you have a great manager in both areas will allow you to set precedents with your current staff. If you have strong management, that helps significantly with training new employees and getting them to stay with the business. 

Having good managers will help with the recruitment process as well. This is because they can ensure that candidates are qualified or possess qualities that will benefit the business. 

Recruitment

Speaking of recruitment, where do you get started? Where should you post your job listings? Social media is a great tool for recruitment, but remember that you may only attract people who are already following you or who are aware of your company. If you’re looking to find people who may not know about you yet, you’ll have to branch out.

Put listings on websites like LinkedIn and Indeed. You can also add something to GumTree or websites dedicated to specific locations and areas. If you’re still struggling to get any applications after doing this, you can always reach out to a recruiter. They can take the time to find employees, especially ones for management or operations positions. This will really help you when looking to recruit into your venue.

You May Need to Think About Personality over Experience

When it comes to staffing your business, you of course want someone who is experienced. But, sometimes, you can’t look at that as a parameter on whether or not that person will fit in well and work hard. Instead of focusing too much on past work experience during your interview process, look at their willingness to learn and get involved. Take note on whether they’ll fit in well with your current team. If they seem eager and want to grow within the company, that’s promising. With the staff shortage, you need to be willing to train new people, which can actually be beneficial in the long run when you’re trying to recruit into your venue. They’ll be a blank slate and you can really teach them how your place is run.

The Person You’re Interviewing May Be Interviewing You As Well

As we said earlier, this is an employee’s market which means that the person you’re interviewing is probably going to be interviewing at other places as well. Keep in mind that while you may be keen to find out as much as possible about the candidate, they’re probably doing the same thing. Be prepared to have lots of questions presented to you. You should be able to talk about the company culture, the expectations you have of your staff, and anything else that may be important to your specific venue. And if you decide that you want to go ahead and hire someone, let them know by calling them ASAP. If you wait too long, they may have already accepted another offer. 

How to Keep Your Restaurant or Bar going When You’re Short Staffed

Obviously the hiring process can take some time so it’s also important to be aware of what it will take to keep your business running if you are short staffed (this is also great to know because of possible COVID outbreaks that could result in staff not being able to go to work). If you’re short staffed you can reduce the number of tables and covers so people aren’t spread too thin and your service doesn’t suffer. You should keep your staff motivated and show them that you appreciate them. Be aware if any of them (or yourself) is facing burnout. You don’t want to overwork the staff you do have!

At the end of the day, we’re happy to see the hospitality industry gearing back up and we’re hopeful that things will get back to normal. 

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