People Summit Manchester explores staffing solutions

Hospitality leaders from across the UK gathered at the Lowry hotel for the People Summit Manchester, where debates and presentations covered anything from how the industry is being hamstrung by its failure to analyse staff turnover to recruiting skilled staff from overseas, getting young people interested in hospitality and how the work-life balance tops Gen Z's agenda.

The summit, sponsored by workforce management technology company Harri, opened with a welcome from The Caterer's managing editor Lisa Jenkins and Adrian Ellis, general manager of the Lowry. Ceri Gott, people and performance director, and Jack Davy, regional general manager at steakhouse chain Hawksmoor, were well-placed to tackle the opening topic – recruiting for a new opening: strategy and development.

Gott said Hawksmoor has had to speed up its recruitment process in the current climate so that it beats the competition to staff. It now takes five and a half days for Hawksmoor to hire a back of house member of staff, from initial application to the job offer.

"We all know that every chef you are looking for, someone else is trying to hire them, so am I going to be faster than the head chef down the road? Speed is so critical. We recruit for tomorrow, not yesterday. It's about data – how many people do we need to hire a week?"

The biggest priority should be to recruit the person who fits into the company culture, rather than their experience or CV. "It's not the right place for everyone, but we try to be a great place for people who want to be there. It is important not to panic hire," Davy added.

Once you have the right people the challenge is to retain them. The first day needs to be memorable, with the right training and tools, said Davy. "You have to keep up the momentum in the first week so that you don't lose them to someone else."

For a new restaurant opening, Hawksmoor favours a mix of existing staff and new hires. "We are still learning, so every time we open we get better," says Davy,who is preparing to open Hawksmoor's latest site in Liverpool in November.

"In Liverpool, 80% of the management team are from the city. You can't be London Hawksmoor in Manchester or Edinburgh or New York – each location has an individual vibe."

Low staff turnover helps build the business, said Gott. The company sets out to create a culture where it is OK to make a mistake as well as being a place of diversity and inclusion; a space where people can bring their whole self to work.

Ideally, a new member of staff gets four weeks' training to run a section, but with the current pressure of staff shortages this timeframe can be under pressure.

With lots of choices for staff in hospitality the key to staff retention is "quite boring" said Gott: getting the day-to-day glue in place, a routine of weekly reviews, getting the terms and conditions right, treating people well and trying to be an interesting place to work, as well as supporting individuals for growth.

Davy added that there is a quadrant of skill and will and when people are good in a role it is easy to neglect them. The challenge is to excite people and keep them in a "growth mindset".

Double-edged sword

Next up was a lively session on why restaurant reviews are good for staff attraction. Panellists reported that the goalposts are moving, with blogging now the "VHS" of the review, and TripAdvisor slammed as a "cesspit of horrible people".

The session was hosted by James Stagg, editor of The Caterer, and the panel included chef Mary-Ellen McTague from EatWell MCR, which delivers food to the vulnerable in partnership with local restaurants, Thom Hetherington from Holden Media, Neil Morris, executive chef of the 26-site Ego Restaurant Group, and Luke Payne, chef-owner of the Pack Horse, Hayfield. Payne said that a great review from The Sunday Times in October 2021 saw bookings for the Pack Horse skyrocket, with the impact still seen today. "It was game-changing for us to have that validation, and it was great for the team at the time," he said.

However, the review had a downside in that the team started to burn out as the restaurant was always so busy. It did make recruitment easy, though, a bonus in a rural location, where attracting staff is a challenge.

McTague commented that just being in the mix for awards was really important as people engage with you on social media and it positions the business as somewhere people look to for employment: "Positive reviews always made a huge difference in areas such as morale, recruitment, trade and building industry support. Success begets success," she said.

Hetherington commented: "A bad review has never killed a business, but a good review can make a big difference. Getting the right PR and marketing will help with retaining and attracting staff."

Meanwhile, Morris said recruitment and staff relations are high on Ego's agenda, with plans to grow by eight sites next year and then 10 and 12 sites a year after that. He said that Ego has an internal awards programme, where the interaction between teams is "worth its weight in gold". Word of mouth, Facebook and Instagram are Ego's key platforms for publicity, run on a site-by-site basis, he said. Review site TripAdvisor was "massive" for the company, whereas blogging was "not very important."

The panel were split on TripAdvisor. McTague joked that she "stopped engaging for the sake of my sanity, the horrible reviews can be just wild".

TripAdvisor could take more responsibility for content, said Hetherington. "It has great power without great accountability. It would be easy for it to stop people posting without showing a receipt."

Bloggers, he said, do have some influence, but the idea of old-school bloggers asking for a free meal "feels five years ago, going the way of VHS or CDs. It was a cheesy moment."

Nowadays restaurants may want to impress influencers and technology can help, he said. One new electronic point of sale booking system flags up people with a large social media following, for example.

People power

With staff shortages a huge worry across the industry, the next session on alternative staff sourcing, digital attraction, visa applications, apprenticeships and alternative routes for finding staff was also of keen interest. On the panel were Simon Mahon, general manager, the Grand, York, Harry Goldstraw, senior associate supporting UK immigration at Fragomen, and Pete Willis, commercial director at Harri.

The two biggest headwinds for recruitment were that 1.3 million people had gone back to Europe due to Brexit, and secondly, Covid. As Willis said: "Life has been reset." A next generation approach to recruitment and retention was required to bring people in who were new to hospitality as well as retaining existing staff.

"Leverage your consumer brand," Willis urged, perhaps through social media referrals from your own satisfied staff or QR codes, where, for example, a drive-thru KFC takeaway would feature a QR code to take a customer through to a job application.

Mahon said the Grand has recruited some employees from overseas, particularly for the kitchen. The hotel is also working with local schools and has set up a year-long student placement programme, and it has also had two people come on board from a local prison. "You may think it is a risk. But you know more about these people than about other employees. We are proud to bring them back into the workplace," said Mahon.

Goldstraw gave delegates an overview of the process of applying for a work visa when recruiting from outside the UK where businesses need a sponsor licence to sponsor the recruit. The biggest cost is the immigration skills charge, which has to be paid by the employer, at £1,000 a year for five years. Goldstraw advised employers to make it clear they have a sponsor licence on job adverts, for example.

The government is currently consulting on Standard Occupation Classification (SOC) codes. If hospitality was placed on the shortage occupation list, this could reduce costs and simplify visas, Goldstraw said. Clients are being encouraged to respond to that consultation.

Keep them keen

Next up after lunch was Abi Dunn, the founder of hospitality recruitment, training and consultancy business Sixty Eight People, who gave a presentation on how the industry could improve on staff retention. A lot was being missed or overlooked on recruitment, she said. For example, 36% of interviewees never hear back from an interview.

Rotas were an industry problem, with staff not given adequate notice of when their shifts were. Robust measurement systems were also needed to flag working hours.

Work-life balance was key for Gen Z recruits in particular, and with hospitality having to compete for staff, it must "lose the eye-roll linked with work-life balance," Dunn advised.

The industry also overlooks team turnover, which should be a key performance indicator for a great manager. "If we became obsessed with this measure, the industry would change. Four out of five general managers don't know employee turnover and how many leave within 12 weeks, but turnover correlates strongly with site performance."

The final panel session talked about how sustainability and a safe and positive work environment goes hand in hand in 2022.

Panelists were Adrian Ellis of the Lowry, pub operator Jonathan Heyes, Jo Harley, managing director of Purple Cubed, and Matt Townley, regional operations director at boutique chain Dakota Hotels, which opened its Manchester site before the pandemic struck in 2019.

Ellis, who is chair of the Manchester Hoteliers Association and newly crowned Hotelier of the Year 2022, listed some of the sustainability and charity initiatives under way in Manchester hotels, such as zero plastic, renewable energy, food waste, and a ‘Clean the World' soap recycling campaign.

The local industry was also working with colleges and schools and students to change perceptions to attract staff, with mentoring new and potential staff a priority, Townley said.

Heyes said his company has been building an environmental angle into everything it does: "It's not going to add to your bottom line straight away as it's a long game but, as an indicator of purpose and values, it does help retain and recruit staff."

It's all about authenticity, Harley said. Pay was an issue, but there were other ways to boost staff morale and help in a cost of living crisis. For example, more businesses are offering staff two meals on duty, not just one.

Conducting staff surveys was an important tool to understand how staff felt, Harley added, but it was vital to act quickly on survey results.

The conference closed with insights from industry veteran Winston Zahra, chief executive of GG Hospitality, backed by footballers Ryan Giggs and Gary Neville. Zahra is also founder and chief executive of hospitality management company TROO Hospitality, which manages three hotels and hopes to conclude on another five by the year end.

It was important to recruit for attitude, not talent, he said. "If someone does not have the right attitude for hospitality it is difficult to mould them." Visibility of management was also key, he added, where managers should be listening to staff and then acting upon what they say. As he reminded delegates, "We are a people business. Without people we have nothing."

Perhaps that fact had become overlooked by some employers in hospitality while there was a plentiful supply of workers, but post-Covid and post-Brexit, the tables have certainly been turned.

From the sponsor

"It was an honour to invited back to The Caterer People Summit and it was extra-special to be in Manchester talking to established and emerging brands about the driving force of our industry – our people."

Pete Willis, commercial director, Harri