Your staff deserve to live like guests
Busy hospitality operation seeks staff for long-term relationship. Friendly environment, good prospects, immediate start. Benefits include live-in accommodation and all meals. As well as relevant qualifications, successful candidates must have a good sense of humour (GSOH). They'll need it to put up with the bedbugs they might encounter in the bedroom, the cockroaches in the bathroom, the dirty toilet down the dark corridor and the recycled restaurant food they are given to eat.
But never mind, because this is just for staff and, in the grand scheme of bringing in revenue, achieving healthy occupancies or diner numbers and delivering for shareholders and investors alike, staff don't really matter, do they?
Well, obviously, they do. Staff perks such as live-in accommodation or food are a valuable part of the overall employment package for both employers and employees (see page 22). Canny job seekers will look beyond the salary and assess the total value of what's on offer.
The hidden extras can form a highly emotive part of the decision-making process and make a difference when it comes to choosing one employer over another. The employer should end up with staff who are more productive and motivated on duty, because they have a pleasant environment when off duty.
Perks are also more likely to be a retention tool when staff get itchy feet and start to look for a new post.
It all sounds pretty straightforward. But the evidence suggests that some employers are merely paying lip service to these policies. Research carried out for this year's Springboard UK Careers Festival found staff living in squalid conditions, a fact that was turning potential new recruits away from the sector (Caterer, 18 October, page 5).
The excuse among bosses for allowing this to happen seems to be rather feeble: "Well, that's what it was like in my day, so why should it be any different now?"
Of course, not everyone is to blame, but unfortunately it's the bad news about the industry that will be remembered. And to argue that squalor should be continued because new recruits need to undergo some kind of traditional baptism of fire that they can tell their grandchildren about in years to come is both draconian and insulting.
Bosses would not dream of inflicting these kinds of conditions on their guests. Imagine the outcry and the flapping of management wings there would be if a guest were to complain loudly about cockroaches and bedbugs. The same level of respect should apply to staff.
Managers could start by inspecting what they offer their staff and asking themselves whether they would be prepared to live in such conditions. Staff should be encouraged to participate in these discussions, as this way they are more likely to have ownership of their environment and take better care of it.
This consultative process also gives operators more opportunities to lay down rules for the appropriate maintenance of living conditions.
If, as is being mooted in the current climate, the skills shortage is abating, then there will be more good people on the market. Now is a good opportunity to snap them up and look after them.
They might even turn out to have a GSOH (plastic cockroaches only, please).
Jenny Webster
Deputy Editor
Caterer & Hotelkeeper
