Last month, news broke that Australian pubs, restaurants, cafes and hotels are in need of 200,000 workers to fill critical staff shortages, which could leave them lacking for the peak hospitality season.
Of course, this wasn’t a surprise to anyone working in the hospitality sector which has experienced significant challenges over the last three years, with the Covid-19 pandemic shrinking the pool of overseas workers and forcing many Australians to leave the industry for more stable work.
Full-service venues, kitchens and back-of house operations have been hit especially hard, with worker resignations at an all-time high. As restaurants continue to recover, the main focus is on attracting customers while keeping costs down.
With that in mind, we bring you five tips for coping with staff shortages in the restaurant industry.
Focus on your most popular products:
Take a look at your current menu and consider cutting out less sought-after options to enable your kitchen staff to focus on perfecting popular items. The main idea here is to get down to basics. Remove dishes that don’t sell well, and analyse dishes that require several ingredients or long preparation times.
Pre-batch cocktails:
Save time on more manual tasks like preparing cocktails by purchasing pre-batched mixes. Efficiency is key with few staff and pre-batched cocktails increase speed of service and reduce margin for error.
Use QR codes:
Of course, using QR codes for the ordering process won’t eliminate all of your front-of-house staff, but they can reduce the number you need and free the staff you have to focus on other tasks.
Purchase pre-prepped food:
Pre-prepped ingredients save you the labour hours your cooks would otherwise spend chopping and baking items you can easily get elsewhere. Consider purchasing commonly used ingredients like vegetables pre-diced from your supplier. Consider buying your bread in, rather than baking it, and buy the pre-sliced options to save you time. Options like pre-made garlic bread are real people pleasers (and when you go with a sourdough variety, they can’t even tell it’s not house made).
