Stay Ahead Of Staffing Strife
Jun 01, 2022
There’s just no sugar-coating it, the staffing pressures faced by the hospitality industry just keep compounding. The drop in job applicants, the upward trend of COVID and Flu cases, the rise in wage expectations and the flow of migrant workers drying up have created the perfect storm, seeing 92% of venues reporting a pressing need to back-fill and recruit staff this year.
With larger entertainment groups already offering higher wages and looking to fly workers in, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for smaller and independent venues to attract and retain staff against the rising demand.
Meanwhile, those same smaller venues are just as impacted by increasing compliance demands, that make keeping the staff they have, active, even more challenging.
So, what can smaller and independent hospitality venues do to get a leg up in filling their rosters and fully utilising the staff they have?
1. Go where the staff are
When looking to fill gaps quickly, it helps to get in front of as many of your ideal employees as possible. Rather than relying solely on generic job sites, offer referral bonuses to staff, advertise in venue and leverage targeted candidate communities like Barcats to help you reach the right staff as quickly as possible.
2. Leverage speed in the hiring process
Doing whatever you can to speed up the hiring process means you are less likely to lose a potential team member to other offers. Having a really clear idea of your criteria, removing barriers to hire like too many interviews, as well as responding to applications (especially for Rockstar shifts) as quickly as possible is an affordable and effective way to lock in great staff before someone else can.
3. Offer what you can
With things as they are it can be tough to match some of the extraordinary wages that are being offered at the moment. This can make it hard to attract candidates or even hold on to existing staff. Options like a sign-on bonus, in-venue credit, timed-pay increases, incentives for returning contingent staff or making it past a certain milestone, or even extending a couple of paid leave days to casual staff down the line, could help keep your team loyal, and grab the attention of the extra staff you need.
4. Streamline rostering by taking the hassle out of compliance
Staff availability and sick days being as they are, rostering is already a nightmare. When you add to it the headache of collecting credentials for incoming staff, as well as staying on top of certificate expiries of your existing team - it can become your biggest hassle. Using tools like CredShare, that allow you to instantly collect and confirm credentials, can cut hours off your onboarding and ensure your active staff stay ready to roster.
Check out more staffing tips from the community page and learn more about how safer and simpler credential management can help take the risk out of your rostering.
CredShare is the only platform that allows you to collect, confirm and report on team credentials instantly, without having to risk holding sensitive staff info. To learn more about CredShare or pre-register for our Barcats Community offer visit: http://barcatsvenues.
