It’s just so hard to find staff right now
It’s just so hard to find staff.
A through line that I’ve heard unanimously as I’ve interviewed multiple chefs, restauranteurs, and hospitality entrepreneurs over the last six months.
From London to Manchester, Norway to Montreal, and Toronto—It’s just so hard to find staff is a sentence uttered by literally everyone.
Why? Well, buckle up for some nuance because there’s a lot to unpack here.
First, let’s take a step back to evaluate the holistic reality of the hospitality industry. And please bear in mind, this is based off of anecdotal evidence as discussed between myself and hospitality entrepreneurs from 16 different restaurants based in 5 different cities. I’m terrible at math, so you can figure out the statistics if you like.
In an oversimplification—it’s geopolitics.
Let’s look at pre-Brexit UK. This is when many European workers would typically migrate to the UK, work in hospitality to pay their way through school or simply aim to gain experience in a restaurant or hotel to climb the hospitality ladder.
Now, Brexit no longer allows for EU passport holders to have such mobility, and the same goes for UK passport holders to the EU. It’s created massive complications and a huge staffing crisis that only sees people have to filter through extremely high visa fees, and an abhorrent amount of red tape.
This concept is not atypical to the UK, we see very similar situations in Canada too. People arriving from the US to study would have the ability to get a job waiting tables, or being a hotel concierge with aspirations for hospitality professional development. The student visa route hasn’t changed that dramatically for most Canadian provinces, however for Quebec (and more specifically, Montreal—a place that used to be known as Canada’s hospitality mecca) this is dying out fast due to the onset of tuition hikes for out-of-province students, and specifically, anglophones—a big conversation for another day.
TLDR: Borders are getting harsher, and division is getting stronger. The result is tha we are now in a labour shortage felt ubiquitously across the globe.
What’s’ interesting is that this is the opposite to what most people want. We want to see communities thrive, we want to see the success of independent hospitality businesses, we want to see people have access to fair wages and career opportunities.
The point is that there aren’t enough people to carry out the work that needs to be done. There isn’t enough skill out there to support the needs of our hospitality gems, and the perception that hospitality is a viable pathway to success has drastically changed.
What was once a path to livelihood and financial support has become perceivably questionable as far as career development and evolution is concerned. Now hospitality is perceived as a day job that should support other pursuits.
As I continued to have these conversations I realized that the worries of entrepreneurs were unanimously about staffing. They also aligned with different nuances such as: wages, training, development, skillset, general work ethic, etc. Here are some examples:
The upscale bistro needs people who are trained in culinary school to support the high-end vision of the production of their food. They need to pay them a liveable wage so they increase the price to dine.
The bakery around the corner needs someone who is skilled at baking bread and equally skilled at jumping onto the coffee station during peak times—without being told to do so.
The new neighbourhood pub needs someone who understands the needs of the clientele and how to tow the line between quality service and looking up their noses at patrons.
The new Montreal boutique hotel needs bilingual staff to cater to local and international tourists who communicate in different languages.
The above comes with a need for people to have a specific skillset, sure. They also need to feel that establishments are investing in them in order to deliver at a high quality bar.
Which brings us to the next topic—wages. With the economy being… how it is now *gestures broadly*. Not all entrepreneurs can afford to pay their staff, and staff can’t afford to work for lower wages. It’s a stalemate that we’re seeing for many (not all) businesses. The result is a fiercely competitive market for entrepreneurs to hire quality staff—because great people will work for a great employer. And let’s face it, even if your establishment is awesome, if it can’t pay the bills…you’re definitely going to struggle to find the right folks to run your business.
So the question begs itself: where do we go from here?
For some owner/operators it means they’re personally stepping into the fray of daily operations far more than they’d like.
For others, we’re seeing the emergence of topco’s: organizations built by entrepreneurs who have more than one location creating one independently run corporation to support each unique hospitality outlet. That means operating independently but as a company rather than as a singular entity which results in: higher wages, access to health insurance, and career development options, opportunities to drive revenue through brand collaborations, etc.
Learning all of this, I did what any normal person would do—I spiralled into anxiety: What can people do? What can I do? Can we do anything? Is this going nowhere? Will AI come for us all? Will all our restaurants die out and will we only have access to globalized establishments—torture!
When I finally stopped spiralling I decided it would be far healthier to take a solution oriented approach. This is after all, a safe space that I created to talk about hospitality in a way that draws inspiration.
Time to search for the proverbial magic wand and help. I thought mine was lost somewhere in Diagon Alley with my Hogwarts letter that never made it to my muggle address—I was wrong!
There will always be the things that we can’t control, geopolitics, economic strife—et cet tera.
Thankfully, there will also be things that we can control: Like setting up a monthly newsletter that shares where good hospitality jobs are and giving visibility to those who care to see the industry thrive.
Oh but Erika, who has time to do that?
Well, me apparently. Introducing—Commission.
Commission exists to support hospitality businesses. It will do everything from:
operational support
staffing, hiring, training
menu curation
ambiance curation
brand sponsorship and partnerships
immersive events
website development and newsletter publishing
product development and ecommerce support
In the meantime, if you’re in hospitality and you’re: needing to hire, or wanting to get hired—I want to hear from you.
I will source hospitality jobs from Canada, the UK, the EU (and beyond!) to give you access to the job listings you might not know existed. You will also have access to support resources to get your resume noticed. Sign up to Daughter of a Restauranteur on substack to get access!
If you’re a hospitality organization and hiring, you will have publicity of your job postings on this newsletter along with the ability to share more about your business and who the ideal candidates are that you’d like to hire.
Bon Appétit!
xx
Erika
