HR Support for Hospitality and Catering Businesses

In any business where there are people delivering goods and/or services, conflict issues are likely to arise.

Where the working environment is pressurised and occasionally volatile, HR issues are likely to be more prevalent. The hospitality and catering sector is one such industry.  Our knowledge and experience of this sector comes from having worked in it and held roles that have delivered both HR compliance and staff training.

Examples of the catering and hospitality environments our team have previously worked in include:

• Cafes
• Contract catering e.g. Wimbledon Tennis Championships
• Hotels
• Onboard service provision e.g. Eurostar
• Restaurants
• Pubs

Resolving HR issues

The kinds of conflict situations that hospitality and catering companies ask us to advise upon include:

• Sexual harassment. The live-in arrangements at hotels, plus the long and anti-social hours gives rise to proportionately more claims of sexual harassment.
• Bullying
• Alcohol and drug abuse.
• Theft of food and beverage stock.
• Theft and the mishandling of cash.

An employer needs to have a range of relevant policies in place in order to deal effectively when issues such as those mentioned arise. Without policies, or the proof that issues have been handled correctly or consistently, an employee can bring a Tribunal claim against their employer.

Training

At vivoHR, we have a set of modified training modules designed for the hospitality and catering sector. They have been structured to reflect that extended periods of time away from workplace is not practical, (unlike an office environment). Examples of modified training courses include:

• Inductions packs that can be worked through on-the-job as opposed to in the classroom.
• Use of a work shadow / buddy arrangement to enable an effective sharing of ‘how things are done round here’.
• Appraisals re-designed so that the meetings are shorter, but they happen more frequently. This is in line with current HR thinking, where more regular ‘check-ins’ with staff members are encouraged rather than the lengthy annual reviews which take the Manager and team member away from the service for too long.
• There is also tailored training for the sector on service efficiency and profitability matters. in particular up-selling, customer service, complaints handling and team leadership skills.

Contact us

To talk to our team further out HR services for the hospitality and catering sector call 01252 757359 or email [email protected]