The Blog

One of the most frequent questions I get asked is, if you are an ops manager, how do you organise yourself to deliver on labour in the most effective way, and in the least amount of time? The flippant answer is that it...

For many of us who benefit from increased trade through the summer months, the beginning of September is a tough time. The kids go back to school, the summer holidays are over, and trade takes a dip.  I have been reading...

I’ve been thinking about the word ‘coping’ recently. It is a word I dislike because it is used far too often, without thinking about its actual implications. Whenever I have watched service in my own restaurants at times...

A few rather dangerous things seem to be coming together at the moment. Not long ago, I wrote about the challenges faced by the younger generation. As a result of Covid, educational attainment has fallen behind across the...

We have recently introduced iPad tills into our pubs at long last. Many of you are probably, and rightly, laughing because you did this ages ago. In fact, I have many unhappy memories of trialling mobile tills fifteen years...

I recently had the most marvellous dinner debate with a few senior restaurant owners. There were five of us at the table, which allowed for a single, engaging conversation that covered a vast array of topics.  We started...

In my view, the future of hospitality hinges on how we evolve our kitchens. As ready meals get better, and delivery from dark kitchens improves, we need to make sure the food from our kitchen team is up to scratch.   For...

One of the most frustrating elements of management in hospitality is the drift in labour cost. After a huge amount of effort working with the team to get to the right cost for a week, including NI and holiday, holding to...

A recent topic that seems to come up often when I talk to industry colleagues is the appalling damage covid has done to Gen Z. For a while there has been much talk of the academic damage done, but less energy is focused on...

As a business, we often have the onus put on us to fill in an RFI document for our software. For those of you lucky enough never to have encountered this task, it is a document built by a company to ensure they get the...

As I journey around the industry, I am fascinated by who is successful and who is not. In particular, I love to see the success that single sites can have. My sister and her husband run a very successful single site near...

I read an article in Propel recently on the lack of training in the hospitality sector. Research from the Economics Foundation suggests that spending on training has reduced by 35%, and that this is leading to a reduction...

I love doing consultancy work. I find that the debate with other people really forces me to think, analyse and invent. And occasionally, it sparks a moment that I need to write down. Last week was one of those. ...

Over the last ten years, we have been trying to get Mother’s Day right, and I am still not sure we have. In terms of covers, Mother’s Day is our biggest day of the year. At our busiest pub, we had 753 booked this year....

In our pub business we have recently been recruiting for a Deputy General Manager. During our interviewing, it has been fascinating to learn why so many staff want to leave the largest companies in the sector and come and...

As a bit of a labour management nut, I often find myself frustrated by the people-approach of many operators across our industry, bemoaning the fact that we are amateurs when we should be professionals.     I worry that the...

There is a myth in our industry that being understaffed is the biggest challenge to sales growth, and that is the missed opportunity. But the truth is that, while we all want to have the right number of staff, the bigger...

The planned increase to minimum wage has made a substantial change to the differentials between young people. From April next year, over 21s will see a minimum wage of £11.44, whilst under-18s will receive £6.40.  There is...

Priced out: The struggles facing operators in wake of increasing NLW This year, there's been a 11.5% surge in the annual minimum wage, once the increases for lower age workers are added into the mix. It's left the industry...

Closing restaurants and rooms in January   We have had several debates about whether we close our restaurants and bedrooms for a few days in January. This is a big decision for us, as our philosophy is to be open all...

Maintaining better habits in hospitality  Two weeks ago, I wrote about changing behavioural habits in the industry. Operators have their sights set on growing productivity and engagement amongst their teams with an urgency...

Opinion piece  by Alastair Scott It seems to me that one of the best skills to have under your belt in hospitality is the ability to recognise the need for change, and then practice and embed new habits. As an industry, I...

How should we be rostering our teams at Christmas?   Christmas is a welcome interlude between the depths of November and January. It is short-lived, but we typically have two objectives. First, to give the customer a...

Using templates to rota hospitality teams The use of rota templates in the hospitality industry can be divisive. They speed up the rota-writing process, but the risk is that the team become lazy and merely load a template...