by Alastair Scott | Mar 14, 2025 | Thought Leadership
As we all know, hospitality is a people business and people have emotions, views and habits which they may be resistant to changing. This means decision-making can be an emotive subject, and labour costs and targets are probably one of the most sensitive areas to address. Opinions vary widely on what constitutes the ‘right’ labour cost, making it one of the most hotly debated topics in the business. While some managers believe that senior management’s cost-cutting measures hinder sales, especially during peak periods, others argue that excessive spending leads to inefficiencies and wasted resources. Striking the right balance is no small feat.
Often when these managers leave the business to run their own, they immediately invest in labour with the sound knowledge that their business will thrive. They see an opportunity to prove themselves right and show their previous bosses to have been mean, corporate profit chasers. But typically, after about twelve months of investment in labour, which often translates to losses, they hit the cold economic reality that they cannot afford as many staff and have to cut back. In doing so, they may inadvertently undercut their own operations, leading to reduced service quality and, in some cases, the collapse of their businesses. These experiences impart a hard-earned lesson: overstaffing is far riskier than understaffing.
The key takeaway from these scenarios is that effective labour management requires precision. A corporate target for labour costs is futile if managers lack the training to achieve it. Understaffing and overstaffing are symptoms of the same problem: a failure to manage labour strategically. For instance, running a shift with five team members can produce dramatically different outcomes depending on the quality of leadership and planning. Without effective shift leadership, even the best resources can be underutilised, leaving teams feeling overwhelmed and wrongly attributing poor performance to understaffing.
This is where the importance of top-down labour management and training really becomes noticeable. Setting standardised labour practices and clear expectations alongside introducing feedback loops and hands-on training will be extremely effective in embedding better labour practices into the business.
A poorly managed afternoon shift, for example, might neglect critical slack tasks, setting the evening team up for failure as they struggle to catch up. This domino effect not only impacts operations but also affects team morale and customer satisfaction.
This underscores the industry’s pressing need for labour management training. Training not only equips teams with practical skills but also helps change entrenched habits that hinder progress. Poor habits, such as inefficient time management or inadequate task prioritisation, are pervasive. Training teams, managers and ops managers to be better is the only way to help them. But how? Breaking these habits requires a carefully balanced approach that combines enforcement with support—what might be termed the ‘carrot and stick’ method. Tightening rotas without providing the necessary training leaves employees frustrated and ill-prepared, while training without enforcing changes risks making the effort redundant. It is only by combining these two elements that businesses can break free from the cycle of poor service and high staff turnover.
The path to improvement cannot be rushed. Effective change requires targeted training that addresses specific aspects of labour management. For example, quieter shifts present unique opportunities to reset and prepare for busier periods, but these opportunities are often wasted without proper training. Similarly, kitchen management demands specialised training to ensure efficiency and coordination in one of the busiest and most critical areas of any hospitality business. Each aspect of labour management comes with its own set of challenges, and each requires a tailored training programme to address them effectively.
Ultimately, the success of any labour management strategy hinges on a commitment to investment—not just in staffing but in training. A well-structured training budget is not an expense; it is an investment in the future success of the business. Approaching labour with the same mindset as before but with fewer people is a recipe for failure. Instead, the focus must shift to delivering the right training, supported by precise execution and a willingness to adapt. This is the path to long-term success in an industry where the demands are constantly evolving.
Alastair Scott is CEO of S4labour and owner of Malvern Inns.
by Alastair Scott | Jan 27, 2025 | Thought Leadership
We’ve certainly had a tough journey in kitchens over the past five years. During lockdown, many of our chefs left the industry, with a significant number of them becoming delivery drivers. I even ended up in a taxi once, driven by an ex-head chef from a well-known local restaurant. It’s a sad reality, but that’s what happened. This, combined with the loss of a significant number of skilled European chefs following Brexit, created a real shortage of talent in the industry.
Addressing challenges in our kitchens
So, post-covid, we were just glad to fill the roles, and in truth, we probably trod a little softly with our chefs because we needed to keep them. As a result, we may not have enforced the habits we wanted, and costs started to drift.
The chef situation does seem to have eased somewhat, but our ability to recruit non-EU overseas chefs has been constrained due to the higher reward levels now required for recruitment. Overseas hiring now mainly works for the most senior chefs. Despite this, recruitment and retention appear to be getting easier, and, just as importantly, I believe this trend will continue over the next 12 months. More people are looking for jobs, fewer jobs are available, and I think (or at least hope) that we’ll find it easier to recruit over the coming year.
That said, we’ve probably allowed some kitchen habits to slip. Start and finish times might have become too lenient. I was in a restaurant last night that had just 12 covers for the evening but still had a pot wash and five chefs! Prep might not be as efficient as it could be, and straight shifts may have become the norm.
In short, there are a number of productivity opportunities we can take advantage of if we choose to address them. But, as we all know, changing kitchen habits is tough. Teams like to work the way they’ve always worked, and altering those habits requires time, effort, and most of all, patience. But this is probably the year to tackle it.
The benefits of improving kitchen efficiency
Our analysis shows that the opportunity in the kitchen amounts to at least 10% of hours worked. Slack hours are typically much higher in a kitchen, even though the timing of prep ought to mean they can be more efficient than front-of-house. Kitchen hours vary as a percentage but typically account for about 30% of total hours worked (and kitchen cost will be higher). So, if we save 10% of kitchen hours, that is a 3% saving in total hours, and potentially up to 4% of the cost base.
For our own businesses, this amounts to around £500 a week, or £25,000 a year. That’s a big enough number to warrant action, in my opinion. We’ve already started tackling many of these areas, and while changing habits is undoubtedly challenging, the process of change is happening – slowly, but surely.
How to create a better run, and happier kitchen
In my view, kitchen habits need to be changed one at a time. Start with one easy habit and work through the change process at a pace that suits the team. But it’s important to make people realise that this is a continuous process, with breaks only for busy periods or significant changes in the team. If we focus on changing one habit each month for nine out of the 12 months, that means we can change nine key habits in a year and reach our target. The result will be a better-run kitchen and, more importantly, a happier one.
Why do I say happier? For several reasons. Being busy but not stressed is an enjoyable state for everyone. Being quiet and unproductive, on the other hand, is unfulfilling. While it may seem easier, it’s not rewarding at all. A slick kitchen team is one that takes pride in its work, creates a positive energy and fosters pride throughout the team. This is the environment we want to cultivate.
Kitchen efficiency can lead to great things. It can lead to a lower cost team, a happier team and, of course, make a major dent in offsetting the headwinds facing us this year. With more people looking to work and a growing number of young people eager to put the effort in, now is a great time to give it a go.
by Alastair Scott | Jan 13, 2025 | Thought Leadership
I suspect we are entering January 2025 with a slightly different mindset than usual. The cost pressures we’re facing in April mean we need an approach that differs from the norm. We need to be braver, more determined and more laser-focused than we ever have before.
Whether we are trying to trade our way out of the cost headwinds or manage costs more effectively, we all know we have three months to deliver a significant level of business improvement if we are to even maintain our profitability. And even if we are going to raise prices, with relatively weak consumer sentiment, price changes must be executed with real skill and precision.
Of course, the natural approach is to try a combination of all these strategies: raise prices as much as possible, put significant effort into growing sales, and drive some level of productivity improvement. I want to focus the remainder of this article on the productivity improvements we could achieve.
As always, the opportunity in January is to focus on a change in habits. Having just been through all my January rotas, the real question I was asking myself was how much I want to encourage habit change, and how much I want to impose habit change on the business. We all find this debate exceptionally difficult. As operations managers, we know we aren’t in the business often enough to ensure compliance if we simply impose changes. We also understand that service levels could suffer if we do not win hearts and minds by clearly explaining how the changes can be implemented effectively.
But equally, if we simply encourage and cajole, we might not achieve much, as our ideas could be rejected, ignored, or, most frustrating of all, the team may agree but fail to follow through. More on that later.
Our Focus in January
So, what are the specifics I am focusing on this January? First is the number required in the kitchen on a quiet Monday. The team like two, and we are better with one. Who is right? How do we design a quiet Monday to enable us to operate with one chef? Should we compromise and have two at lunchtime and one in the evening? How much we take this forward is of course the result of that eternal tussle between head office ignorance and site-level intransigence.
Second is front of house closing. Here, we must have several debates. What is a safe number of staff to close the business? What do we do if a couple of guests are still drinking? What tasks are acceptable to do before the guest leaves? And then of course, what are the closing tasks themselves? All create a level of complexity that means the solution isn’t easy, but there are precious hours to be saved if we can do this right.
And what about breaks? The team often prefers to not have breaks during the day, but straight shifts are not beneficial for either us or them. This is a good opportunity to revisit break schedules and adjust rotas so that everyone in the business gets their break at the right time.
There are also a few days when our standard staff rota is a bit too generous. We have always faced a challenge on Fridays, where we feel we need a larger team than the metrics suggest. As a result, the team ends up with a fixed shift allocation on Fridays, causing the rota to exceed the actual requirement. January is the time to reset and reassess this.
Service and Reputation
But another key aspect of January is that it is a time to focus on service. Teams can sometimes reduce staffing on the busiest shifts, which can negatively impact both service and our reputation. This Christmas, we have delivered the best service in our history, and it would be a shame to undermine that by cutting staff on the busier shifts in January. We still need to add more on Sundays!
So, as always, there is plenty to be done. But changing habits is valuable work. Finding the right balance between imposing change and encouraging the team is challenging. As a business, we are increasingly called upon to help with this, but there is no reason you cannot tackle it yourself if you make the time. And the money saved now brings us a step closer to offsetting the impacts of the NI and minimum wage increases in April. It is time to take action!
by Alastair Scott | Dec 16, 2024 | Thought Leadership
We have recently had cause to plan a complete re-lay of one of our kitchens. For those who are interested, it all comes down to the extraction flow rates. We have some of the most crucial equipment, like the chargrill, currently operating under the slowest flow rate in the kitchen (one cubic metre per second). We need to relocate it to an area where the flow rate is 2.5 metres per second.
And, of course, whenever there is a project like this underway, there is a real opportunity to make wider improvements to the kitchen, which is exactly what we intend to do. It has been a long time since I worked with Deterministics, a company that measures everything to death, focusing on process control, productivity, operations, design engineering and analytics for the restaurant industry. For me, the detail was not always the most useful, but the process was, and still is. In fact, we are using the process to drive maximum productivity in the kitchen. It is a win-win, as it also makes life easier for our kitchen team.
Optimising Kitchen & Fridge Layouts
At the moment, we have ended up feeling a bit like a Blue Peter set rather than a restaurant business. But it is really good. We have taken every session, every style of food and every number of staff on shift and mapped out exactly where they have to go to complete their tasks. We have tried to minimise walking where there are few chefs and given each team member the right workspace when we are at maximum. Not only does this structure force the kit to go in the right place, but it also forces the fridge layouts to be incredibly well thought through, which was previously an issue in our business.
Fridge layouts are the most poorly executed areas for us – my big frustrations stem from there being nothing in a line fridge, or raw items being there. It is also difficult when each chef lays out their section differently and spends half an hour relaying their section because that is how they prefer to work. We are aiming to eliminate all these items in our new kitchen.
Holding Ovens and Prep Space
We are also investing in a large hot holding oven, to both drive capacity from our chefs and, in truth, to drive quality where they have developed substandard workarounds. I think hot hold ovens, if used well, make such a difference to speed, with only marginal drops in quality. But beware the chef cooking everything off at ten and chucking it in the hot hold!
Optimising prep space has been another key focus for us when planning the kitchen. We have decided to build in dedicated prep areas so that chefs can drop off the line when it is not too busy and crack on with some prep, and then step back on the line when a ticket comes in. With the new wage rates coming in, we must start moving to this model to drive efficiencies where we can.
The final area we have looked at is a drop off space for pot wash. The reality is, we cannot justify having a pot wash when it is quiet, so we need to have the capability to let the plates pile up to a certain point.
Final Thoughts
There really is a lot to think about when it comes to kitchen design, and I think getting it right is a real skill. Each time a menu changes, it has an effect on how the kitchen is laid out and functions. If we are not careful, a really well thought out kitchen evolves into a poorly laid out, or poorly managed kitchen.
I still have the image in my head of a really big kitchen, with the pass at one end of the line and the fryers at the other end. Think about the poor chef, who either has to work up and down the line to make a portion of chips, or better yet, think of the poor customer who has to eat a portion of chips that has been held with ten others under the lights to sweat. When we do, we realise how important kitchen details are.
It is such a challenge to keep up to date with kitchens, but it is one of the many challenges that is worth the investment. The extract issue may have forced us to adjust, but the process will now add loads of value to the quality and efficiency of our business.
by Alastair Scott | Oct 28, 2024 | Thought Leadership
One of my team members recently asked for an article I wrote a few years ago on labour and sales growth. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find it, which means it’s time for a new—and hopefully better—version about the true cost of stress.
The importance of aligning supply with demand in our industry cannot be overstated. It’s one of the most challenging tasks we face, as it directly affects both customer experience and profitability. At its core, it’s about getting the right number of team members at the right time, which sounds simple but can be difficult to execute consistently. This is where two key principles should always guide our decision-making when planning labour: avoiding overstaffing and managing stress effectively.
First, overstaffing is a bigger threat to service quality than understaffing—something I find myself repeating more and more. As the saying goes, “If you want something done, give it to a busy person.” This saying holds particularly true in the hospitality industry, where staff performance tends to drop when they aren’t busy. Overstaffing not only increases costs but also often leads to worse service. When staff have too little to do, service is slow and lacks energy, and your team will often lose focus. This not only affects guest satisfaction but also wastes resources. If you need a compelling reason to avoid adding extra team members unnecessarily, this is it. Overstaffing doesn’t just cost more—it can degrade service, which is the opposite of what we aim for.
On the flip side, the more obvious breakdown in service and sales happens when you don’t have enough staff. This is where managers and assistant managers are most likely to raise concerns, as it leads to stress for the team—a feeling we’re all familiar with and something we can actually measure. Stress on the floor, whether in the kitchen or front of house, is a real performance detractor, and it’s important that we understand its dynamics. We divide stressful periods into two categories: short stress and sustained stress.
Short stress is when understaffing happens for a brief period, maybe an hour, but before and after that window, the team can still deliver the required service. This often happens at peak times—around 1 p.m. for lunch and 7:30 p.m. for dinner. During these short bursts, the team can step up a gear, temporarily delaying tasks like resetting tables or washing glasses. These short, intense periods of stress are manageable and, in many cases, preferable to overstaffing, as they don’t usually last long enough to lead to poor service. In fact, some level of short stress can actually enhance team performance, allowing employees to focus and work efficiently without the need for additional staff during the less busy portions of the shift.
Sustained stress, on the other hand, is an entirely different thing. When the pressure lasts for two hours or more, delayed tasks start to pile up, and the shift unravels into chaos. The team can’t maintain that higher gear for long, and as a result, service quality suffers. Orders are delayed, bills don’t go out, and guests aren’t offered second drinks. Dwell times increase, leading to more complaints. Worst of all, guests may tip less, complain directly, or simply not return.
But how do we measure the true cost of stress?
Wasted labour is relatively easy to quantify—most businesses can save around 10% of their labour costs by cutting slack. Our experience is that reducing stress can result in about a 6% uplift in sales, depending on how bad things were before. That can translate into a massive 40% profit increase, assuming a few factors I won’t dive into here.
So, what’s holding us back? Oddly, many managers deny the sales potential from reducing stress. The two biases I hear most often are “we cope” and “no one complained.” But these are just self-soothing lies. Being honest about the opportunity requires breaking old habits—and sometimes a nudge from someone with a more objective view.
Understanding the true cost of sustained stress—chaos, poor guest experiences, missed sales opportunities, and unhappy staff—is crucial for driving sales growth. Balancing labour and service levels might require a slight increase in spending, but the returns—more tips, fewer complaints, repeat customers, higher average spend per cover, and happier teams—far outweigh the cost.
