by Alastair Scott | Jun 30, 2025 | Thought Leadership
I am sure many of us feel very proud of doing the paper round. We got up early, worked for a couple of hours and then went to school. I remember always helping to milk the cows on Christmas Day. I think working when you are young is good for everyone. For one, it makes us understand money; £5 is just something your parents give you until you have to actually go and earn £5. Then, that £5 earned turns into an equivalent number of hours.
You now judge what you buy based on a value equation in hours worked. Was that extra McDonald’s in town worth an hour’s work? Maybe, or maybe not. One of our young workers bought herself an £800 handbag with the money she earned over Christmas – that’s not in my value equation, but clearly in hers.
Working young also teaches us to be on time. Too often, we run late, and too many parents I know tear their hair out trying to get the kids ready for school. Maybe working in hospitality is the same, but I think it teaches our youngsters that to be prompt is important. And, of course, they have to be well turned out too.
Another big lesson it teaches us is to relate to other people. Talking and asking questions of a wide variety of people, both customers and staff, is good for everyone. With loneliness being such a great problem among both old and young people, learning how to relate to others, start a conversation, look interested and be part of a community is essential.
And of course, it is the start of our working journey. The sooner we get going, the better. Developing a work ethic is so important for many people, and I struggle to see the benefit in delaying it when people are ready, and willing, to step into the workplace.
But look at the legislation on young people working – the main issue I have is the distinction between a Saturday and a Sunday. Young people can work a maximum of five hours on a Saturday and only two hours on a Sunday, even in school holidays. I understand the legislation about two hours on a school day, but on a Sunday, it doesn’t make sense.
I think it must have been written when children went to Sunday school. Even on school days, there are more strange rules. You can work for two hours a day, but not between 7am and 7pm. This suggests that it is good for a child to work 8pm-10pm rather than 5pm-7pm. I’m not entirely sure I agree.
At our sites, we have parents who are really keen for their children to do a four-hour shift on a Sunday. They recognise the value the children get from the experience. The kids love it too. I really can’t believe how much they enjoy their work and the people they work with. It’s also giving them a sense of independence – even if their parents still have to drop them off and pick them up.
Quite a few of them now have a whole new social life based around their fellow workers at the pub. Often, I see them popping in when they aren’t on shift because they want to catch up with their friend (hopefully after the shift, but not always). I was talking to one father about his daughter working, and he said it has grown her self-confidence massively. I, for one, am convinced that this is doing the children a world of good, and their performance at school will improve too.
I have looked for any evidence of whether working while at school helps or hinders achievement. I think all the studies are really short-sighted – they tend to look only at educational achievement and not whether the person ends up in work, or any measure of post-educational achievement. They do not look at light work and are skewed by those who need a full-time job to be able to afford their education.
This is a completely different case. It also, as we do much in society these days, removes any personal responsibility and parental responsibility. As parents, we can’t be trusted, it seems. Of course, I understand the exploitation argument. But I am sure there are ways around protecting the small minority without constraining the majority.
The sad thing is rules like this never seem to get looked at. There is little political capital to be gained, and it would take an awful lot of effort. Therefore, we are stuck with it. I wonder how many other instances there are of this.
Alastair Scott is chief executive of S4labour and owner of Malvern Inns
by Alastair Scott | Jun 16, 2025 | Thought Leadership
We are a diverse industry in every way. With a licensed trade market of around 100,000 sites, and a licensed market of another at least 100,000 outlets, we are massive. We have sites in every town, many villages, and in most communities; whether we are a morning coffee shop or a late-night bar, hospitality is everywhere.
As a result, we need team members available around the clock. Most importantly, we need people to work during the times that suit our customers best. Unlike other places that dictate when they must engage in an activity, we are based entirely around when our customers want to come. This means we operate all day and all night in one guise or another and figuring out the mix of staff we need, and when we need them, is one of our biggest challenges.
It has always been the case that we have a mix of people doing different hours. In one of my own sites this week, we have 6 people FOH doing full time hours, 6 people doing between 12 and 25 hours, and 9 staff members doing 2 shifts a week or less. BOH is more extreme, with 4 doing full time hours, 1 part time, and 6 doing less than 2 shifts a week, in other words, our ‘one shifters’.
For us, all of the one shifters are working between Friday evening and Sunday evening. If we had any more full timers their hours would be wasted, because we would put them on midweek when we haven’t got the sales to support them.
We are very lucky with our one shifters. Many of them start with us while they are still at school and have parents who want them to develop a great work ethic early in their lives. A few of the parents often time their Sunday lunch booking to pick up their children at the end of their shift. I think they like seeing them hard at work. It has really developed a sense of community for our group of one shifters, who all love their job and have new friends and therefore want to come to work.
Most of them end up going to university, which means we hope to have them for at least 5 years; from their last two years at school, through to gap years and university holidays. We flex up their hours over the busy Christmas period and over the summer holidays, which is important for us.
The other added bonus for one shifters is pay rates. When fully costed, someone earning the new National Minimum Wage (NMW) will cost £16.10 per hour, which is 32% higher than their base pay rate. However, a single-shift worker on the NMW will cost just £13.90 per hour—resulting in a savings of over £2 per hour. Similarly, someone earning £10 per hour will cost £11.20 as a single-shift worker, creating a savings of nearly £4 per hour simply by working under a single-shift arrangement.
So, the question here is, do we continue doing what we have always done, or do we start switching some evening shifts in the week to one shifters? Historically, these shifts have been staffed by full timers, but if we can make this move, we will have a substantial saving.
But what about quality, I hear you cry. How do we ensure our one shifters are just as skilled and effective as full-timers? After all, saving 30% on staff costs is irrelevant if it compromises guest satisfaction or reduces sales.
We are fortunate; our length of service for our one shifters is actually better than full timers. And yet, the quality of the team is just as good. Of course we have people, both full time and part time, who go off the boil, but that is the same anywhere. Training might take longer, but this is because they are only doing one shift a week, but training what you would achieve in one week with a full timer still requires the same number of shifts. The real point to consider is whether or not they have forgotten everything since they learned it the week before. It doesn’t always happen, but if they do, then perhaps it is right to cut your losses, unless you can find them a job that requires less skill.
But that aside, moving the mix of our team could be one of the solutions to the combined NI, NMW and pension challenge. I think it is worth giving some thought to!
by Alastair Scott | May 2, 2025 | Thought Leadership
This week, I had quite a disappointing conversation with an operator. He didn’t make that much money and lived above the pub, taking out around £200 a week. We sat down together and went through his numbers after April’s increase in national insurance (NI) and national minimum wage. All of his profit was going to be wiped out; something that many of us will face. Sadly, it feels like the standard at the moment is cost increases are equal to current profits.
Even worse was the fact that he didn’t believe he could do any better at running labour; he did not see any efficiencies in his business. With this mindset, he likely will fail in the next 12 months – it is depressing and sad, but unfortunately, without spurring ourselves to get better, it will be the truth.
I would say that the current environment is probably going to be the hardest we have faced for a while. Was 2008 as bad? Or the smoking ban? At the time, I was working for a big corporate, so perhaps it didn’t quite feel the same. Right now, we need to be our best and at our bravest; we need to try things that we might not like as much.
You’ll be pleased to hear that with some persuasion and encouragement, we did manage to produce a plan with this particular operator to get him that extra £200 a week, so I thought I would share it with you all.
Top of the list was taking on single shifters. I speak about this quite a lot, as it is something I am a big fan of in my own businesses. When you bring on someone for a single shift, they will still fall below the NI thresholds, so you will immediately save 15% of wages, which is around £2 an hour. But single shifters are not just good for cost; they also typically only work when you need them, either seasonally or on a specific day of the week. In my own sites, Sundays close 30% of the sales for the week, so they are vital. We do not need more full-timers; we haven’t got enough hours in the week for them. Part-timers and single shifters are great for effective deployment and cost.
The second thing we focused on was managing to a cost. One of the major opportunities and improvements that many single sites can make is to know what they are planning to spend before the week starts. On-costs of NI, holiday and pensions add up and can vary significantly by employee, so it is becoming increasingly important to know what you are planning to spend before the week starts. As the adage goes, what gets measured gets managed. Once you know what you are going to spend for the week, you address some of the more marginal shifts and start and finish times.
Plus-one management was the next idea we looked at. Many owner-operators run their business by having themselves as an extra rather than being part of the shift. This is an expensive way to run the business, and probably also an exhausting one if you feel like you have been at work but haven’t been required, and yet have still been on the floor. Surely it is better to be a part of the shift and work in it. It requires the best sales forecast you can make, and then to add yourself in as part of the team.
So, three things to help get profit back to required levels, and maybe more. But as always, it is about changing the habits, which is difficult to do. Planning is one of the inescapable habits in our industry. I am a planner by nature, so I can never understand those who don’t like to plan, but it is a habit that many people avoid doing.
Whether it is changes for the business, financial planning or seasonal planning, it is crucial. Once we begin planning, we can also plan to change certain habits: looking at the week ahead, knowing what your cost is and changing from plus-one management are all key habits to have.
Many can proudly pat themselves on the back and say they do all of these well. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t challenge yourself to get even better. We’re facing one of our biggest challenges yet, so I can’t think of a better time to do so.
Alastair Scott is chief executive of S4labour and owner of Malvern Inns
by Alastair Scott | Apr 14, 2025 | Thought Leadership
A few weeks ago, I visited the Prince Regent in Marylebone, and the experience sparked a fresh focus on kitchen efficiency.
I began chatting to the manager, who was perfectly suited to the pub, being a superbly energetic character who invigorated the place while managing the troops and the crowd. She really was impressive. But the kitchen, well, that was a different story. It wasn’t her territory, and she felt as though she was stepping into someone else’s place when she walked in. She didn’t feel the same sense of command as she did on the other side of the doors.
So, my colleagues and I began to educate her on the running of the kitchen – the ebbs and flows of the team, the layout, the process and the movement of equipment and food in and out. She was in fact our trial house for kitchen efficiency, so we spent a long time learning what we needed to do in order to facilitate her drive to run a highly effective kitchen.
We taught her about the six-foot rule, stepping off the line, and all the other key kitchen habits. In time, she became more comfortable with the running of the kitchen, moving from judging the kitchen entirely on the GP, the quality of the food and speed, to having a proper understanding of how the kitchen worked. Prior to this, if the food was slow, she let the kitchen have more labour, which of course led to the team asking for more than they needed as the hours would suit their needs, and not the needs of the business.
The moment the penny dropped for her; she uttered “This is just the same as the bar but with food”. Good enough for me. She was now in command of the kitchen. This was the first great step in our kitchen efficiency consultancy, which we considered when laying out how we could roll this out into over 1000 pubs with varying levels of food, kitchens and skills.
How many of our front of house management team feel comfortable in the kitchen? How many know the processes and can spot when things are going wrong? How many work there on occasion and can step in when we are short? Whoever can and does all of these things has the attributes of a multiskilled manager. My recommendation of course it that every member of the management team should be able to do all of the above in a normal site, except if the food skill required is extremely high. In much larger sites, this might be different, but the smaller you are, the more important it is that your team are multiskilled.
Kitchen efficiency is still, for many, the great untapped opportunity in our industry. One of the more obvious benefits here is ensuring that your team always have something to do. No more standing at pot wash with their phone, going out for another cigarette break, or over-prepping. There are less obvious signs of an inefficient too; a badly laid out kitchen, a kitchen that is not ready for service, a kitchen where the head chef either does all of the work, or none of it. Poorly laid out line fridges and storage are too. And, if you can’t spot them, you are at a big disadvantage. Like the manager at the Prince Regent, you may be reliant on outputs, not inputs. In the end, front of house may suffer, which is the last thing we will want this year, as we are going to have to compete even harder for value.
We all need the energy, passion and organisation skills of the manager at the Prince Regent!
Alastair Scott is CEO of S4labour and owner of Malvern Inns.
by Alastair Scott | Mar 28, 2025 | Thought Leadership
Last year, I wrote an article on a few of the habits I wanted to embed in our two village Gastro pubs. I believe my focus at the time was on trying to implement three specific practices: hellos and goodbyes, never using the word ‘ok,’ and what I refer to as ‘restaurant eyes.’
Our results using habits
Now enough time has passed, I am pleased to report that the implementation of the first two has gone pretty well. Now, I never (I know, brave word), hear the word ‘ok’ in our pubs. Albeit, admittedly I have heard a few substitutes! Really, what we are trying to get to with this habit is asking open-ended questions. “Would you like another glass of wine?” or “how is your fish and chips?” are much better than asking “are you ok for drinks”, or “is your food ok?”.
The second habit, hellos and goodbyes, has also gotten much better. Earlier this week I heard the best ‘hello,’ in fact. Rachel (who will be reading this) was behind the coffee machine and she peered out, gave a great ‘hello’ to the guests as they were walking in. I could see how warm and welcome they felt immediately. Good job!
Sadly, however, mission restaurant eyes was a complete failure. In truth, this was my fault. My idea of ‘restaurant eyes’ is actually a load of things rolled into one – actively making eye contact, not avoiding eye contact, looking around more, and so on. Perhaps this one was not communicated well enough to the team to enable them to focus on it. But I suppose, two out of three is not too bad, so I will take it.
So, has all of this work resulted in anything? In all honesty, not everything can be measured and analysed. While our guest satisfaction scores seem to remain about the same each month, and sales growth, while ok, has not been exceptional, these habits are the right things to do. We also gave each habit a long period to embed, around 3 months. This made a big difference when it came to sticking, and now we will not have to repeat the same process for some time. If you recall, we based our theory on the 66-day rule to form a habit – we loved it so much we even did a podcast on it! It means that if someone is working 5 days a week, it is a 13-week implementation.
What’s next?
This term, we have added three new habits to focus on, in an attempt to hold onto the previous two and make further progress on our service skills. The new habits are as follows: smiles, FIFO, and the four-foot rule.
The first, smiles, is pretty self-explanatory. I am pleased to say that a few weeks ago, I gave out one of our ‘management recognition’ tokens to Doruta. Doruta has been with us for a long time, and she gave the best smile on Valentines Day that I have ever seen from her.
FIFO of course has many meanings. But rather than first in first out, here it means full in full out. This is trying to get our staff, as they return from anywhere, to look for empties to collect along the way, making us more efficient and touching the guest more often. We are far too good at letting the food runners run food only, rather than picking up empty plates as they return. While we do not give the food runner iPad tills, they can quickly find someone else with an iPad if someone wants another drink or anything else.
We have combined this habit with the four-foot rule, which is that you must at least look at the guest if you are within four feet of them and preferably smile and say something. This is a much better first element of ‘restaurant eyes’ as it is more specific for the team as to what they have to do. We will of course have arguments about what is four feet, and whether they all need to do it as they pass a busy table, but at least it will help deliver ‘heads up’ service, rather than trying not to look at the guest in case they ask for something.
Final thoughts on habits in hospitality
So, all in all, this is a process that is here to stay. Each term we will pick the habits we feel we want to drive and try to remain focused on those only for the whole term and then move on to a new one. Even though I am on the old side of the industry, I am still learning to do things better. How I wish I had adopted this decades ago, rather than trying to solve everything too fast and ending up solving nothing. Maybe I am not an Old Dog after all!
Alastair Scott is CEO of S4labour and Owner of Malvern Inns.
