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 York (The Alice Hawthorn for those who know it – John is an amazing chef!) I was even more surprised when my sister said that she enjoyed reading my articles – and not just because she never compliments me! It is true that some people are just great single site operators – they have their own procedures and routines, and for the most part, tend to stick to them.  

I have recently been talking to another single site operator quite close to me in Harrogate. They have no wish to be a multiple, either because they earn enough money, or are settled in how their lives work, hopefully it is both. As I observe single sites though, I find that their biggest challenge is how they avoid getting set in their ways, and how they seek out best practice.  

Reading, attending conferences, and having a good network of similar local business is important, and should never be underestimated. So is using suppliers and even the ‘dirty’ word, consultants. Some of the above are free, and some cost money, whether that is time away from the business, or the cost of employing someone else. 

The hard bit when you are a single site operator is challenging yourself to get better, to try and change, and try things that might not work. The danger is that slowly but surely you become less competitive and less profitable until it is too late and the cash to be brave has run out. And, sometimes, this should also happen right at the start of your journey.  

I am constantly frustrated by newcomers to the industry who listen too much to their head chef, and run a menu and a cost structure that doesn’t work! These are probably two of the biggest risks for single site operators: going into a business with some key skill gaps and relying on the wrong people, and then having a successful business and not initiating enough change. 

We want to help operators recognise where their operations may need to be adapted and show them the best ways to enact these adjustments. This is why we decided to launch an operational excellence programme on labour management for single sites. We are also keen to help facilitate more programmes on the subject matters that we are not experts in, because we understand the value of shared knowledge. We are constantly learning new ways to help operators to be their best and plan to continue doing so.  

I really hope that we can help a nation of single site operators become better and better. 

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 in productivity. 

I often find myself wanting to challenge perspectives on anything related to how our teams operate, but usually good judgement gets the better of me. In this case, I am not sure whether I want to challenge the article or put more colour on the detail. Either way, I hope it is ok to continue, and I won’t offend. 

My first point is that we have had a revolution in the hospitality training environment over the last decade. Fifteen years ago, face-to-face training was the norm, and online training was a minority sport. This made training very expensive, and I suspect it was therefore done very sparingly. Now, online training is how nearly everyone works, particularly for the easier items to train. It has probably cut the cost of training by more than 35%, I would guess by nearer 90% for the same activity. So, our efficiency and productivity in this regard has improved substantially, and a reduction of 35% in total spend probably means we are doing much more training than we used to. 

But we need to also consider what is being trained. Compliance courses are a necessity, and it is essential that people are trained to ensure they don’t hurt themselves or break the law. I think we are pretty good at that. I also think the training industry has been pretty good at developing further skills courses, be it wine knowledge or conflict management. I hope here our skills are much better, but I would still argue not good enough. 

The article makes the attempt to link the lack of training to poor productivity growth, which of course, is of much more interest to me. At S4labour, we are seeing a massive increase in our requests for training. For the most part, perhaps even all, it is focused on productivity increases. I am also pleased to say that in the more complex world of labour management, it is mainly face-to-face, and in groups. Face-to-face means you know when you need to dig deeper or explain more because you haven’t gotten your point across, or that you can see in the body language that there is some level of resistance. Training in groups means that the team all learn from each other and develop best practices together. 

Despite these initial efforts, I think it is fair to say that productivity improvement across the industry has been poor. We haven’t really embraced change in this area, and too many of us are relying on the ways we learned 30 years ago. Best practise is improving quickly and will accelerate further in the next few years. 

It of course requires us to change what we have always done. It is a sobering fact that at least 25% of our total labour cost is wasted. At a time when every £1,000 counts, this is still a big opportunity for the industry, and I think it is time to set harder targets and help people become even better. Cutting out the waste through great analysis and good techniques, combined with great face–to–face training will get us a long way! 

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. 

Historically, I have talked about ‘coach party’ rostering, which I thought up when I was at M&B, using it when we bought a load of pubs from Whitbread.  

Coach party rostering was my response to those who always had an extra member of staff on incase a coach party arrived. It is the practice of a manager, or owner, who stands in as an extra pair of hands, incase service gets busy. Last week I renamed it +1 management.  

Of course, we all know that this is a commercial disaster. Firstly, whoever comes in feels like they are working, when in reality, they aren’t. This just makes their week feel longer, unnecessarily. They should be working a shorter week, coming in only when required. 

Secondly, it causes costs to mushroom. An extra 10 hours a day, or 70 hours a week, is not far off £50k a year down the drain. But even in our own pubs, it seems very easy to drift back to +1 management. Our teams seem to like having three instead of two front of house in quieter sessions. Why? 

Is it because they can stop and chat? Is it because of the proverbial coach party? Or is because they like to have one on the bar, one wait staff and one food runner? 

When I ask my own team, I can’t seem to get a straight answer, other than a repeated promise not to do it again. 

I am conscious that my last article was on lowest common denominator management, and I am in mortal danger of wanting to do the same! 

However, our root out of conundrums like this is threefold:

1 – Have a shift plan that ensures multi-tasking is part of how the shift is run – not just slack tasks, but also the key role of ‘float’. 

2 – Teach management that having an extra person on, ‘just incase’, is poor management practice. It will make service worse, and you won’t recoup the costs. 

3 – Make your labour costs visible. If you are just managing labour ratio, you will never see this detail, and will be oblivious to the problem, which is even worse.  

So, I suppose I should be grateful. I can see the problem, and know what to do, and I now know the best way to explain it the team that need to deliver day in and day out. 

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. Sadly, we served only 688, resulting in a day that netted us £18k, which was slightly less sales than Christmas day, when we served around 230 covers.  

It has become clear that there are several specific challenges when it comes to Mother’s Day, which can perhaps be better remedied on normal trading days. The first is no-shows. Despite ringing every customer up beforehand, our no-shows were still around 9%.  

Next year, I think we will have to start taking deposits, and we are switching to LiveRes to enable us to do that. The reason no-shows are a bigger problem on a day like Mother’s Day, is that walk-ins are few and far between – it is too much of a risk. On other days, when we are busy, people not turning up matters less because we are a big enough restaurant and can compensate with walk-ins. So, it is likely we will start taking deposits next year, so that we do not lose that 9% again.  

The second challenge on Mother’s Day is price. We are in a constant dilemma about what to offer. At one end, we can stick to our Sunday roast pricing, but we seem to then waste the opportunity of being full. If our regulars were the people coming to us on Mother’s Day, that would be great, but it tends to be those who visit less often and are looking to go somewhere slightly different than usual. It feels like a day where everyone trades up! 

Is the right approach to have a more expensive Mother’s Day menu? Do we offer three courses at a fixed price, or maybe two courses? I think our reluctance comes from knowing there are likely a fair number of people who do not want to eat that much. Our preference is to have a separate Mother’s Day menu, which we send out early with each booking so that our customers are well informed ahead of time. Better planning and organisation are crucial for days that feel slightly harder to forecast.  

We also want to look into Mother’s Day gifts to extend our offering – what about flowers and fizz? What about a box of chocolates on the table to take home? It feels as though creating a whole Mother’s Day experience and going beyond the meal is something we ought to do. It is certainly another one to consider for next year!  

With all this in mind, what could we take next year? Deposits could add 10%, an enhanced menu could add another 10%, and offering more of an experience could add 5%. We probably won’t get it all right, but there is a decent chance of growing by 15% next year, which is another £3k we need. 

I’ll let you know how we do!