by Alastair Scott | Jan 16, 2026 | Thought Leadership
I think this message rings hollow for a lot of hospitality operators. Over the last few years, we have seen our cost base increase massively, and for many people, waking up in the new year has meant worrying about their businesses.
Let’s not forget there are a significant number who live above the shop, so they’re worrying about their homes as well. Judging by my own business, the Christmas numbers were steady, not exciting. The good days were really good, but the off days were noticeably quieter.
And now, we’re all worrying what this month and the rest of the year will look like. Will everyone be saving money and dieting? We can’t do a lot about changing consumer habits, but what we can do is adjust our businesses to make them better and more suitable for the future market. So, what are we doing?
I’m writing this article sitting in my own village pub at 10.30am, with ten people in for coffee and breakfast. Growing breakfast and coffee trade has been a slow process – it isn’t easy to get people to realise we’re open at 10am every day. But now, it’s a profitable session for us, and it’s all growth from here. We’re even offering 50% off breakfast in January to keep driving awareness that we’re open!
The next thing we’re working on this year is corporate events. We’re developing our own collateral, and one of our team will focus on getting more corporate bookings. We’ll invest in someone going out to businesses to drum up trade. We’ve also bought our own darts board and now we have weekly darts – a new venture for us that’s proving popular with locals. And finally, something a bit more left field: we’re going to try selling local, high-quality meat to our customers. We have two local farmers keen to sell us their meat directly, which will hopefully give us another source of income.
The point is, the village pub needs to keep diversifying. As the government pushes up our break-even point by unreasonable amounts, we have to find ways to grow sales just to keep our heads above water. There are plenty of things we can do to expand our business, and that’s now essential for survival.
Of course, we also need to get better at everything we do – from maxing out Sunday lunch to delivering friendly, memorable service, and food and drink that works for our market. In our business, we’ll still be trying to raise quality and slightly decrease portion sizes for the next menu, as well as putting real effort into our barbecue offer.
But we also need to look at our cost lines and manage them even better. As I sit here now, we have chefs delivering food to tables because that menu allows us to run with only one front-of-house. We’re also focusing on shifting prep away from the morning – a constant battle! Labour is my specialist subject, and you might think after 12 years of running the same pub we’d have it nailed.
Sadly, no – we keep improving and need to keep finding every little item to make us more efficient. We’re also going to review all our cost lines and tighten up everything we do. Gardening, music, quiz costs and cleaning materials are all lined up for a good hard stare.
So, lots of work ahead to make the most of our business. It’s all hard work, but hopefully, it will yield more than just standing still from a profit perspective. We feel positive, but we’ll need to be ruthless and focused at every level of the business. We’ve written our objectives – now we need to deliver them!
I hope this article gives you something to focus on, and more hope and determination to tackle what needs to be done in your business. It’s certainly helped me just writing it.
Alastair Scott is chief executive of S4labour and owner of Malvern Inns
by Tom Marshall | Jan 7, 2026 | Thought Leadership
When January Runs Dry: Why Habits and Behaviours Matter More Than Ever
The festive season was always my favourite time of year to be front-facing in hospitality. Joyful guests, hardworking teams and tills ringing. Unfortunately, what often followed was quite the opposite. January is, without doubt, the time of year that can easily undo all of that good work if it’s not treated as an opportunity for scrutiny, planning and reflection. It’s far too often we see businesses drop the ball in the downtime, often caused by the optimism of a strong Christmas period and that age old “it can’t possibly get as quiet as last year” mentality.
I’d like to think that, in my 13 back-to-back festive periods, I learnt a thing or two about how to combat these challenges – and even more so in the past five years, working alongside operations teams to really get into the detail of why managing quiet periods is just as important as taking the money when it’s there to be had.
We all know that our industry is no doubt facing the toughest challenges we ever have. Without mentioning the dreaded “B” word, we were already in a situation where staffing shortages, high turnover and yearly wage bill rises have put pay to several businesses that would otherwise have survived.
The good news is, we have seen multiple operators not only ride this wave but thrive off the back of implementing great practices and focusing on efficiency and productivity. I run the Operational Excellence team at S4labour, we’re all ex-operators that spend our time training, coaching and developing managers to put habits and behaviours at the core of everything they do.
What Does Operational Excellence Mean to Us?
Habits & Behaviours Are at the Key: It’s not just about systems; it’s about embedding the right behaviours into daily routines.
Embed a Culture of Continuous Improvement: Teams that consistently apply best practices deliver better service and reduce waste.
Empowerment Through Clarity: Staff should understand what “great” looks like and how their actions impact the business.
Anybody can implement a system, but without these behavioural focuses, nothing will change. We always focus on delivering three key measures:
Consistency
For anybody who has listened to GT (Gareth, a fellow S4labour and ex pub guy) and I chat in our webinars and podcasts, you’ll know I’m a huge believer that you cannot paint every business within your estate with the same brush. Every single site will have its nuances and as such, the time should be taken to understand why and how the GMs operate them the way they do.
This does not, however, mean that standardised practices and ways of working should not be set in terms of service, product or compliance. We always implement best practice, making operators lives as simple as possible whilst maintaining brand promises.
Engagement
Habits‑based training, delivered by people who have been there and done it, gives managers the confidence that it’s all for their benefit… We implement tools from an operator and team perspective, giving managers the motivation to use everything at their disposal to succeed. We used to say it costs on average £1000 to recruit and train a new team member. Given this was back in my Ops days, I’d go as far as to say this is probably more like £1500 today. Adapting our training processes and working to our teams’ generational wants and needs in terms of learning principles and engagement, is key to retaining them.
Our partners at Purple Story know a thing or two about this, having been through the day myself, I’d say the ‘generations’ workshop is a must for any GM – it’s certainly given us a few more strings to our training bow.
Profitability
Ultimately, this is the output of everything we do. Delivering margins under pressure is becoming increasingly difficult, (yes, I know I said I wouldn’t mention the budget), but getting hold of controllables is essential. We have delivered over 300 Goldilocks visits now, working alongside GMs, Head Chefs and management teams to ensure labour efficiencies are maximised without sacrificing guest service or team turnover.
On average, we’ve seen a 4%-point reduction in labour margins across our visits, driven by slack reduction and cost saving in some instances, but investment in stress periods to drive sales growth in others. Hence my anti-one-size-fits all mentality.
So, what should we all be doing in the next 6 weeks before Valentine’s Day hopefully kick-starts the year?
Audit Your Current Practices – Take the time to review everything labour. Attention to detail is key, so invest that time in really understanding your opportunities and use data to make the key decisions. Everything from briefing tactics to communication loops should be scrutinised whilst you have the time.
Invest in Behavioural Training – Don’t just dictate how things should be done – work alongside your teams so that they understand why the way they work is key to success. They may need to accept that doing things differently is not a bad thing, but you need to take them on the journey.
Leverage Your Tech Stack – I’ll say it again – data-led decisions leave no room for excuses. Use your sales patterns, understand your admin and prep expectations and ACTUAL labour requirements to encourage proper planning and delivery. Prevent last minute decisions around rotas, ordering and stocks by using the tools at your disposal.
Programmes like ours will help embed excellence into your everyday operations, but it’s a journey, not a quick fix. I would implore everyone out there to take a step back and plan, don’t just react to the downturn with immediate, rash decisions.
Start measuring your behaviours and KPI delivery will follow… don’t expect to measure KPIs to change behaviours.
by Alastair Scott | Jan 2, 2026 | Thought Leadership
I have spent a bit of time looking at minimum wage rates across different countries of the world and trying to get a deeper understanding of the purpose and effect of them. It is fascinating.
If we look at the core minimum wage for those aged 21 and over, the government has always aimed for it to be two-thirds of the median wage in the country. According to some research (although not all), this target has already been achieved, which is why the government is now trying to grow the core minimum wage in line with national wage growth.
At least this means the core minimum wage should now grow only in line with wage inflation. The target of two-thirds of median wages is among the highest in the world – only Mexico sets a higher benchmark.
Economic research has long suggested that the effect of minimum wage on unemployment is low, but increasingly, studies show while this holds true in the short term, it doesn’t in the long term. No surprise there – in the short term, we have to carry on as we are, but in the long term, we will find better ways to run our businesses and shed staff.
Another proven effect of the minimum wage is that it drives inflation – and that inflation hits the very people it is intended to help the hardest of all consumer groups, because it affects the goods they buy more than anyone else. As a result, the increases in the minimum wage produce no economic benefit for those people. The government could, and should, lower the target two-thirds of median wages to 60% and let the rate drift upwards more slowly – it would help everyone.
The government, now that it has hit the target for over-21s, is aggressively pursuing growth in the 18-21 rate so that this cohort have the same wage rates and standards of living as their elders. While this is admirable, it is somewhat academic. It only works if you have a job. If you don’t have a job, then the rate is irrelevant.
Surely the government’s most important objective should be getting more young people into work. With almost one million 16 to 24-year-olds not in employment, education or training (NEETs), we face an even bigger and more worrying challenge. Our NEET rate has risen by 6% year-on-year and is now higher than both the US and Europe.
That must be the priority. If young people don’t learn to work at that age, they may never learn – and there is a serious risk that these million young people go through life without ever working. The UK cannot afford that, and it’s not good for those individuals who suffer as a result.
Hospitality is one of the key industries helping young people take their first steps into the workplace. By my calculations, we employ around 5% of the country’s 16 to 24-year-olds. When the government damages our industry, it also damages the prospects of countless young people trying to get that crucial first foothold on the working ladder. And as supermarkets move to cashless tills and the high street continues to contract, where else will young people learn their essential life skills?
In truth, the only reason the minimum wage is so politically acceptable is that it shifts the cost of supporting people on to employers rather than the government. If the government had to pay the difference, I’m sure it would be far less enthusiastic. The average age for leaving home in the UK is now 25, with more than half of 21-year-olds still living with their parents – so the economic need is not as pressing as some suggest.
So come on, government. Stop driving inflation by continually raising the minimum wage and give young people a real chance to get a job and start climbing the employment ladder. Make youth employment a primary objective and recognise that increasing the minimum wage isn’t helping – nor is making the hospitality industry suffer even more.
Alastair Scott is chief executive of S4labour and owner of Malvern Inns
by Alastair Scott | Dec 15, 2025 | Thought Leadership
What do we call all the tasks that we have to do as a business that are outside of service? Non-service tasks? Fixed tasks? At S4labour, we call them admin (management tasks) and prep (getting ready, either front of house or back of house). But what are these tasks, when should we do them and how much time do they take? Let’s take each in turn.
There are a few examples I can use here to highlight the challenge of even defining the tasks. Do we treat cutlery polishing as prep (for the next day), or is it a task to be done during service? What about stacking glass or the dishwasher? Some days, you are better to run short and do these tasks after service, but on other days, they might need to be in-service tasks – either because you need the teapots or because there isn’t the space to stack the dirties.
So, we will all have different versions of what we might call prep tasks, some of which will be service tasks and included within the deployment graphs, and some of which aren’t.
I think kitchen prep will have a more uniform definition – that is anything that needs to be done to be ready for service. But even then, the devil is in the detail. Let’s take our traditional Sunday roast. Most of the work – cooking the potatoes or making the gravy – is a prep task, but we might classify it as a service task. Once the potatoes are in the tray, the workload for service is low as they just need to go in the oven and get shaken occasionally to brown evenly all over. The skill is in putting the potatoes in the oven at the right time to come out and get used fast enough not to go soft. And the gravy is hopefully just bubbling on the hob, low enough so it doesn’t catch on the bottom, but ready to be ladled onto the plate or into the jug.
So much of a Sunday lunch moves from substantially service to substantially prep – I don’t know anyone who doesn’t do their Yorkshires ahead of service. Even most of a burger might be prep – with the tomato, lettuce, cheese and gherkin all ready to go, and with only assembly and grilling required during service.
Once the tasks are defined, when should we do them? We have developed a successful methodology of slack tasks and fixed tasks, trying to split each into a task that can be done when we are quiet, rather than someone being given specific hours to cover it. Once we understand how team capability is measured, we also understand that there is in-built slack.
I asked one of our consultants what proportion of tasks should be slack, and his answer was all of them! I like the intent, but I still think line cleaning, pre-opening and a few others are fixed tasks, even if we can move some of them to the middle of the day or the middle of service.
Once you have decided what the tasks are, and whether they are fixed or slack, you need to decide how long they take. If you sell 1,000 burgers a day, it is probably worth measuring how long it takes to get the tomato from the packet to the service line. I once did some work for an airport where laying the bacon on the trays to get cooked was a four-hour job every day. And, if we go back to front of house, how long it takes to do recruitment every week is a difficult call but still needs an estimate.
But the most important and difficult decision is deciding when to do them. Are they a slack task, to be done when there is a quiet time during service, or a fixed task, as a designated activity with a time set against it? It is easier for the team to create fixed tasks (please come in early to look at all the emails), than create a slack task (please go on the bar in the afternoon and do your emails at the same time).
And this is the challenge that we can’t ignore; fixed tasks are damaging our industry. We are at the point now where because the cost of labour is so high that we can’t ignore all these small, difficult but important changes that together make a massive difference to our businesses. So, take the first step.
Alastair Scott is chief executive of S4labour and owner of Malvern Inns
by Alastair Scott | Nov 14, 2025 | Thought Leadership
Sometimes we pin business performance all on the manager. Of course, the manager is the leader of their business unit – they set the tone, hire the people, and drive the business forward. They decide on all the activities of the business and make the difference. True? Not completely, in my view.
The problem with this argument is that if a manager works five days a week, they might only run five shifts. But in most businesses, there are 14 shifts across the week, so a manager could only be running a third of them. The other two-thirds are run by assistant managers and team leaders – people who are just as critical to the day-to-day running of the operation and in the service levels, the team engagement, and the efficiency of the business.
The more admin-heavy a business is, the more the proportion of the business a manager sees reduces. The more the business uses fixed tasks rather than slack tasks, the more this reduces. So increasingly, the face of the business, and the shift leadership, is down to team leaders and assistants – the management team, rather than the manager. These are the people who interact with guests, make decisions in real time, and shape the experience on the ground.
Of course, the manager appoints these people and drives them to perform just as well when they’re not there. But therein lies the challenge. It’s one thing to lead when you’re present – it’s another to lead through others when you’re not.
I was in my own business last Sunday when the manager was about to leave at the end of a busy day for him. His challenge, as he left, was to motivate and energise a tired team to keep up service levels through the Sunday evening, get all the slack tasks done, get the team out efficiently at the end of the night, and leave the business set for success the next day. That’s a tall order, especially when energy is low and the finish line is in sight.
We all know how often this fails to happen. Sunday has traditionally been the graveyard shift of the industry. If we did trade visits, we should really do them on a Sunday night – that would tell us what our businesses are really like. It’s easy to look polished on a Friday night when everyone’s switched on. Sunday night is where the cracks show.
My point is that every shift leader is a vital part of the guest experience. We should think less about the manager and more about the management team – including every person in the business who leads a shift and is the leader in their business at that time. In our sites, that’s about eight different people: several who open the business, several who close, and the key team of senior managers in the middle who run the bulk of the busy shifts. Each of them plays a distinct role in shaping the guest experience and the operational success of the business.
But to create great performance as a business, each of those people must care as much about the customer as the next manager. They must know how to do slack tasks while delivering to the guest. They must be really efficient and have great restaurant eyes. I think that’s a pretty hard task to do.
When did you last train your team to do this? When did you last observe the “walking and chewing gum” challenge of opening and serving or, even harder, closing and serving?
I’ve recently been frustrated with how our teams leave the business, and I’ve asked a manager to do the close with the team to make sure we do this really well. The underlying message being that we both agree it hasn’t been done as well as we’d hoped. Some people are brilliant when they’re being managed, but less good when they’re trying to motivate themselves. I think too often we let these people open and close. Of course, some are brilliant in those circumstances. But do we think about this as we decide who should open or close?
My thesis here is that we should talk less about manager performance and more about management performance – bringing up the weakest area of the business and making it better.
And maybe I need to go and see my own sites more on a Sunday evening, just as I’m winding down. Are you going to be comfortable or correct, as a previous boss of mine used to say.
by Alastair Scott | Nov 14, 2025 | Thought Leadership
Deployment is a word that has been bandied around the hospitality industry for a long time. At S4, we invented it. But what does it really mean, what are we trying to achieve, and how do we become great at it?
In essence, all we are ever trying to do in hospitality is match supply and demand. Too many staff standing around is wasted cost and wasted money. Too few staff, and you deliver a poor guest experience – leading to comped meals, lost sales, and, at worst, unhappy guests who tell others and never return. There are only so many jobs the team can do to fill the time if you aren’t busy.
That’s why we, and others, pull sales data, forecast sales, and then create a sales profile to write a rota against. In many businesses, you see two daily peaks – lunch and evening – when people want to eat or drink. Our job is to have enough staff when it’s busy, and not too many when it’s quiet. Of course, there are barriers: shift lengths, minimum hours, staff availability, and skill levels. And it’s not just about matching supply and demand within a day – it’s also about matching the total number of staff we have at different times of year. It’s easy to produce the perfect rota for Christmas week, but where are the staff?
But deployment is way more than just having the right number of people, it is then about using them in the right way. Over the weekend, I visited a farm shop that had clearly done a brilliant job attracting customers. But as we finally got our coffee after the excruciatingly cold pumpkin making, it was fascinating to watch. There were queues out of the door but loads of empty tables. When you watched the staff, they had plenty of people, but too many of the people were neither trained nor managed. The coffee and cake line was riddled with bottlenecks. Half the floor staff were wandering around doing their best to look busy, but actually, were doing nothing. The managers were working very hard but ignoring the people wandering around. Perhaps they didn’t have time to train them, perhaps they didn’t want to, or perhaps they thought it quicker to do the job themselves.
Deployment is about having the right number of trained team, with the right roles and the right objectives for that role. A well-motivated, energised team member is infinitely more valuable than a poorly energised team member. Without this, as I witnessed on Saturday, chaos ensues.
So, the hierarchy of deployment is simple:
- The right number of people at the right time
- The right skills for the shift
- The right brief of responsibilities
- The right management on the shift
If any one of these is missing, the shift won’t perform as it should. And we all know the circularity of the difference a good manager, a well-trained person, and a well-structured shift makes. As the cost of staff goes up, the effort and energy we all need to put into training, shift management, shift briefing and the right number based on all the above factors can make a significant difference to the shift. I used to say that running at 25% slack was a good job. The truth is that if you invest in all the above skills, you get the number down to nearer 15%, and that makes a massive difference to the P&L.
And the reality is, we have no choice. With financial pressures mounting, deployment is no longer optional. It’s a commercial necessity.
