Wage Costs

How are you planning the operation and the rota?

Understanding shift patterns according to specific business trends is vital to ensure that you have the people when you need them.

Starting earlier/later, and different opening or operating times during the days/weeks/months will make sure you maximise efficiencies.

NB – this needs to be carefully thought out as the general public will seek out the opening times and last minute changes will not be popular.

Ensure that the plans are communicated well in advance. Extending opening hours could yield more admissions, but it needs to be worthwhile for your business operation, and wage costs do need to be justified by guest spend.

Giving additional responsibility to key people, supporting their development will give you more support at busier times, and a slight increase in their hourly rate will work out better for the business in the longer term as you would not necessarily need additional staff due to the quality of their work/productivity levels.

If you have, ensure that your rota planner understands your principles, and if there are dependencies – i.e. number of admissions forecast determines cover at certain parts of the business for certain parts of the day.

Being scientific about business planning will yield efficiencies.

Staff Engagement = low turnover.

Your energies may just be put into keeping the business open at the moment, and there may be little time for communication, meetings etc.

It is easy to forget whilst in the ‘thick of it’ that we are dealing with people’s feelings, and their loyalties do need to be nurtured. Keeping team members happy – i.e. ‘staff engagement’ is the single most important aspect of maintaining a loyal and committed team.

This means sharing the business strategy, ensuring that everyone knows what your vision for the business is, and what part they play in its success.

This does not necessarily mean pay rises, it means you have to be seen to ‘do the right thing’ with your people, and the more this is part of the culture of the business, the less turnover you will see, and the less time you will spend on recruitment.

Many operators feel that recruitment is taking too much time at present, and it is overwhelming. Breaking out of this cycle by spending time with your team, and sharing the burden will pay dividends in the long term as well.