Holiday Staffing: Preparing Adequately For The Rush Seasons

It’s summertime again! It is the season for the outdoors, for traveling, picnics, and lots of lodgings at hotels and holiday resorts. For many people, this is the fun part of the year.

However, if you are in the hotel, resort, or restaurant business, this is your busiest time of the year. It is equally your most draining time of the year and this is simply because of the number of people that will be visiting your establishment. If managed properly, this could be the most profitable season of the year for you but if not well managed, can be hell on earth.

Finding The Right Balance

As with many things in life, finding the right balance can go a long way in aiding your business this season. Finding the right balance, as it concerns holiday staffing in this line of business, basically has to do with proper planning and scheduling, particularly your employee and work schedules.

Most business people are in a bid to be either proactive in anticipating customers over staff their workspace while others in trying to be careful or in not being prepared for the season understaff. Each of these occurrences has its own effects or consequences which shall be mentioned below.

Consequences Of Overstaffing

Low Profits

Aside from the cost of food, drinks, and beverages, labor is the next most cost-consuming aspect of running a restaurant. Thus, when you overstaff your establishment, you eat very deep into the profit that you should have made, and remember, initial capital and cost of running the business are all on you.

Risk Of Underpaying or relieving Your Employees Of Their Duties

Obviously, when you discover that you have overstaffed, the next thought in your head is damage control and the next thing is, you start relieving some of their duties. This doesn’t generally bode well for your reputation and will of course make for some disaffected staff. The other option, however, is to keep some of your employees and then underpay them.

Unproductive Employees

Well, if there’s nothing much for your employees to do, then you will invariably have unproductive employees. It is important to note though, that sometimes, it is not a matter of overstaffing really, rather, there are times when there is a rush of customers and times when there is a huge decrease in customer patronage. Anyway, when there is less patronage, your employees will not be fully occupied.

Consequences Of Understaffing

Terrible Service

It is always annoying to come to a restaurant and have to wait for a while before being attended to. This will inevitably occur where there is a case of understaffing and you will have disgruntled customers.

Over Worked Staff

Well, where there is a case of understaffing, the available staff will inevitably bear the brunt. Most times, staff begin to get cranky as the stress starts taking its toll on their body. It can also affect attitude towards both fellow staff and even the customers.

Untidy Work Place

In this sort of environment where there is already too much stress, the priority becomes to attend to the customers as quickly as possible. Other aspects of the restaurant business like tidying up the hall and all such duties become quite irrelevant and this will generally make for an untidy work environment. You can read more on how to keep your restaurant clean at https://www.wilkinslinen.com/restaurants/6-practical-tips-to-improve-restaurant-cleanliness/ .

Tips For Improving Holiday Staffing

Plan Early

This basically means that you ensure to make adequate preparations before the season comes upon you. Different establishments would have various issues thus; there’s no one shoe fits all strategy to this. However, take stock of how things went the previous season, consider current events, and finally what you can afford even if things don’t go as well as you might plan, and then draw up your plan.

Advertise The Positions Available

This point had to come second because it is during planning that you take stock of what you need and what you don’t. When you have done this, you can now place adverts on the available slots that need to be filled in your establishment.

Train Your Employees

This is another advantage to starting your plans early. This is because, you will be able to not just advertise the available slots on time, but also properly train your employees on the necessary skills needed for the task ahead. This way, you and your staff are adequately prepared for the summer rush. You can read more on this here.

Conclusion

The aim of every business is to make a profit and every business has that season or time of the year that seems to favor it the most. For those in the hospitality industry, especially restaurants, summertime is that season.

But though it is the season to make a fortune, failing to prepare for the season can end up being more costly than rewarding. This is why you need to prepare well, especially as it concerns holiday staffing.

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