The Way Ahead for HR in SIngapore's F&B Industry
Editor’s note: ArcLab works alongside HR Tech platforms to help businesses better manage workforces, improve staff performance to achieve more for the business, and digitally transform for the future.
We’re glad to co-author this article with Pang Jian Jie of Frontier e-HR, a leading vendor providing cloud-based HR and Talent Management System since 2000 — to share how Effective Casual Labour Management and Systemising Processes can help bring F&B Businesses onto the next lap.
Singapore is always known as a global city with a vibrant Food & Beverage (F&B) industry. However, 1 in 4 F&B businesses in Singapore go out of business, many within only their first year of operations. Ranging from hawkers, to cafes, to high-end fine dining restaurants and even reputable Michelin stars restaurants are not spared.
Despite the many ready-made tech and software solutions supported by the Singapore government grants, it is still a highly demanding industry to be in. These are some of the major challenges faced by HR in Singapore’s F&B industry:
1. Casual Labour Management
One of the biggest challenges faced by HR in F&B businesses is casual labour management. The employment laws are stringent and ever-changing, making it difficult to hire, train and retain people. Hence, businesses turn to casual labour which allows them to adapt to constant changes, from changing staff, changing competition to changing expectations of customers.
Having a consolidated and unified solution will save precious time in planning the working schedule and payroll processing. F&B businesses can reduce their labour costs as well by having an accurate and statutory compliance labour management system. Employees are empowered at a click of a button to view and swap their working schedules, removing the tedious process of manual approvals. Managers are also able to make use of dashboard tools which can assist them on future labour forecasting.
Bad workforce management can lead to undesirable consequences such as poor employee engagement, lack of visibility, increased stress for managers, lost revenue, and reputation for the business. This eventually leads to low employee morale, which can lead to good talent leaving your company.
2. Systemising Processes
The hallmark of any good F&B business: every dish sent in front of the diner is ALWAYS delicious.
To CONSISTENTLY produce good-quality food & beverage offerings, standard operating procedures (SOPs) are extremely important. SOPs systemise the workflow for the workforce so that the recipe in the Head Chef’s head can be replicated dish after dish for diners’ enjoyment. Teaching SOPs is in fact part of new employee onboarding and upskilling.
SOPs are essential not only for the actual production of the dish, but also every other process in F&B operation. Be it health-and-safety processes, or customer service — how to arrange the napkins etc to be ‘on-brand’. In today’s COVID-normal, other important SOPs are the arrangement of seating to ensure safe distancing, disinfecting the outlet, as well as new procedures related to food delivery operations.
Traditionally, SOPs are detailed in hard copy and often filed in folders. This presented a few problems for F&B businesses:
- Takes up precious space in typically cramped back-of-house setups.
- Can get oily and grimy from day-to-day F&B ops.
- Gets outdated as SOPs change, and considerable effort is needed to update them.
A much better way is to have SOPs that are digital. This solves the 3 problems above, and it can now also be made available to every single staff in the outlet or restaurant. Staff can now access SOPs and other training material right on their smartphones.
Achieved efficiencies in time and cost can then be channelled towards improving the F&B business operations, and thrive in the competitive landscape.
Find out how Frontier e-HR solution will support you with the information on how to best staff your business during the busiest periods: https://www.frontier-ehr.com/
See how ArcLab can empower your F&B Business to digitise your SOPs and other training materials, fuss free: https://arclab.io/fb-business/