Variable/Agency Chefs Jobs - The Future

Over the past few weeks I have read a few articles about chef shortages and wages.

More and more of contract catering businesses are opting for small permanent fixed teams and using variable labour / agencies to support there business

The above is all fine, but what are you doing to ensure the staff you want and need keep coming back to you,

Is it guaranteed hours, is it type of hours your offering, Is is a great place to work

In my experience and please correct me if I am wrong, chef hourly pay has barely moved over the last 10 years.

In London it ranges from ￡10-16.50 per hour, the highest being a lead chef.

There are positive and negatives to this the positives are..

The labour does not sit on your budget when your quiet,

There is less training required for the variables staff.

Fewer responsibilities as a business to variable and agency staff

And from a business point of view it looks like the fixed wages are quite low for the size of the operation both as a cash figure and as a %

The negatives are

Up and down consistency with product when you cant get the regular staff,

As a budgetary cost a lot more expensive than fixed labour

Less commitment in most cases than fixed labour

Less reliable than fixed labour,

The list goes on..

But essentially why as the hourly rate never moved, longer the hourly rate stays low, the more damage it does to our business as it attracts fewer people, and also to work as a variable or agency chef takes a special kind of person as you could be there one day gone the next, and this could happen hourly in some businesses.

So the picture is when I first started my career this did not exist to my knowledge,

You got a full time job and you worked all the hours you needed to, In order to progress your career.

Then you changed companies, positions to gain further experience and so on.

As I reached my first Head Chefs Job in 1999, I took on a team of chefs whom was all variable, turning up for work when they liked and if they liked, Late etc.. so we made a decision to go full time, we built a brigade of 24 chefs plus 6 kitchen porters, we kept that team together for 6 years losing 3 people in that period whom had completed there trial period.

But as a industry we have supported the zero hour contract as it makes good business sense. ( although some people may dis-agree, there is very little training done with these people)

How do we make this situation a positive for the industry and get these chefs to progress,

In 10 years time what will a Head Chef, Executive Chef look like,

I am quite interested to hear peoples views on this