Hospitality staffing

An interesting article in this weekend’s Weekend Australian may well prove what many of us have suspected for ages – that hospitality standards have indeed slipped generally. I instinctively discard any similar thoughts of my own, putting them down to the aging process bringing out that usual reaction of “In the good old days….” It was interesting to read others opinions confirming the “good old days” theory!

The Weekend Australian headline reads:

‘Smorgasbord of restaurant talent returns’ and basically the article features the new (Neil Perry’s) Rockpool restaurant manager, 35 year old Jeremy Courmadias, who has returned to Australia with superb hospitality skills having worked in London for the last seven years in ‘the worlds most sophisticated and buoyant restaurant markets’.

‘For an industry that has grown used to a diet of extremely lean personnel pickings over the past five years, the relatively sudden availability of people such as Courmadias, other returning ex-pats and locals who have lost their jobs in a contracting restaurant industry, is the upside of the down. Quieter economic times have provided relief from a chronic problem for restaurant employers: skilled staff shortages.

From the kitchen to the dining room floor, finding experienced staff has been a nagging headache for employers for years, according to industry bodies such as Restaurant & Catering Australia…..

The corollary has been over-promoted chefs and wet-behind-the-ears waiters filling a void out of necessity rather than experience or talent.

But since the world financial markets went into decline last year with the domino effect felt in restaurants around the world, it’s all turned round.’

Neil Perry says ‘The level of quality in applicants has improved dramatically’ which should lead to ‘better food and service for a nation whose easygoing nature has allowed us to gloss over declining standards in both.’

‘Everybody knows that in kitchens especially, too many were promoted too early as a result of all this’ agrees chef Justin North of Becasse restaurant in Sydney. ‘You’d have fourth year apprentices becoming sous (second in command) chefs and sous chefs becoming head chefs way too early.

The middle ranked chefs, the heart and soul of the kitchen, were just really difficult to find. Now they’re queuing up.’

Courmadias says ‘The restaurant industry here was riding high for a long time and nobody bothered to train anyone, which is why there was such a shortage’.

Traditionally, even though it’s the same industry around the country, our local hospitality industry has its own advantages and disadvantages, good things and bad things, about it, but this article certainly sounds familiar. I’d be interested in your thoughts about it.