The Beverage Standards Association brings you Peter’s Monday 21st June 2021 Weekly Briefing every Tuesday morning.
Monday, 21st June Weekly Briefing
“Hospitality pays for low-value view of labour”
A headline in the FT last week immediately got my hackles up – “Hospitality pays for low-value view of labour”. Where, in this headline, is the recognition that hospitality merely sits on the border of unprofitability? There is a lot of hospitality about (because, for example costs of entry are low, and lots of people want to do it) and it’s inefficient (delivering hospitality relies on people, who want to do things their way, and it requires lots of customers who have many different needs and many expectations).
Managing people
That means, in order to “deliver hospitality”, much money is spent on managing people, dealing with special situations, putting things right that have gone wrong (“I ordered a well done steak –not underdone”, “My sleep was disturbed by traffic throughout the night”) and so on. But limited profits sorely constrain the opportunities to develop something better. So there is a limited amount of money in the hospitality “system”, but lots of people spending what there is.
Not paid much
That means people in hospitality are not paid much. Is this really a sign of low value being placed on their efforts? It is more likely a sign that there is no money available to reward them more – despite the high value placed on their efforts. Hence my hackles on reading the FT headline.
Thank you for reading part of the Monday 21st June 2021 Weekly Briefing and full edition can be found at Weekly Briefing Report.
Peters Monthly Report for May 2021 is now available here.
Peter provides consultancy on the eating out market and opens eyes to brand new ways of thinking about the sector and its multiple opportunities for success.
(E) peter@peterbackmanfs.com (w) www.peterbackmanfs.com
