Industries
Why hospitality employees leave and how to understand why
Hotel, restaurant and banquet staff leave for reasons that vary by department and season. How to ask what sits behind the first answer and act on it.
8 min readRead article
Hospitality · Catering and meal services
HR for Catering and Meal Services: Bulk Cooking, Event Crews and Transport of Food
A catering and meal service cooks in bulk and serves at weddings, offices, schools and events. This page looks at kitchen crews, daily event staff, food transport and the hygiene that cannot slip when hundreds eat.
Not sure what you need? Tell us about your business in six short steps and we will come to the first meeting prepared.
Share your requirementsA catering and meal service cooks in a central kitchen or on the site and serves guests at weddings, parties, offices, factories, schools and hospitals. The core team has a head cook or chef, a few skilled cooks, helpers for cutting and cleaning, a driver and a supervisor. For a large event the crew grows overnight with waiters, serving staff, cleaners and loaders, many hired by the day through a trusted contact. Dates cluster in wedding months and festivals, and on those days several events run at once. Food is prepared in bulk, packed hot, carried in vehicles and served some hours later, so timing, temperature and cleanliness decide whether guests are happy or ill. Related reading: hospitality HR. The business lives on a reliable core and a trained outer circle, and a missing cook or a careless server at a big event hurts the family name for years.
- Plan
- Hire
- Onboard
- Manage
- Develop
- Perform
- Engage
- Retain
- Exit
- Improve
When HR is weak in catering and meal services, you may see
- Event crews are hired by phone on the day
- Several events fall on the same date
- Food hygiene depends on the supervisor
- Transport times and temperatures are guessed
- Long nights and early mornings stack up
- Daily workers are unrecorded
- The head cook is the business
- Burns, cuts and falls are accepted
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
Who does the work in catering and meal services
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
- Caterers and owners
- Head cooks and chefs
- Cooks and cutting helpers
- Event supervisors and captains
- Waiters and serving staff
- Drivers and loaders
- Cleaners and utensil staff
Roles we help you hire in catering and meal services
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in catering and meal services. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
Job descriptions for this sector
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
We set up the interview and hiring process for catering and meal services
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
1. Role brief and scorecard
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
2. Stages and sequence
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
3. Question bank and scoring
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
4. Interviewer readiness
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
5. Offer and follow-up
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
Where HR strains in catering and meal services
Event crews are hired by phone on the day
Waiters and helpers are called through a contact, and the team that turns up is not the team that was promised.
Several events fall on the same date
On peak wedding days the best cooks and supervisors are split, and the smaller event gets the weaker crew.
Food hygiene depends on the supervisor
Hand washing, clean utensils, covered food and cooling are followed when the supervisor watches and skipped when he is away.
Transport times and temperatures are guessed
Hot food waits in vehicles through traffic, and nobody records when it left or what its temperature was.
Long nights and early mornings stack up
Prep begins the night before, service runs late and cleaning ends after midnight, with little rest before the next event.
Daily workers are unrecorded
Pay is in cash at the end of the event, with no record of who worked, injuries or advances.
The head cook is the business
Recipes, quantities and the kitchen crew are in one person's head, and his move to another caterer is a serious loss.
Burns, cuts and falls are accepted
Large vessels, open flames and wet floors lead to injuries that are treated at home and not reported.
HR topics for catering and meal services
Start with the topics that matter most here: Recruitment and Talent Acquisition; Health, Safety and Wellbeing; Employee Administration. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for hospitality, not in general.
Recruitment and Talent Acquisition
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
Health, Safety and Wellbeing
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Employee Administration
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
HR Strategy and Workforce Planning
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Organisation Design
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Onboarding and Probation
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Compensation, Payroll and Benefits
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Performance Management
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Learning and Development
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Career and Succession Management
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Employee Engagement and Experience
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Employee Relations
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies, Compliance and Governance
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Retention and Attrition Management
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Exit and Alumni Management
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
HR Technology and Automation
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
HR Analytics and Management Reporting
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
HR Operations and Governance
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
What a working HR set-up looks like
The pieces a catering and meal services business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Keep a pool of trained event staff
A list of regular waiters, helpers and captains with their roles, grading and availability, called in order.
What this coversHide
Keep a pool of trained event staff
A list of regular waiters, helpers and captains with their roles, grading and availability, called in order.
What this coversHide
A list of regular waiters, helpers and captains with their roles, grading and availability, called in order. The recruitment support can help build it.
Plan crews for multi-event days
Allocate cooks, supervisors and vehicles per event in advance, with a back-up list.
What this coversHide
Plan crews for multi-event days
Allocate cooks, supervisors and vehicles per event in advance, with a back-up list.
What this coversHide
Allocate cooks, supervisors and vehicles per event in advance, with a back-up list. The shift rules hold the timings.
Write hygiene and serving rules for events
Washing, uniforms, covers, utensils, hot and cold holding, and discard rules, with a supervisor checklist.
What this coversHide
Write hygiene and serving rules for events
Washing, uniforms, covers, utensils, hot and cold holding, and discard rules, with a supervisor checklist.
What this coversHide
Washing, uniforms, covers, utensils, hot and cold holding, and discard rules, with a supervisor checklist. The health and safety routine holds them.
Log food transport
Dispatch time, vehicle, container, temperature check and arrival time on one sheet that the driver and supervisor sign.
What this coversHide
Log food transport
Dispatch time, vehicle, container, temperature check and arrival time on one sheet that the driver and supervisor sign.
What this coversHide
Dispatch time, vehicle, container, temperature check and arrival time on one sheet that the driver and supervisor sign.
Record daily workers and pay
Name, event, hours, pay and any advance or injury noted at the event close.
What this coversHide
Record daily workers and pay
Name, event, hours, pay and any advance or injury noted at the event close.
What this coversHide
Name, event, hours, pay and any advance or injury noted at the event close. The payroll process can hold the record.
Document recipes and quantities
Standard recipes with quantities per hundred guests, prep order and a second cook trained on each main dish.
What this coversHide
Document recipes and quantities
Standard recipes with quantities per hundred guests, prep order and a second cook trained on each main dish.
What this coversHide
Standard recipes with quantities per hundred guests, prep order and a second cook trained on each main dish.
Start by checking where you stand
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirements- Count the events held last peak month and how many staff each used.
- Ask how the last crew for a big event was found and what happened to those who did not come.
- Watch a hot-holding and transport check, if any, at the next event.
- List daily workers from the last event and see what was recorded for each.
- Ask which dishes only the head cook can make to standard.
- See where injuries from burns or cuts were noted.
- Confirm with a qualified professional the food licensing, daily wage worker and safety obligations that apply, and note open items.
Confirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
How GullyHR helps
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
- Recruitment process
A pool of trained event staff and a way to call them reliably.
- Workplace health, safety and wellbeing
Hygiene, transport and injury routines for bulk cooking and events.
- Payroll process management
A clear record of daily workers, pay and advances at each event.
- Attendance, shift and leave
Crew plans and rotas for multi-event days and long nights.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Our HR transformation approach
- 1
Assess
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
- 2
Identify gaps
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
- 3
Design
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
- 4
Implement
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
- 5
Automate
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
- 6
Measure
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
- 7
Improve
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
Blogs worth reading first
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in hospitality, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Industries
Hiring performance marketers for a D2C brand: what to test and what to ignore
How a D2C founder can test a performance marketing hire on real work, ignore weak signals such as dashboard screenshots, and run a fair process.
7 min readRead article
Industries
A practical safety routine for rubber product makers: who checks what, and when
A shift, weekly and monthly safety routine for rubber plants that names who checks platen guards, mill trip bars, autoclave doors, burst-test cages and slings, and who acts on near misses.
7 min readRead article
HR Process
One employee, three versions of the record: fixing employee information management
Payroll says one joining date, the personal file says another and the manager remembers a third. How to establish a single trustworthy employee record and keep it that way.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Questions owners ask
Keep a graded pool, confirm two days ahead and keep a back-up list. Pay on time and treat them well so they come again.
Use a checklist for each event, appoint a supervisor responsible for it and spot check. Confirm the licensing and hygiene rules that apply with a qualified professional.
Dispatch and arrival times, vehicle, container, temperature check and who signed. It protects you if a guest complains.
Note the name, event, hours, pay and any advance, and pay promptly. Check the legal treatment with a qualified professional.
Document recipes and quantities, train a second cook on main dishes and reward the head cook for teaching. The kitchen should not rest on one person.
We would look at how event crews are found, how hygiene is checked and how daily workers are recorded. An event staff pool with a supervisor checklist, or a daily worker record routine, is a likely opener. We set out scope, timing and fee in writing afterwards, so you decide what goes ahead.
More on HR for hospitality
All 143 business types in hospitality · Find another business type