Staff shortages in the hospitality industry are a consequence that will persist even after the pandemic has stabilized. The causes of this and possible solutions were discussed by experts together with Mixology at the BCB in mid-October.

Staff shortages have long been a concern for the bar sector. The effects of the pandemic have caused many employees – both permanent and temporary staff – to leave the industry. However, good employees are as important as ever if operations are to stabilise at pre-pandemic levels again after the crisis. MIXOLOGY and Bar Convent Berlin used the trade show in October 2021 to get several industry heads together for a brainstorming. Chaired by MIXOLOGY editor-in-chief Nils Wrage, the panel brought together Gabriel Daun (Gekkos, Frankfurt), Andrea Hörzer and Philipp Ernst (Josef Cocktailbar, Vienna), Willi Schöllmann (inter alia Schoellmanns, Offenburg) and Jonathan Kesseler (Ihro, Mannheim) for an in-depth conversation. These are the minutes of this conversation.

MIXOLOGY: Dear guests, we are very pleased to have come together like this today to address the current, so pressing issue of staff shortages in hospitality. First of all, I would like to ask everyone: How did you make it through the Covid time so far with your team? Have you also lost many employees?  

Andrea Hörzer: Our staff were, of course, on short-time work for a very long period but we have actively managed relations with them by way of video conferences, for example. We talked a lot about projects we’d like to put into practice once business starts up again. We have planned to draw up a new bar menu, for example. We have tried to always stay in close contact with our employees, even offering tastings. We have many young members of staff who live on their own and who went a bit stir crazy at home on their own. They just wanted to get back into the bar and do something there. Which is why we decided after a few weeks to get the “Bottled Cocktails Shop” going which we’d already planned before the pandemic. And in fact this proved just as important for our customers as for our staff. To do this we re-decorated the bar turning it into a shop concept complete with merchandise.  

Phillip Ernst: This was also made possible, by the way, thanks to 10% staffing not covered by short-time work. For merchandise pick-up people were allowed to enter the bar; we didn’t generate a whole lot of turnover but we stayed on everyone’s lips. Thanks to this campaign we were never really gone, and when we were allowed to re-open all our customers came back immediately. We did not lose a single employee…

Hörzer: …also because this meant no one got the idea of doing something else.

Ernst: And they got money. In some instances we also topped up the money to their full salaries.  

Hörzer: Our focus was to keep our staff. So we invested and employees were happy. 

MIXOLOGY: So it was a combination of financial security and an alternative to being isolated?

Ernst: Yes, also for the marginally employed staff who didn’t receive any short-time allowance. They also received the money from us.  

Hörzer:  But we kept a record of their minus hours, which they then worked back in during the summer.  

MIXOLOGY: But this isn’t the much cited “downsizing”, is it?

Schöllmann: No, not at all. We are thinking of ourselves. These days we only do events with our catering if they are really good and make us some money. We also cancel stuff.  

MIXOLOGY: A caterer turning down a catering job. This sounds like news from another universe – or a fairy tale.

Schöllmann: Exactly. I would never have dreamt of saying this two years ago. Or another example: when we do a big, important catering job we simply leave the restaurant closed. I would have never done that in the past. But it not only impacts our satisfaction here but also that of our customers. It’s a paradigm shift.  

MIXOLOGY: Do you do anything to actively recruit temps?

Schöllmann: In fact, we generally just put up conventional notices. There isn’t much movement at the job centre and ads are unaffordable.  

MIXOLOGY: Gabriel, for you at Gekkos a lack of temps is less of a problem.

Gabriel Daun: Yes, we have never worked with many temps, only on weekends. So for me, during the two lockdowns, it was good that I didn’t have to worry about the temps we do have. Because they are passionate about working for us – as a side-line to their actual jobs. That meant they were covered. As far as permanent staff are concerned: I haven’t lost any. However, we do belong to a larger group, the Gekko Group. We were able to rotate. At the start of the pandemic, I sent two permanent employees to Baden-Baden, who unfortunately did not come back. In that region, at the start of the pandemic, the infection rates were still much lower.

MIXOLOGY: How did you keep your guys during the lockdowns?

Daun: I tried to keep their “spirits up” mentally, if you like. Not everybody is in a stable relationship or lives in a big flat.  It’s easy to feel down, as Andrea already said. It was important for me to see how the boys were doing. We had regular virtual tastings, and the guys could pick up the products for these in the bar. At least we got to see each other in real life for a bit. For us, it also took a particularly long time to open up again: since our bar is the only free-standing bar in our company, i.e. it’s not located in a hotel, we were also the last business in the group to reopen.  

MIXOLOGY: Were there also additional monetary benefits for your team?

Daun: Unfortunately, we were unable to top up the salaries of our some 1,000 employees. I do know, of course, that the short-time allowance constitutes only 25% to 30% rather than the real amount bartenders usually have at their disposal. But many of them had not put anything aside. How could they as young bartenders living in an expensive city like Frankfurt, perhaps already with family obligations? I actually lent money to some people privately.

Jonathan Kesseler: Absolutely! It will get harder and harder to keep people in catering establishments. And we are speaking of a genuine lack of prospects. If you want to buy a home these days… this is scarcely possible anymore or rather not possible at all.

MIXOLOGY: Have you discussed their reasons with people who left you?

Daun:  In general, I’ve spoken to many people who left during the pandemic. In the case of one of them, it’s been a real shift: he now works as a correctional officer in a jail, basically a “prison screw”. In this case, the reason was he became a father and swapped passion for security. Besides, my impression is that many bar staff have realised the fast pace of their lives before – working at night, with lots of noise, obviously alcohol too, lots of stress, not much rest. After the shift you sleep until the afternoon, and after “breakfast” it’s practically straight back to the bar. This also applies to me. It’s also nice to have time in the evening, not to have to work at night. Before, you had to do without a lot of things in your private life. Many people in the restaurant business have now rethought and questioned their lives.   

MIXOLOGY: So the crisis as a reason for a fundamental change in the sector?

Daun: We are definitely undergoing a fundamental change.  But I see it more like this: Covid is not the reason, but perhaps the trigger. It’s about improving life, enjoying it more, having more time for yourself. The older you get, the more relevant this might become. As an industry as a whole we have to look at how we can become more attractive as employers, and not just for the people who are already really “grown up”, but for everyone: young people live healthier lives, drink less, smoke less. We have to do something to make these people come to us.

Ernst:  That’s true, we’re seeing a real change taking place! We have quite a young team. When I was young, I worked seven days a week, but at the end of the month I my salary also reflected that. For example, working in Ischgl during the season, 100 hours a week was normal. At the end of the month we had a lot of money. That was the basis for our independence. For the next generation, money is less important while that much-cited work-life balance is. Personally, I see things differently now. We became parents at the beginning of 2021. Of course you want to be at home more. So in future, I’m happy for staff to “only” work 40 hours and take turns.

Hörzer: We realised staff are no longer prepared to work until 3 am every night – else they will leave. So we take a close look at working hours. Once a week everyone can leave at 1 am and only start at 8 pm. These are comparatively small steps but they have a major impact. It does make a difference whether you are in bed at 4 am or already at 2 am.  

Ernst: Obviously, staffing costs will rise as a result. The basic parameters here are: more staff equals lower working hours equals wage increases. This means cocktails or food have to become more expensive. But so far we have been cheap in Austria by international comparison anyway.   

MIXOLOGY: So you offer all your employees at Ihro the chance to basically become joint operators through small shares in the company?

Kesseler: Yes. But not only at our bar – also at the outfits we advise. Today, many of “our” businesses run partnership models. In 2019, we launched our own, pure shareholding model. The employees all have permanent jobs and also own between 5% and 15% of the company. This is a capital-forming, relevant benefit for the staff that binds them to the company. Our thinking here was: How do I get someone to put down roots? I’ve had people who were 27 or 28 years old and just incredibly good – but who move on when, for example, they think about starting a family. I've had a few people leave for the real estate business. Young talents who could have brought the industry forward.    

Ernst: What happens when people leave then?

Kesseler: In the best-case scenario, they don’t want to leave so easily. Because those who have the shareholding are tied to the company for a certain period of time, positively speaking. I see it in the long term. We sell people glamour, champagne, parties, the works. You learn a lot and quickly in this job. But the big issue here is do you do this job for 30 or 40 years? Do people know what a works council is? When you have people who have shareholdings, they get involved with the company in a completely different way. If employees start reading up on company law and corporate law, in the end it helps not only them, but also me as an entrepreneur and ultimately the whole industry. After all, we want young people who might take over our businesses one day. We are all looking for a manager we can entrust the business to, so that we can perhaps go on holiday for three weeks. 

Hörzer: You can only keep staff like this if you offer them a share in the company.

Daun: Against this background, I think it’s important to emphasise that the classic 16-hour day, six-day week is not suitable if you want to do continuous education and want to think outside the box. This is not the way to grow and ultimately people employed like this don’t make engaging staff for our guests to talk to either.

Willi: I’m also thinking about shareholdings, and I’ve already had talks. At some point, you don’t want to bring the next young bartender back to where he is now. But I don’t approach just anyone here but specifically those people who speak the same language and who I’d like to see as part of the family.   

MIXOLOGY: I’d like to come back to what we were saying about the Covid crisis being the central trigger for staff shortages, but not the actual root cause. So did Covid merely reveal general socio-political deficits that are now specifically impacting the catering industry?   

Daun: It has a lot to do with the general zeitgeist itself, or rather with major social developments. Zeitgeist sounds more like it’s temporary. Nowadays no one quits their job at 45 to get a job in a bar. But even the entry level for young people hardly fits into the world view anymore. Take the minimum wage, for example: what value does training have then? Who would want to do three years of training on a low wage? There are so few people still in training. As an employer, you have to be fit and understand the new times: What is relevant for the current generation? You have to understand that okay, it doesn’t work like that anymore, a few parameters have changed.    

Kesseler: You can take everything into account, the historical development, the overall economic situation, world politics. In the 1990s, people drank in a completely different way than they do today. We have a health trend. Drinking will not disappear, but it will change. How will the market develop? I can imagine that fewer and fewer people will want to work at night. The training situation is precarious, for chefs this has been the case already for some years now, and the drop-out rate is high. But the tone has also changed. In the past, people thought the rough tone was good. An old image of male culture.  

Daun: But I have the feeling that this will improve in upcoming generations, where a different principle of appreciation prevails.

Kesseler: That’s right, many people are already starting up and doing it differently. But it’s a specific situation for chefs because of the different working hours. I think the industry has reached the trough and now we have to see what happens next.   

MIXOLOGY: What concrete measures could be put in place here? Upgrade the temping jobs? Make bartending a “real profession”? Could they be set up differently in terms of labour law? Or should the first step be to abolish tips and instead use other prices to ensure higher wages?

Kesseler: I think abolishing tips is pretty controversial, it leaves a bit of a “funny taste” in your mouth.  

Gabriel: In London a 20% service charge is added on everything. That’s what we call a tip at the moment. So here in Germany, no bartender can negotiate a gross annual salary. You just get lured in with the tip. The pension statement later is a completely different story.    

Kesseler: Banks and asset managers don’t even open the door to restaurateurs, and/or the terms and conditions are a joke, as I already mentioned in the context of buying real estate. How could we put such a topic on the agenda, by creating a cross-sector initiative? How can we strengthen the sector in the long term? That can only be done with personnel. Otherwise it will be a disaster. What levers do we have to pull? Also to make our sector healthier.

Daun: Abolishing tips in their current form would make sense. If I feature it in the menu as a surcharge and can factor it into all my turnover, this would give both employer and staff a completely different, much more binding sense of planning security.    

Schöllmann: I think it’s especially important to pay decent real salaries – I mean not just tax-free night bonuses. That’s where we must be headed. Of course, there are more hours than in an office job, but it’s also possible with five evenings a week. This development is good and it has picked up speed. 

Ernst: However, night shifts as such should not be demonised! They are not a tragedy if the framework conditions are right. Working at night also has its advantages, not such a hectic pace, no rush hour. But it gets tricky when you start a family. Meanwhile, it annoys me when I come home late. Still, who says that work at night is wrong and office workers do everything right? After all, we continue to develop as people.

Daun:   Of course, there are people who simply have a different biorhythm. For me personally, getting up late was also a reason to work in this industry. How you work is also subject to constant change. By the way, the idea of working eight hours a day, for example, is also changing. I believe in future we will all work even less. This is especially true for “emphatic professions”, which cannot be whisked away into the digital sphere. These jobs will take on a new value, including in hospitality.   

Ernst: Exactly. Covid has, to a certain extent, generated the same sales for us during a very short period of time. This, however, only worked because all bars in town had the same opening times.  

Daun: In future, everyone will have to pull together.

Kesseler: This raises the issue of “guilds” even though this topic still needs to be handled with care. It’s about a community that gets together and agrees on certain basic principles. For example, if everyone closed at midnight, we would have better prospects for the future of these professions. It’s about time something like that happened. Society is getting used to it. I mean, honestly, how much turnover do you make after 2 am?

Gabriel: The problem is that hospitality is so diverse. There will always be bars that are really late-night places and make their turnover then. You can’t reach agreement on that. We can appreciate and embrace this diversity, but that makes it really hard. Although even establishments like this might ask themselves whether it makes sense to just open later. 

MIXOLOGY: You mean, for instance: a classic, night-time “gastro bar”, where many waiters and bar people go after work and which is always open until 4 or 5 am, could also just specialise in not opening before 9 or 10 pm?

Daun: Yes, why not? But it should be left to everyone to decide for themselves. If not, this could feel more like an obligation rather than liberation.

Phillip: You also take away options for customers who are running late due to work.

MIXOLOGY: Mind you, it’s fair to say that the later your night at the bar progresses, the more your average punter tends to focus on just the booze. 

Andrea: We’re about enjoyment, not boozing.

Gabriel: Though at the end of the day this is also a big part of it (laughing).

Schöllmann: As is champagne!

MIXOLOGY: Dear guests, we would like to wholeheartedly thank you for your time and this wonderful conversation!

This article by Nils Wrage also appeared in Mixology Magazine.