Paul Ainsworth and Tommy Banks launch hospitality staff exchange programme

Chefs Paul Ainsworth and Tommy Banks have launched an employee exchange programme between their respective restaurant groups.

Team members from both businesses in front of house, back of house, office or operational roles can swap companies for a week to experience working in a different setting.

The scheme launched this month and has seen three successful exchanges take place, with a further seven scheduled for 2022. Every visit includes accommodation and visits to suppliers.

Ainsworth and Banks chose to work together as they felt their businesses shared a family-run ethos but were unique enough to showcase different techniques and ways of working.

Banks and his family are behind the Black Swan at Oldstead and Roots in York, both of which hold Michelin stars, while Ainsworth runs four restaurants in Cornwall, including the two-AA-rosette Caffè Rojano and Michelin-starred Paul Ainsworth at No 6 in Padstow.

Modules at the Tommy Banks Group include foraging and preserving, farming and growing, housekeeping, e-commerce and operations. In Cornwall, team members can learn pastry and guest relations at Paul Ainsworth at No 6 and front of house and social media at Caffè Rojano.

Those taking part can choose to rotate through the business or focus on one restaurant.

Banks said: “Stage programmes are established for chefs but lacking for front of house and other roles. We want to change this and allow anyone within our business the opportunity to be able to join the Ainsworth Collection. We have so much to learn from them and there are so many fantastic suppliers to visit in Cornwall.”

Ainsworth added: “You never stop learning in hospitality but we want to fast track this and give our teams a more holistic view of the industry, which comes with experiencing other companies.

“I am so grateful to have worked all across the UK and I want others to be able to do the same.”