Viewpoint: Leadership in kitchens must improve if we’re going to solve hospitality’s staffing crisis

By Alex Hall, executive chef UK & Ireland, Unilever Food Solutions

It’s no secret that hospitality is facing its worst staffing crisis in living memory. In fact, according to UKHospitality, the industry has a staffing gap of around 170,000 people. That’s a large town or small city’s worth of people, whereby we need every single one of them to take up a career in our industry to plug the void and secure our collective future.

There are a myriad of social and political issues underpinning this crisis which have been well documented, but I don’t believe that external factors should be entirely to blame. The staffing and talent crisis in hospitality has been building for many years; before Brexit and long before the pandemic. Fundamentally, it feels like people don’t believe that hospitality is a serious career choice. Perhaps some see hospitality as a stepping stone in their careers, or as a student job to make some cash whilst studying. There are some things we can never shake as an industry, such as the hours and the pay having to be supplemented with tips, but we need to make changes in order to retain people for the long term.

But hospitality is also brilliant. It brings joy, makes people happy, enables creativity and offers endless progression and development opportunities. There are some fantastic organisations out there who are already doing amazing things to better ‘PR’ the industry and attract new talent, from Choose Hospitality to Hospitality Rising and, of course, UKHospitality.

However, to employ people is one thing – yet to retain them is another. When they do enter the industry, many don’t stick around for long. #FairKitchens believes that this is often caused by poor leadership at the very top. Let’s face it, professional kitchens have an historic reputation for toxicity and too much testosterone. And whether that be the case in every instance or not, it’s a reputation that’s putting people off us.

I’m proud to be a chef ambassador for #FairKitchens – a movement co-founded in by Unilever back in 2018 amid growing awareness of wellbeing issues at the heart of foodservice and hospitality. #FairKitchens, which is supported by the likes of Chris Galvin (pictured), Alain Roux and Ruth Hansom, is campaigning for better leadership in hospitality as a preventative measure, to help us stop losing more people to other industries.

We want to help leaders build the best possible environment for their teams, which is why we’ve created ‘Leading a Fair Kitchen’: a completely free training programme to help improve leadership skills across hospitality.

In the training, #FairKitchens ambassadors, partners and friends from all over the world share their experiences of good kitchen leadership so others can learn and reflect on their own practices. The end result covers everything from how to give individuals ownership and spot wellbeing problems, to talking openly about decisions that need to be made, so you can do what’s best for the whole team.

The training was produced in collaboration with the Culinary Institute of America, along with input from more than 30 chefs and other experts including Hospitality Action and Westminster Kingsway College. We’ve also secured backing from the Craft Guild of Chefs.

It’s heartening to see that the organisations that underpin our industry are backing this programme. In doing so, they’re recognising the need for a change. Because as chefs we were taught to cook – yet, certainly when I look at my own career path, I was never taught how to lead. What we need now is for those leaders who are truly on the front line – head chefs and those running hospitality businesses – to collectively recognise that we cannot attract and retain new talent in the industry without addressing the standard of leadership as it stands today.

Click here to find out more about #FairKitchens and the ‘Leading a Fair Kitchen’ Leadership Training.