Forza Restaurants case study

Forza Restaurants – a restaurant group comprising Forza Wine, Forza Win and Forza Wine at The National Theatre – have been announced as the proud winners of CODE Hospitality’s Happiest Place to Work 2024.

The award, supported by Planday, celebrates hospitality businesses across the UK that are setting new standards in employee happiness and is created to shine a spotlight on employers who genuinely care for the welfare and wellbeing of their employees by making their company values and practices as integral to their identity as their food and drink.

The judging process involved generating an overall Happiness Score and Advocacy Score for each company by employees filling out anonymous surveys. The judging panel, made up of influential hospitality executives from the likes of Planday, Hawksmoor and Pizza Pilgrims, then reviewed the survey results alongside supporting evidence to decide on the final list.

Forza Restaurants believes its success comes down to putting its employees first. Employee focused processes include regular appraisals and reviews, 1-2-1 pastoral care meetings, the encouragement of open and honest conversation, and ensuring managers align with Forza’s brand values.

One of biggest challenges that Forza and all hospitality businesses face is the scheduling of staff rotas. Forza overcame this by adopting a dedicated shift scheduling tool early on. With Planday, it is able to efficiently schedule staff rotas 3-4 weeks in advance and is instrumental in saving time allowing them to dedicate more time to employee pastoral care. This scheduling ahead and high employee satisfaction contributed to Forza winning the happiest place award.

Bash Redford, founder of Forza Restaurants, comments: “Managers in Forza sites are ‘people people’ first and foremost – we encourage anyone in a position of seniority to catch up with members of their team for at least 10 minutes a week – not about work, or anything specific, just a check-in on wellbeing, life and anything else that they might want to talk about. One of the reasons we can do this is that thankfully, gone are the days of spreadsheets and twenty different streams of communication for every member of staff to write a rota – Planday enables that, and that’s MASSIVE, for comparatively little cost” 

Alongside time saving, Planday is also designed to make it easier for managers and their team to communicate, collaborate and get work done. Complete transparency as to where the senior leadership team are on a daily basis has empowered Forza to make the relationship between hourly workers and managers more efficient and productive, which creates a happier company.

Whilst the ease of shift swapping and far in advance scheduling helps current employees manage their work/life balance, Forza has also found it makes hiring new employees a lot easier too. Planday’s ability to provide Forza with a fully organised approach has proven to be a very positive company policy not yet widely available across the hospitality sector.

As a customer facing business, employees are essential to the smooth running of any restaurant and are integral to the customer experience. Recognising the importance and value of all their employees across all aspects of Forza is key. Determined to educate their staff about their food, employees are fuelled with proper meals on shift and chefs host regular employee tasting sessions too which teach employees about the menu and give them the opportunity to sample new dishes. And for those attending a trial shift, all shifts end by 8.30pm at the latest to allow all trial-ees to order what they like from the menu and experience the restaurant as a diner.

Forza Restaurants recognises that, as employers, the mental wellbeing of their employees is paramount. Treating employees with care and respect for as long as they work for them is a given and is underlined through their 1-2-1 pastoral care sessions, mental health surveys, and promotion of wellbeing apps.

Happy people equals a happy restaurant and no one knows this better than Forza – with the support of Planday, may others follow in their happy footsteps.

Planday launches The Handbook to Happiness 

The FREE handbook offers actionable ideas and practical tips to create happier workplaces

Following CODE Hospitality releasing its Happiest Places to Work 2024 list, Planday – the shift planning software company that worked in conjunction with CODE on the list – has released The Handbook to Happiness that is free for hospitality owners and managers to access to help increase happiness in the workplace.

Recent research by Planday highlights that a shocking 85% of hospitality employees report that they have experienced poor mental health in the last 12 months, including anxiety and depression. That is why Planday has created The Handbook to Happiness which is packed full of actionable ideas, insights and practical tips that will boost team morale and maximise productivity, built on extensive research and expert opinion.

 Planday’s top three actionable insights from the guide include:

1. Schedule ahead: research concludes that 67% of employees believe having more notice of shift patterns would improve their life. Think of this as The Single Biggest Shift managers can make to make their employees happier. Software solutions such as Planday make planning ahead much easier.
2. Communicate! Happy hospitality teams communicate clearly and effectively. When teams communicate, they can support each other better, leading to more collaboration and a more positive workplace.
3. Read up on how to be a better manager: having a good manager can make all the difference, and sometimes it just takes a little research on how to be that person. Business owners and hospitality leaders should encourage managers to become the best versions of themselves with guidance on what it is to be a good manager.

Bash Redford, founder of Forza Restaurants who won this year’s Happiest Place to Work, comments: “We’re so thrilled to be named as the happiest place in hospitality to work. We have always put our staff at the forefront of what we do, as they’re so integral to how well our businesses operates.

“One of the key things we offer at our restaurants is that we schedule our shifts one month ahead with Planday and offer as much flexibility as possible. Life is not all about work, and we want to ensure that our incredibly valued employees have a really good work / life balance.”

Dave Lee, CEO of Planday, comments: “It’s known that mental health in hospitality should be prioritised more, and so it was an honour to work with CODE Hospitality on its Happiest Places to Work list, and to celebrate businesses that are putting its staff first. 

“Creating a happy, motivated team won’t just make the workplace more pleasant, it will improve hospitality business’s bottom line, and so we wanted to share actionable insights for managers and industry leaders to increase happiness across the whole hospitality sector..”

The full 13-page guide from Planday offers a holistic steer to achieving happiness at work – from tips and insights on team bonding exercises, information on how to encourage mindfulness at work, tips on exercise, diet and sleeping, how to celebrate staff at work and how the power of music can help people feel happier and more motivated at work, amongst much more.

Planday can help hospitality businesses with scheduling rotas, communication, payroll, employee management, time tracking and also reporting. On top of these features, Planday shares useful blog posts for the hospitality industry, from offering advice on legislation change through to how to attract and retain Gen Z staff. Businesses can’t plan for success if they don’t have happy teams, and no one knows this better than Planday.

Featured Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash.