The hospitality staffing crisis continuing to cost London businesses millions in lost revenue each year, with latest UK employment stats showing there are around 128,000 unfilled vacancies in hospitality and leisure across the country right now.
One new Mayfair restaurant, the yet to be finalised Mimosa at The Langham hotel, is looking to take an industry-first approach to recruiting. Mimosa’s restaurant isn’t finished yet, but it needs to build its team, and firmly believes that trial shifts, not CVs and interviews are the best way to see if individuals are a good fit.
Its solution? Offering a series of trial shifts recreating a live restaurant environment in another location, from which it will hire its team prior to the restaurant opening this Spring.
The ‘Recruitment Café’ event will be taking place at Westminster Kingsway College on the 5th March and is being organised as part of the Westminster Works programme, an innovative scheme funded by Westminster City Council and designed to help businesses in the hospitality hot-spot of Westminster to attract and retain new talent. Spots on the trials will be open to all Westminster Kingsway College students as well as those registered as part of the Westminster Works scheme and there will be around 35 jobs to be filled in entry level and some senior level roles from kitchen and bar staff to front of house.
Picture and filming opportunities:
- Filming the trial shifts throughout the day
- Filming in the kitchen while Mimosa’s team instruct would-be staff
- Following would-be waiting staff and porters as they’re briefed on the shift ahead
- Sit at a table and sample the dishes of the day while being served by those on the recruitment trial
Interview opportunities:
- Jackie Bedford, CEO at StepAhead and recruitment lead for the Westminster Works programme about the trial shift and why this innovative method of recruitment is so important at this time
- Head of recruitment at Mimosa about why they’ve decided to take part in the recruitment cafe
- Senior team members at Mimosa about what they’re hoping to get from the day
- The individuals on the trial shift about what they hope they will get from the experience
- Hospitality commentators can be arranged on request including but not limited to Westminster Council representative, Kate Nichols of UK Hospitality, New West End Company representative etc.
Westminster Works has already help over 220 hospitality businesses to recruit new staff and there are currently more than 100 live vacancies as part of the programme for a diverse range of hospitality roles in some of London’s most prestigious hotels, bars and restaurants.
Featured Photo by Fabrizio Magoni on Unsplash.