Hospitality crisis: Business owners say chronic staffing problems are to blame for dire industry outlook

Staff are regularly texting in sick 30 minutes before a shift or just not rocking up at all, hospitality owners reveal.

Hospitality small business owners say junior staff are letting them down by not rocking up for shifts.

Those speaking out include Deeb Milky, who with wife Andrea Aranibar-Milky has co-owned popular Jetty Rd Brighton cafe Alimentary for the past six years and given jobs to about 100 people during that time.

The couple also own The Alchemists’ Kitchen, on the same strip as Alimentary, and are opening a third eatery, Santi’s, at Henley Beach, in August.

Alimentary staff member Bella Doyle, owner Deeb Milky and manager Otis Carthy. Mr Milky said both are exemplary staff members. Picture: Keryn Stevens

“I’ve stopped hiring school kids because it’s just too hard,” Mr Milky said.

“It’s easy to get staff, but extremely hard to get good staff.”

Mr Milky has had up to three staff pull out of their rostered shifts at the last minute on one day.

Staff who cancel like that are casuals – meaning their hourly rate is higher than that of permanent staff – but they are also a little too laid-back in attitude.

“They text on the morning of (their shift) to say they are unwell, or have other plans, or sport,” Mr Milky said.

NO SHOW IS A NO GO

Port Adelaide eatery Banksia Tree Cafe co-owner Fabian Folghera said his business was ghosted by a key staff member, who just didn’t show up for work. It turned out they were unwell, but hadn’t let anyone know prior to the shift. While they agreed they would be back at work when they were better, it didn’t happen.

“We never heard from them again,” Mr Folghera said.

Fabian Folghera, wife Halie and children, Jasper, 4, and Lilah 2, at Little Banksia Tree in Plant 3 Bowden, which closed its doors earlier this year. Picture: Russell Millard Photography

Forced to close a cafe, The Little Banksia Tree, at Plant 3 Bowden, earlier this year, he said the hospitality industry was going through a “temporary blip” and that staffing issues were a growing problem which had “suddenly become almost dire”.

Their comments come after George Melissourgos the owner of Fire and Vine, in Glenunga, spoke out about his staffing issues.

He did so after the restaurant was reviewed for SA Weekend by respected Adelaide food critic Simon Wilkinson, who wrote about lengthy service delays, including a one-hour wait for entrees.

Responding to the review, Mr Melissourgos told The Advertiser two staff members had called in sick about 30 minutes before Fire and Vine opened and their shifts were unable to be filled. This left just the chef and Mr Melissourgos to look after about 30 guests.

Staff recruitment was an “ongoing” issue for the venue, he said.

WHY DIDN’T YOU CALL

Mr Folghera said staff often texted or messaged on a work group chat to say they were sick, sometimes just 30 minutes before their start times.

While Mr Folghera believed staff who said they were unwell, he encouraged them to phone, not text, and give adequate notice.

That said, he also wondered if a kind of “cancel culture” – in which people pull out of plans with friends at the last moment because they can no longer be bothered going out – had spilt into the workplace.

“If you have a staff member not show up last minute it can feel like the last straw because who is the person who is going to step in?,” he said, adding: “It is most likely the person who owns (the business). They may not have experience in hospitality and they are being taken away from running and growing their business.”

Alimentary owner Deeb Milky said the shift in the attitude of many younger staff occurred during Covid-19. Picture: Keryn Stevens

Mr Milky said the shift in the attitude of many younger staff occurred during Covid-19.

“I have no issue with older staff who were employed before Covid,” he said, adding:

“When Covid happened there was a major disconnect of responsibility.”

Covid-19 also meant many juniors were not great at communicating face-to-face.

“Younger staff are not giving eye contact,” he said.

Mr Milky said the majority of offenders were aged 17 to 18 and studying year 12.

And it sounds like it is a case of them being too cool for an after-school or weekend job.

“By second or third year uni they need the money,” he said.

Keen to hire locals to support the community and give Alimentary a “homely feel”, Mr Milky said the area’s affluence was sometimes a negative because teenagers did not need to earn their own money.

ALL PLAY AND NO WORK

When Mr Milky dined in a less wealthy suburb recently he noticed the school-aged staff were more focused on customer service than some of the juniors he has previously employed.

Asked if he has had to fire staff, Mr Milky responded “you have to”, going on to explain: “There was a group of young kids who were making TikTok videos at the shop (during their shifts). I gave them a couple of warnings.”

That said, Mr Milky has 17-year-olds working for him who are “gems” with the right “work ethic and respect levels”.

They include Bella Doyle, who posed with Mr Milky and manager Otis Carthy – he has been with Alimentary “since day one … I couldn’t run the business without him.”

A restaurant manager in the CBD, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Advertiser that staff bailing on shifts at the last minute was nothing new.

The manager, who has over three decades of hospitality experience, said it had “always been a thing” and was not just restricted to younger team members.

Australian Hotels Association chief executive Anna Moeller. Picture: Supplied.

The SA branch of the Australian Hotels Association chief executive Anna Moeller said a shortage of workers was one of the greatest issues facing the hospitality industry.

“It was a chronic problem prior to Covid,” she said, adding: “Covid exacerbated that problem, so it is now chronically acute.”

Once a business found staff to hire, reliability was often an issue, she said.

“Owner-operators of businesses are working an exorbitant number of hours per week to fill those gaps,” she said.

Ms Moeller said staff who had worked at a venue for a long time were “like part of the family” and were “incredibly reliable”.

JOBS DOWN THE DRAIN

She agreed with many of Mr Milky’s observations about school-aged staff, but said workers of any age who were new to the hospitality industry could also be problematic because jobs were “disposable”.

“Because it is so much easier to get a job, the value of one is so much lower,” she said. “People can afford to take the risk of not turning up for a shift,

“(The attitude is) ‘If I don’t turn up I can get a job somewhere else’.”

Ms Moeller said while backpackers and overseas students, who often work in hospitality, have been returning to the state since Covid, plans by both sides of politics to impose caps on the number of migrants was cause for “grave concern”.

“Capping migration is not the answer,” she said, adding on behalf of the hospitality sector: “It is where we get a lot of our workers.”

Originally published as Hospitality crisis: Business owners say chronic staffing problems are to blame for dire industry outlook