I have now been a part of Chefs In Scotland for nearly 14 months. During that time my main title has been Recruitment Consultant and I usually deal with either permanent or seasonal vacancies. However during times of holidays and days off I also do some relief chef recruitment, a little bit of accounts and some admin work. The good thing about working in this office is that everyone is able to do everything.
While I have been here I have learnt a lot about chef recruitment. As a former chef myself who has used Chefs In Scotland before it is interesting to see it from the other side of the desk. I’m glad that I have found a job which keeps me in touch with the industry which I enjoyed so much and do miss. I always used to enjoy the camaraderie in the kitchen and the fun you would have with your kitchen family who you would generally see more often than your real one.
Up until today I have placed 53 chefs all over Scotland and a couple in the north of England. This includes some places that I have worked in and it is those ones that can be most difficult when it doesn’t work out. I have learnt that I am unable to make the chef look any better but to present all of the information to the establishment to let them make the decision. It is still very difficult when placements don’t work but I think sometimes this can be industry-related or it can just be down to the individual.
At Chefs In Scotland although we are quite a small office we do have a team of people that work quite closely to get the job done, whatever it may be. So in that way you could say we are similar to a kitchen team as we all have the same goal in mind- to get chefs placed. Whether that is permanent, temporary or seasonal.
Availability of Chefs in Scotland 11th July
Post Brexit, a little like the exchange rate between the pound and the Euro and the Dollar and a fluctuating stock market, the availability of chefs is a little out of kilter with what we would expect for this time of year, ie the middle of the summer season.
There are candidates in central Scotland if paying good money in excess of £28,000 and upwards for head chef jobs.
In rural Scotland including Inverness and all the highlands and islands, there are not many head chefs and we advise offering accommodation with permanent or seasonal head chef jobs to attract candidates. Otherwise you may have to wait some time until a relevant local candidate becomes available.
In rural Scotland and particularly for 2AA Rosette country house hotels relevant candidates are scarce. Skye, Shetland Islands and rural Argyll, it is proving hard to get relevant candidates despite the payment of good money. (about £35,000 for 2AA Rosette head chef) .
Suggest paying £28,000 upwards to £40,000 according to requirements and demands of the job. Ideally we advise for a five day week and over-time paid on a pro rata basis for extra days worked and for hours in excess of 48 on a pro rata basis.
For seasonal head chef jobs suggest £120 per day or £600 per week with end of season bonus for completion.
Aberdeenshire, Dundee and East coast, there are a few Head Chefs registered.
Inverness and the highlands of Scotland mainland pay good money with good accommodation and you will get some decent candidates unless you are 2AA Rosette or 3AA Rosette in which case it may be a bit tight.
Head Chefs are being put off jobs that offer set wage for 5 or 6 days per week and prefer to work 5 day weeks or if six paid by the day.
In rural Scotland we are advising offering live in also, ideally at no charge to the chef.
The more central, the more candidates you will expect to get and the more rural, the harder it can get.
With all the social media currently available, many chefs are becoming very savvy about where they wish to work and establishments with records of poor chef retention may find it harder to attract good quality permanent candidates. Scotland is quite a small country.
Sous chefs
If it is a live in position for 4 star hotel suggest paying £24,000 to £30,000.
In central areas such as Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth and Stirling can try live-out and there are a few relevant chefs. In rural Scotland, it is particularly hard to get candidates at this time of the year.
2AA Rosettes and are quite scarce. Suggest wages of £26,000 - £28,000 upwards to £30,000 for 3AA Rosette sous chef.
A good way to attract candidates is to pay hourly rates for every hour worked by chefs.For sous chefs suggest £11 to £14 per hour this will help to attract and retain good candidates.
If paying salaried, we suggest five day week with overtime pro rata over 48 hours.
Chef de parties
Availability currently ok in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perthshire and central belt. Quality is mixed. In rural Scotland with accommodation there are a few candidates if wages are decent, suggest £8.50 to £12 per hour.
There are some chefs looking for live in accommodation and may be happy to relocate and again are of varying quality.
If paying by salary suggest £19,000 for a 45 hour week works out £8.11 an hour which is on the low side. Suggest paying up to £22,000 or hourly rate £8.50 - £12 per hour with live in accommodation at a small charge. We would hope you will get decent candidates with this.
Commis chefs
A few bodies available including students coming out of college. Enclosed link to minimum wages.
www.minimum-wage.co.uk/
Pastry a few available happy to have a look
For perm we can look if pay “fee of interest” or advertise
Availability of Relief Chefs change daily and we can advise.
s.$Si|P�s�h�g��y �We are now in the middle of the season and the Scottish weather is upon us. Lots of events coming up including Moffat Gala week next week and lots of sporting events such as Wimbledon, Euro 2016 and lots of festivals and fetes. The Moffat Gala begins this Friday with gala dominoes at the local social club (PI) On Saturday there is a foreign object competition with random items in shop windows over Moffat. There is also a quiz in the PI on Saturday night.
5-a side football on Sunday morning and an Observation trail in the evening with clues dotted all over Moffat.
Throughout the week there are various different sporting events such as bowling, darts and tennis competitions for children and for adults.
There is also a 15KM run on Tuesday night for adults and shorter routes for the children.
There is a Zoo lab for children which has exotic animals.
Bingo for adults and games and clowns for children.
There is a fun of the fair on Thursday evening with street food, game stalls and a coconut shy.
Fishing competition on a Friday.
On Friday evening there is the installation of the Moffat shepherd and lass of 2016 which our very own Johanna Watson held the title in 2003. There is also the ball on the Friday night which is THE event of the gala and tickets are scarce.
Saturday is gala day starting off with children’s fancy dress followed by gala floats and crowning of the queen with a parade round the town. Sports in the field with various stalls. From then it is a torch light procession to the bonfire and disco at the green frog.
Years ago the torches used to come from four different directions but now they just meet in the high street.
This is quite a big event in Moffat and a lot of people spend a lot of time all year round organising for the gala to make a fun-filled event for all in Moffat.
Do any of your local towns have gala weeks and what do you do?
Tuesday 28th June
This has been an interesting week and the dust is almost settling after the volcanic like eruption last Friday morning when the majority of voters voted to leave the European Union. For simplistic reasons, I voted in the 2014 referendum for Scotland to leave the UK and in this referendum I voted for the UK to leave the EU. Less bureaucrats is my reason, nothing else.
I do not now want Scotland to remain alone in a crumbling European Union. Oil is likely to remain cheap and I think that we are better off hanging in with the rest of the UK for now.
Certainly, in the world of Scottish Hospitality, we need all the help we can get. Latvians, French, Polish, Spanish, and further afield we have many excellent Indian and Kenyan chefs working in Scotland such as Saurav Kumar who we first dealt with when he was head chef at The Golf View in Nairn. I think that Saurav has enjoyed seeing the relief work from the other side working well in Inverness at The Beaufort, The Royal Hotel in Keith and latterly at The Grant Arms in Grantown on Spey. I have had a look and Johanna and Jessica in the office have given you a grading on 1. This is our highest grading for those on relief work and it will remain intact. We wish you all the best at as you take on a new head chef position at the Eden Court Theatre in Inverness where Michael Njoroge and before him Vytis Baltrunas both did excellent jobs.
We are lucky to have so many chefs who were not born in the UK but contribute in so many ways to the Scottish Hospitality Industry.
There is a shortage of people either willing or able to work as chefs in Scotland.
The industry really could do more to attract people and to retain them.
This was brought home to me when I put a couple of adverts on gumtree and on our Facebook page for labourers to work on a mussel farm in Harris in the Outer Hebrides. I got about 8 applicants within a week, at least 3 or 4 of who could have done a decent job.
Trying to find a chef to work for a few months at a hotel in Harris was hard work and wrought with failure. First off one chef accepted the seasonal job then was offered a full-time job at a Michelin Star hotel on Skye which he took, next up we managed to get a relief chef when we were not taking on any jobs. Coming up from Sunderland with his partner, he decided it was too far and cancelled.
Ouch.
Next up, a chef actually made it there, first time out of the paddock, we have a good reference but it turned out the chef wasn’t “quite up to the job”.
Fourth time out, we have a chef who started yesterday and I am hopeful, he is a good chef well known to us.
It is demonstrably harder to get good chefs than it is to get decent graduates or general labourers.
I fully expect work in Scotland to carry on as before for all the seasonal, permanent and relief chefs. Down the line, the UK may end up having a skills based immigration policy to suit the demands of the economy and I would expect it then to be reasonably straightforward for chefs from all EU countries to come and work here and hopefully a bit easier for those from India in particular.
I would like to think that Hoteliers and Restaurateurs will continue to try and have better terms of employment and working conditions to encourage young people to come into and stay in what can be a very enjoyable and rewarding industry in which to work.
Pensions.
I set up a pension for myself last year, a SIPP, which I have invested in some shares on the stock exchange which is fun! They go up; they go down, buy and sell.
As of November this year, Chefs In Scotland is obliged to go through auto-enrollment whereby any employees of Chefs In Scotland will have to make a contribution to a pension scheme, initially 1% for the employer, and 2% for the employee going up over two years to 5% for the employee and 3% for the employer. These are substantial amounts of money and seem to be, in my opinion, the result of successive Labour and Conservative governments making a hash of their sums, spending more money on pensions than they were getting in through tax, NI and other contributions and ignoring the demographics of the UK’s ageing population. Chefs In Scotland will be able to deal with the new pension schemes and we are having a meeting on Thursday to decide what pension scheme we want to join.
The implications for PAYE relief chefs are more complex.
We will have to make a decision on whether we will employ relief chefs or see if the Inland Revenue are still adamant that all relief chef work is PAYE.
These are interesting times in which we live.
This week in Moffat the weather has left a little bit to be desired as we have had mostly rain early on in the weekend and cloudy skies as we enter the latter end of the week.
We have been very busy in the office getting 13 relief jobs out, 24 adverts placed as well as 4 permanent placements.
About 4 months ago we decided to change the way we work in the office. We have opened longer on a Saturday and as usual we take it in turns to open up the office that day. Because of this, if we do work a Saturday we finish up at 3pm on one day through the week and we also get the following Friday off. This means that 1 Friday in 3 we get a long weekend.
Not only does this make the office a better place to work and gives a nicer atmosphere we have found that productivity has actually gone up as we have beat many of our targets in Chefs In Scotland history such as 75 hits in one week a couple of weeks ago and 40 adverts in a week one month ago.
Do you think there is anyway this could be implemented in the hospitality industry and how would it be done?
Jessica
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