We recently read a great article on The Caterer website, written by Peter Ducker, Chief Executive at the Institute of Hospitality. The article details the importance of businesses ‘working smarter, not harder’.

Mr Ducker tells us that, “based on output per worker, a new People 1st report has revealed our hospitality and tourism sector contributes 53% less than retail and 58% less than manufacturing.” These statistics make very interesting reading and should immediately make caterers turn around and ask, what can we do to turn around these pretty worrying statistics?

Those that are bucking this trend and increasing their productivity are investing in staff training and development, which increases their staff retention and increases the productivity of those staff members. By looking after their employees, businesses are seeing a better return on their investment.

Basic business, perhaps, but Mr Ducker warns that, “simply boosting the supply of skills alone will not necessarily improve productivity. Training needs to be accompanied by investment in innovation, rethinking the ways in which services are designed, work is organised, staff are rostered, technology is used and skills are deployed”.

Working smarter therefore means not only empowering those employees conducting the work through training, but investing in systems allows those workers to complete their tasks more effectively and more efficiently. Hard work is one thing, but removing the difficulty behind the work is a sure fire way of increasing that all-important productivity.

Caterers are embracing these systems and Spoonfed is happy to provide; retail multiples, restaurant chains, contract caterers, independents, universities and colleges a niche solution that makes it effortlessly simple for them to manage delivery of meeting room food to offices. All the necessary threads; confirmation emails, info rich production notes, detailed driver delivery schedules, professional invoicing, all automated. If that’s not simplification, what is?

Time to get Spoonfed.

To read the full article on The Caterer website, click here.