brioHR Sector Study: Food and Beverage
Key Takeaways
- The F&B industry faces unique HR challenges due to high employee turnover, seasonal hiring, and mixed workforce arrangements.
- Managing payroll for full time, part time, and temporary workers can become time consuming and error prone without automation.
- Employee retention has become a growing priority as many F&B businesses struggle to replace workers after the pandemic.
- Workforce data and staff analytics help F&B businesses make better decisions around hiring, performance, and employee management.
- HR software like BrioHR helps F&B businesses streamline payroll, onboarding, and employee management so teams can focus on delivering great customer experiences.
The food and beverage industry is one of the key economic linchpins in Southeast Asia. Across urban centres from Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Bangkok, and beyond, the F&B sector employed more than 1.2 million people in Malaysia alone in 2021.
In terms of HR, the F&B industry is also one of the most diverse sectors. From independent cafés with only two employees, to national chains with hundreds of employees, each employer has their own unique set of HR needs. Nevertheless, this sector faces a number of common challenges.
Here, we detail some of the challenges facing the industry and how to overcome them.
HR Challenges in the Food and Beverage Sector
Payroll
Due to its seasonal nature, the F&B industry hires a mixed workforce of full-time employees, part-time employees, and temporary workers. Consequently, their payroll cycles also differ. Full-time employees are normally paid a monthly salary, whereas part-time employees might be paid by the hour, day, or week.
Furthermore, working overtime and on public holidays need to be factored in as well. Calculating all this plus the required statutory deductions can become tedious and prone to errors.
Recruitment and Retention of Staff
The F&B sector has one of the highest turnover rates – an average churn of around 75% (compared to 46% across the private sector). Many F&B employees are also young and inexperienced, contributing to the overall churn.
Most F&B owners accept the churn as part of doing business. However, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many outlets are struggling to find workers that have either resigned or left the sector altogether. Thus, managers are now focusing on retaining existing workers rather than letting them leave.
“Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first.”
Staff Analytics
Even in other sectors, it can be hard to get data on the company’s workforce. This is doubly so for the F&B sector, which already struggles with the amount of turnover to get a sense of the workforce.
Having data on the employees is crucial for making workforce-related decisions, such as hiring, pay raises, and other HR-related initiatives. Furthermore, basic employee data like name, IC number, and address are often stored on paper, making search a tedious, manual process.
How BrioHR Helps F&B Business Owners
F&B owners are in the industry due to their passion for good food and customer service. As a result, HR and employee management is often treated as a distraction. Fortunately, adopting HR software is one of the simplest and most affordable options for small businesses.
With HR software, F&B businesses can take most of the manual, tedious work out of HR. For example, bakery Halo Doughnuts uses BrioHR to automate their payroll after founders Khristabelle and Raphael found Excel payroll calculations to be messy, tedious, and error-prone.
Read More: #BrioEmpowers Halo Doughnuts: Taking the Guesswork Out of HR
Set new hires up for success from day one
Turn onboarding into a clear, structured process that works for HR, managers, and new hires.
In addition, there are also F&B business owners that focus on empowering their staff. Restauranteur Marcus Low, who runs acclaimed restaurant Table & Apron believes greatly in putting people first, in line with his ethos that having a good team means having happy customers.
To ensure the team runs smoothly, Table & Apron uses BrioHR’s onboarding module to ensure employees are aligned with the restaurant’s vision. This way, despite the churn, the team is seamless in making guests feel that Table & Apron is a place worth coming back to.
Read More: #BrioEmpowers Table & Apron: Playing the F&B Team Sport
With a secure, scalable, user-friendly platform, BrioHR covers the entire employee journey from recruitment to onboarding, payroll and claims, to performance and analytics, and more.
This enables business owners and HR teams to truly focus on what matters most – people.
Visit briohr.com and get a free demo now.
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Conclusion
- The F&B industry depends on efficient workforce management to keep operations running smoothly and deliver consistent customer experiences.
- Challenges such as payroll complexity, high employee turnover, and limited workforce visibility can impact business growth if left unmanaged.
- Investing in the right HR processes and tools helps F&B businesses reduce manual work, improve accuracy, and strengthen employee engagement.
- BrioHR enables F&B business owners to simplify HR operations through automated payroll, onboarding, employee management, and workforce analytics.
- By streamlining HR tasks, F&B teams can spend more time focusing on people, service quality, and growing their business with confidence.
To learn more about how brioHR can transform your HR processes, check out BrioHR’s website or request a demo.