SCOTTISH hospitality group Signature is celebrating the first full year of a number of staff training development programmes it introduced to help support and retain its team members.
In the wake of the pandemic the company launched initiatives including a junior management programme, senior management programme, junior chef development and senior chef development course.
Twenty seven staff members have just graduated from the junior management programme, with a dozen of the company’s chefs graduating from the senior chef development programme last week.
Signature director Louise Maclean told SLTN that staff retention is a major focus for the business.
“It’s all about empowering people, saying ‘we will develop you. This is not your final jump with Signature. We will develop you however you need it’,” she said.
In addition to the training programmes, the company puts all staff through an in-depth, three-month induction process, the group’s general managers each receive eight paid hours a week to pursue their own entrepreneurial interests and all recruits are paid at least the 23 year-old National Minimum Wage rate, regardless of their age. This is supplemented in many of the company’s venues by a 10% service charge.
Signature also has an ‘over 45 hours report’, where any staff who have worked more than 45 hours in a week are required to take time off in lieu.
The company now employs 700 staff across its estate.
Maclean said changing perceptions of the industry will be key for the sector moving forward.
“Gone are the days when you’re worked to the bone,” she said.
“We just don’t behave like that anymore.
“We are all about the work-life balance. Which is so easy to say, but I was looking at the 45 hour report today and, of 700 staff, we’ve only got 10 people on it for the month of June. And they will all be told to take time back.”
The company will start the next batch of development programmes soon.
