As we approach the Christmas season, catering and hospitality temporary work employees will start to cast their minds to their working schedule over peak season. Are you prepared to dedicate your time to the company you are currently with or are there signs that you would like to spend peak with a different organisation?
From flexible work patterns to thinking about the future of your career, hospitality temporary work can offer you many benefits, and that’s why I get an increase in candidates applying for hospitality temporary work at this time of year.
Whether you are currently employed in a temporary position or not, and would like to take advantage of this type of work over the Christmas period, this article should help you to understand how to benefit from temporary hospitality work over the coming months.
First, let me go through what you can expect from working with a hospitality recruiter this festive season.
What to Expect
First of all, your hospitality recruiter will work with you to plan what kind of work you are qualified for – do you have waitress experience, but you are looking for a front of house position? Or maybe you’re a chef de partie looking to build your skills repertoire for a career move next year?
Next, you need to agree on how many hours and what kind of working patterns you are looking to take on, then they can start arranging interviews.
After a successful interview, your hospitality recruiter will communicate your temporary job details, including your start and end date, so you will know precisely what is expected of you and for how long.
Working with a recruiter who has an excellent reputation and gets to know their candidates will ensure that they find you the perfect temp role.
If you’re unsure as to just how much temp hospitality work can benefit you this Christmas, let me explain.
Extra Hours
Taking on temporary employment in the hospitality sector is a great way to earn some welcome additional income for the festive period.
If you are currently in part-time employment, and this works fine for you throughout the rest of the year, but you want to increase your earning potential to help pay for gifts and other expenses that always seem to build up this time of year – taking on a temporary contract is a great option.
It’s the one time of the year that businesses are calling out for staff, and there are plenty of different opportunities for you to experience a hospitality role you might never have considered before, depending on what you want to do; I’ll talk a little more about this later on.
Flexibility
Temp work at Christmas great when you need flexible working hours to fit around your lifestyle or any other part-time job you already have. Setting out your working hours in your agreement with your hospitality recruiter will enable you to be in control of when you can work – it will be written into your temp contract.
Hospitality hours, while they might generally be seen as> ‘unsociable’ – this can work in your favour over the Christmas season.
You can choose to work in the evenings if you have errands or children to look after during the day – you can take on extra work at almost any time of the day, from morning breakfast shifts to night-time closes. Whether you are in the kitchen or front of house, the flexibility and choice of hours that hospitality offers mean you get to decide when you do and don’t work.
Broaden Your Experience
As I mentioned earlier, Christmas is the season to broaden your hospitality experience.
From festive pop-up restaurants and street-food catering (Xmas markets, anyone!?) to an increased demand for kitchen staff for Christmas parties and fine-dining events which take place more at this time of year – there is so much choice out there for temp workers looking to try something new.
Those who love working in hospitality tend to enjoy the exciting and shifting nature of the work; many hospitality employees tell me that they ‘fell’ into their career, that it was only meant to be for a few months and now it’s been several years!
This peak season, broaden your experience by trying a new type of part-time or temporary hospitality work you’ve always been attracted to – you never know where it might lead. And this brings me on to my final point.
A New Career Direction?
People often associate temp work in hospitality with the kind I have outlined here – temp kitchen or front of house contracts that are only meant to run for a fixed amount of time.
But, if you’ve been in the same role for a while and have been thinking about trying a new avenue in your chef or hospitality career – this could be the time to branch out.
Changing jobs can be an uncertain time, but if your current workplace is making you stressed, unhappy, or if you have simply outgrown your role – you can use temp work as a stepping stone to ‘break out’.
Ask your hospitality recruiter about the following –
- Temp-to-perm contracts – your recruiter will be able to put you in contact with organisations who are offering ‘temp’ contracts that will become full-time for suitable candidates.
- Discuss with them your career goals for the year; if they have a temp contract ending just after Christmas, but they have another role you are interested in starting in January, you could work with them to interview for both of these roles.
- A lot of hospitality staff temp in seasonal roles – there is a natural flux in different hospitality needs in different seasons. You can
If you would like to speak to one of our consultants about our upcoming temporary roles for the Christmas season, get in touch with us today.
About KSB
We are expert recruiters in the catering and hospitality industry, with over 28 years in business placing the best candidates in their perfect roles with obsessive attention to detail.
KSB is proud to be a Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC) member, accredited investors in people, and both Data Protection and Home Office Compliance registered.
We specialise in roles in Birmingham, Staffordshire, the West Midlands, Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, Worcestershire and Northamptonshire.
Thanks
Dawn
