The Chef Crisis : Opinion Piece

Posted on | by admin

It has been widely publicised in the media that the shortage of chefs is approaching crisis point. One thing that we’ve noticed while surveying, is that in many cases this shortage can be traced back to the pay scale for Chef de Parties.

In most cases a Chef de Partie will have completed 2/3 years in College and spent an average of 4/6 years working in kitchens. Yet a large majority of establishments are paying a rate of €12 per hour for CDP. In most cases this is an annual salary, so a Chef working 45 hours a week will take home an hourly rate of pay of just €10.40 per hour.

I last worked as a Chef de Partie 16 years ago. I was on £12 an hour, old money at the time. In the last 16 years the minimum wage has increased several times. There is now, justifiable, a strong movement being led by a large group of chefs. Utilising the power of social media they are pushing for a minimum wage of €15 p/h for Chef de Partie. This in my mind would go a long way towards solving the existing chef shortage.

Shane McLave – June 2016

Ranelagh Hotel given the green light

Posted on | by Aisling Rafferty

An Bord Pleanála have given the go ahead for the development of a boutique hotel in Ranelagh. Paddy McKillen Jr will add the Hotel at 117-119 Ranelagh to his already impressive Press Up Entertainment Group portfolio, which includes The Dean Hotel and Workman’s Club.

Despite several appeals and objections, the five floor, 41 bedroomed Hotel will go ahead. The boutique hotel will also include a 50-seat arthouse basement cinema and roof-top restaurant. It is believe the development will take between 18-24 months to complete creating 80 full and part time jobs once opened.

Source: http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/planning-board-gives-green-light-to-mckillen-hotel-in-dublin-suburb-34780822.html

Amazon Fresh launches in UK

Posted on | by Aisling Rafferty

 

Amazon have launched their Fresh Food and Grocery delivery operation after months of logistics and planning. From today, Amazon Prime members in North and East London can avail of the service from the internet based retailer. In its first expansion outside of the US, Amazon confirmed that they will offer the delivery service to Amazon Prime users in 69 postcodes across London at a cost of £7 per month.

Amazon will be partnering with Morrison’s to provide 130,000 products which will include branded and local produce of fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy and household items, with one hour time frames selectable to ensure users are home. Same day delivery will also be applicable to all orders received before 1pm. Amazon will also deliver goods from around 50 small local specialist stores, including stalls at London’s Borough market, local fishmongers, and high-end chocolatiers.

This is the first location outside of the US where Amazon fresh will be available. Amazon Fresh will offer free deliveries on all orders over £40 and orders below this will incur a £4 charge. Ajay Kavan VP of Amazon Fresh said “We will be very methodical and considered in how we roll this service out further in the UK. “We are launching with a comprehensive offer in a limited area and will take our time to hone and improve our service based on our learnings and feedback from our customers’’.

SWOT analysis and templates

Posted on | by Aisling Rafferty

A SWOT Analysis/Matrix has become a common prerequisite for interviews. A SWOT analysis allows an employer to quickly ascertain the candidates understanding of their business, and the practical changes they could potentially bring.

An acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, a SWOT analysis requires candidates to structure their planning methods, evaluating the business and shedding light on the opportunities and potential threats faced by businesses.

 

Strengths and Weaknesses are internal to the company.

Opportunities and Threats are external.

Strengths

(Internal / Positive Factors / Within Your Control)

Strengths will describe the positive, internal factors of the company that are within your control.

Questions to address

  1. What is done well?
  2. What advantage do you have versus competitors?
  3. What factors add value or pitch the company above the rest?
  4. People power. Are there influencers within the business, setting the pace verse other companies?
  5. Think about location, distribution channels, education, training etc.

Weaknesses

(Internal / Negative Factors / Within Your Control)

These are to address aspects of the business that detract value. They need to be addressed and tackled in order to improve competitiveness, talent retention and to gain competitive advantage.

Questions to address

  1. What areas need improvement?
  2. What does the business lack, relative to competitors?
  3. What factors are within your control to change?
  4. Can you do anything better?
  5. What causes problems or complaints?

Opportunities

(External / Positive Factors)

Here you will identify external, positive factors that will add value to the business and make it prosper.

Questions to address

  1. Local events that can/will add value?
  2. Would you benefit from targeted marketing, social media or promotional techniques?
  3. Factors relating to the market.
  4. Seasonal and trends specific to the business.

Threats

(External / Negative Factors)

Threats will be external factors beyond your control and that could be potential risks to business. While they cannot be controlled, they can be contained in advance and SWOT analysis will identify contingency plans that can be put to action.

  1. What are your competitors doing?
  2. What obstacles face your business?
  3. Are there shifts in consumer behaviour, economy, local/national government etc?
  4. Are there any changes in products, services or technology that may threaten you?

Internal Factors include

Financial resources

Human resources

Physical resources

Any access to natural resources

External Factors include

Market trends, technology and new products

Economic trends, local and national

Demographics

Strengths and Weaknesses tend to be analysis of present factors, while opportunities and threats are in the future

After your SWOT

Once you have completed a SWOT analysis, develop short and long term strategies from it. Use your effort and the results to develop strategies which will envelop and maximise positivity within the business and minimise the negative ones.

  • Split into short and long term.
  • Concentrate on what should be addresses immediately and action this.
  • What needs to be further researched?
  • What needs to be planned further?

The below are templates which you are free to download and edit. We highly recommend concentrating on the quality of the content above all else. From feedback, clients appreciate the personalised touch. Photos of individual stores and the specific brand are encouraged to get you SWOT analysis across.

Download SWOT Analysis templates

Word format

PDF format

Powerpoint format

Tiger To Open 12 New Stores

Posted on | by Aisling Rafferty

 

The much loved high street brand will open 12 new Irish Stores and be re-branded under the moniker ‘Flying Tiger Copenhagen’. The Irish arm of the Tiger brand is operated by Gillian Maxwell and Niall Stringer, with Tiger Retail Ireland currently operating 24 retail stores across Ireland. They plan on opening 12 new Tiger stores by 2017 and will re-brand the group as ‘Flying Tiger Copenhagen’ from next month. The name change will be part of a global re-brand from the Danish parent company.

Tiger employs 250 employees in Ireland and had an annual turnover of €14 million in 2015. All profits are being reinvested within the new store openings. Tiger originated in Ireland as a pop-up store in Dun Laoighaire back in 2011.The Maxwell’s came across the Tiger brand in London and were influential in bringing it to the Irish market. The Irish company is owned 50/50 by the Maxwell’s and Tigers Danish parent.

Ireland’s most popular brands revealed

Posted on | by Aisling Rafferty

 

Avonmore has been revealed as Ireland’s favourite brand. Kantar Worldwide have revealed their annual barometer of consumer brands, which illustrates the most popular brands by Irish consumers. Half of the country’s 50 most popular brands came from traditional local names. The study reported on sales between October 2014 to October 2015 using a metric called ‘consumer reach points’.

Interesting statistics

  • Over 12 months, 75% of Irish households purchased an Avonmore product.
  • Those who did buy Avonmore jobs, did so an average of 27.4 times a year.
  • Avonmore sold 35 million products from supermarkets throughout the course of the year.
  • Four Irish brands are in the top 10.
  • Coca Cola retained first place in worldwide ranking.
  • 25 Irish brands made it into the top 50 brands domestically.

 

Most popular Brands

David Berry, KantarWorldwide Director said that Irish brands “continue to represent a strong contingent in our shopping baskets”.

job search

How To Keep Your Job Search Private

Posted on | by Aisling Rafferty

The below tips come directly from CEO, Barry Whelan. Discussing how you can enjoy peace of mind in your job search, without having a detrimental impact on your current position.

When you’re looking for a job while in a job, the last thing you may want to happen is for your employer to find out you’re on the move. Although most of us would like to let our employer know and be honest, the potential fallout doesn’t make this a realistic option in most cases. This makes looking for a job when in a job more of a discreet art rather than a loud trumpet blast.

Coupled with this, Ireland is a small place where everybody knows everybody and this makes being discreet that bit more challenging. In my many years in recruitment I have had many close calls where a candidate may be going for an interview in a public place only to see someone they know, making them hastily disappear into the shadows. However it is easier to look for a job while in a job, so most people job search from their current position.

When you’re gainfully employed, keep any job search activity confidential. If you decide to stay, you don’t want your employer to second-guess your commitment. Even if you think you’re probably leaving, you want to take your time to explore and leave on your own timetable.

When looking for a job, you’re most likely going to have job interviews to attend, calls to return, emails to reply to and all of this will be during the business day.

Here are some ways to make your search confidential.

Don’t use company equipment

→ Firstly this can be seen as an offence and depending on company policy, misusing company equipment can be an offence warranting discipline.

→ Use your own mobile for calls and always use a personal email address. If you want to apply for roles or search for jobs during your lunch break, bring your personal laptop with you. Your work email may be monitored for breach of policy and routinely scanned. Your best bet is to not do anything on company equipment that you don’t want your company to see.

Be discreet on LinkedIn

LinkedIn is an obvious job seeking resource and you probably have a profile for professional use, but suddenly linking into the world and its mother or following a bunch of recruitment companies all at once, might have your boss becoming suspicious. Check your settings. Depending on these your connections can see whenever you have new activity, like a new connection. If you’re connected to your boss or colleagues in your company, they may notice you connecting to the relevant personnel in all of your competitors. Don’t talk about your job seeking escapades on Facebook. Even if you just use it for personal use, you may have work friends on there or be connected through connections.

Save up your time off

Time off requests to leave the office early, come in late or take a half day or indeed a full day off arouse a flag of suspicion when they come like buses – all at once. Try to arrange interviews outside hours or if requesting a day off for an interview, try to do this on a Friday or Monday where at least it does look like a long weekend. As your job search activity picks up, it will become increasingly more disruptive to your work. Expect this, and plan for it. Stockpile holiday days so you can take the time off.

Dress for an interview everyday

If your office attire is smart casual or your company has a policy of casual Fridays, you will stick out like a sore thumb when arriving in work suited and booted for an interview. You can bring a suit or change of clothes in the back of your car and do a Clarke Kent on the way to an interview but this may not always be feasible. Up your game attire wise. If your office is smart casual wear a suit to work with open collar or for females move from fashionably casual to fashionably professional – the addition of a tie or some professional footwear may be all you need to bring your attire up to interview grade without suspicion or the need for multiple wardrobes. You can gradually start dressing more professionally all the time, thereby calling less attention to yourself when you do dress up for your interviews.

Manage your recruiters

I start in the office at 7am each morning so I can meet and speak with candidates before work. We don’t close at lunch so that we can make and take calls from candidates who cannot speak during office hours and I work late every Wednesday for the same reason. You might be doing all you can to keep your job search confidential but you also have to ensure that everyone who is working with you also keeps this confidence. This means that you instruct recruiters to only contact you on your mobile phone or personal email and you should let them know that your search is confidential and that you can only talk at certain times or indeed by text or just email. Make sure you insist that they don’t forward your information to any clients without your consent – you don’t want them to pitch you to their client who also happens to work closely with your current company.

Manage potential contacts

In addition to recruiters, be careful what you say to suppliers, consultants, or clients of your company. You may have a genuine relationship with them outside of work but if you ask them for professional leads that will take you out of your company, it might be construed as competing with your company or not acting in the company’s best interest. This may run foul of company policy. Or the supplier, consultant or client may be loose-lipped and mention that you’re looking to your boss.

Ireland is a small place and everyone knows everyone, however HR professionals and professional recruiters guarantee discretion and confidentiality. Keep your cards close to your chest, box clever and your job search will remain private and confidential.

What is HACCP

What is HACCP?

Posted on | by admin

If you are interested in getting trained individually or in a group, JobsatExcel offers the most affordable training courses in a central Dublin location. All courses are done by a registered and certified trainer with certificates of completion issued on the day. Contact info@futureprooftraining.ie for more information and to register your interest.

HACCP stands for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point. It is a system that identifies where and when hazards may occur along food production and processing. HACCP puts into place action to take to prevent hazards from happening.

What are the seven principles of HACCP?

1.Identify The Hazards

Look at each step along the production line and food processing to identify potential hazards that may occur. This includes purchasing, delivery, storage, chilling, preparation and cooking and all the possibilities that could occur and go wrong. This include biological, physical and chemical hazards like salmonella and cross contamination.

2. Identify The Critical Control Points

Critical Control Points are regarded as steps or procedures along the process/production that can be applied and as a result a food safety hazard can be prevented, or reduced to an acceptable level. A Food Safety Hazard is any biological, chemical or physical property that may cause food to be unsafe for consumption.

3. Establish Critical limit

Set limits to which allow you to identify when a critical control point is eliminated. This point is the minimum or maximum value in which a physical, biological or chemical hazard can be prevented or made safe to an acceptable level.

4. Establish A System To Monitor Control Of The CCP

Monitoring ensures that processes are under control under each identified CCP. This step ensures that CCP’s and critical limits have been identified, they are monitored and recorded. This will depend on the size and type of business you have/work in.

An example: Probe refrigerated food to ensure that it is being maintained below 5°C.

5. Establish Corrective Action

When monitoring indicates that a particular Critical Control Point is not under control, corrective action must be taken.

6. Establish procedures and verification

Review and correct the system whenever you make changes to your operations.

7. Establish procedures for verifying the HACCP system is working as intended.

A successful HACCP plan will have the verification to prove its effectiveness. Verification procedures will include HACCP plans, CCP records and critical limits. Appropriate documentation and records must be kept and be readily available, with the complexity and length of HACCP records depending on the business.

What Is A Critical Limit?

A Critical Limit is a maximum or minimum value to which a biological, chemical or physical parameter must be controlled at CCP, to prevent, eliminate or reduce to an acceptable level.

New Restaurant to open in Cineworld Dublin

Posted on | by Aisling Rafferty

Wings International, a UK all you can eat style buffet will open a new 250 seater restaurant on in Dublin. Cineworld Dublin which is located on Parnell Street is Ireland’s largest Cinema complex, housing 17 screens across 4 floors. Wings, it is believed, will open in the basement of the premise across 1,300 sq. m of vacant space

The space which has been vacant for years would be Wings first entrance into the Irish market. Wings specialises in World cuisine with over 150 dishes prepared daily. The cinema experiences massive footfall and is believed to be the fifth busiest cinema in the UK & Ireland.

Full story here.

Retail Recruitment Experts

Grocery Retail Recruitment Experts in Dublin City Centre

Posted on | by Aisling Rafferty

Excel Recruitment MD, Barry Whelan and Head of Grocery Retail Recruitment Nikki Murran answered some questions for a March feature in Shelflife Magazine. Here they discussed how Recruitment Agencies can help you and absolve all hardship when it come to a new hire. Statistics from the most recent Retail Sector Survey show the sector has the propensity to be worth €46 billion by 2020. Currently, our industry employs 270,000 people nationwide, with the potential to grow to 310,000 by 2020.

Recruitment the right way

Any business, no matter what sector it operates in, is only as good as its people – and retail is absolutely no different in this respect. But what do you do when you need to fill a position fast and already have a million and one back-office tasks to complete on your to-do list? Time to outsource your dilemma to the professionals, writes Orla Keeling

During the recession, Ireland’s retail value dropped dramatically. Even with the recovery and the growth in the economy since the crash, 2015 figures showed that the total value of Irish retail sales remained at 14% below the peak levels. Retail employment is dependent on economic growth and an increase in consumer spending.

Over the years, retail employment figures have declined by over 45,000. Despite this, the downturn didn’t affect the retail sector dramatically as it remained as Ireland’s largest industry and largest employer at that time (Source: Retail Ireland – ‘Retail in depth’).

Unfortunately the cost of doing business has escalated.  Rent, insurance, utilities and local services have increased. This increased costs for retail businesses without the necessary profits and growth in consumer spending. The result was that this added significant pressure to retailers.

But recent figures show the consumer economy is growing again. Ireland’s inflation rate is now steady at 0.1%* (as of January 2016). This is a huge benefit to the industry, and more retail opportunities are expected in the near future. However this adds even more pressure to retailers to compete within the marketplace *(Source: Trading Economics).

With the rise in the consumer economy and spending, retailers are once again recruiting. The recruitment process can be very stressful and take up a huge amount of the retailer’s time. The time they spend on increasing store profit margins and customer service is shortened and their priorities have shifted to recruitment. But there is an easy solution: recruitment agencies.

What do recruitment agencies do and how does it help the retailers?

Recruitment agencies put the retail organisations in control of their recruitment aims and connect them with the right candidates without the hassle and stress of the recruitment process.

A recruitment agency will take care of everything. This includes services such as advertising, checking CVs and conducting the initial interviews.

The agencies research the organisations and find out who and what works best for them. Knowing what works best for the retailers and how their business is run, gives the recruitment agency the knowledge of the necessary personality and skills for the ideal employee. This is also used to maximise the potential of future employees.

Pressure and stress on retailers is reduced, as the best CVs land on their desks without all of the stress, and having to deal with the recruitment process and its tasks. (Source: Excel Recruitment).

Maximising retailers’ energy and time while reducing stress, is of huge benefit to the organisations. But this is just one of the many benefits of the service. Retailers can focus on their stores and improving their profits as the economy improves, instead of slowing productivity and increasing stress levels through recruiting employees.

Only certain recruitment agencies specialise in retail. Many large retailers, as well as smaller independents and symbol group retailers avail of their services.

On average, a retail enterprise in Dublin employs 13 people. This figure is significantly lower in other areas in the country as the midlands employs on average, four to five people, the west employs five and the south-west employs six (Source: Retail Ireland – Strategy for Retail 2014-2016).

Employment potential in Ireland’s retail sector

Retail Ireland’s Strategy for Retail 2014-2016 states: “On the basis of annual growth in retail sales of 3-4% until 2020, the Irish retail sector has the potential to reach €46 billion in value terms. Such growth would lead to total employment in the retail sector of over 310,000 people – an increase of almost 40,000 on the current number.”
This potential growth in both employment and value terms is a huge opportunity for not only the Irish economy but also for recruitment agencies. With the rise in employment numbers in retail, more and more retailers will turn to these companies and avail of their recruitment services.

Q & A with…

Barry Whelan and Nikki Murran, Excel Recruitment

From the employer’s perspective, how do you ensure that you find the best candidate(s) to fulfil a particular role?

Excel Recruitment is ‘the retail recruitment company’. Our team of consultants all come from strong retail careers. We believe that the ability to find great people for our clients comes from our knowledge of the market, the people in it, the businesses we recruit for and fundamentally the ability to understand each role and each client intimately. We are 13 years in business recruiting for retail in Ireland. We’re fortunate enough to recruit for some of the best Irish and International retailers in the world, operating here in Ireland, from large corporations to wonderful independents. We have a database of over 50,000 candidates. This represents a fifth of the entire retail employment market in Ireland. We have built up this database over 13 years and live on it.

Why should a candidate enlist your services to help find a new role?

Recruitment consultancy is a complex process and as past retailers, we realise that both our clients and candidates are our company’s customers. We need to find the best candidates in the market. We need to understand their ‘reason for leaving’ their current employer or find them the right role if they are job seeking, matching them with the best position and company possible. In order to do this firstly we need to be the expert.

Expertise

Our policy of hiring only retailers and training them rigorously in recruitment means we know retail. We know the businesses our candidates are coming from, the companies they work for, along with the businesses they want to work for.

We offer candidates a broad overview of the industry and a variety of options for their careers. We find candidates come to us daily for guidance with their options.

Placing a candidate is not just a sale to us. We understand that moving jobs and job seeking can be very stressful. A period of unhappiness in work or unemployment can be a very difficult time in a person’s life and we understand that your job is one of the most important things in your life.

What, in your opinion, makes the expertise of your team stand out from rivals?

What sets us apart from other recruitment companies is our in-depth knowledge of the retail industry. Not only does founder and MD, Barry Whelan, have extensive experience in retail management, having started his career with the Shopping Basket convenience store chain and worked for Quinnsworth and Dunnes Stores as a manager, but combined, our team has over 50 years’ experience in retail with each of our consultants having worked for a variety of retailers.

Recruitment, like retail, is a people business. To have the best employees, you need to recruit the best people. We use state of the art behaviour profiling from TTI Success Insights coupled with SHL Aptitude testing for verbal reasoning.

We invest in our people. Our training is unique and represents best practice in the market. It ensures trainees are trained fully and consistently. As trainees qualify from the company training programme, we invest in external training. This investment means staff feel (and are) valued. They are part of the strategic plan for Excel’s future.

All our recruiters are past retailers. (They would never call themselves ex-retailers as they really believe it’s something that’s in your blood). However not all of our recruiters have worked with all of our clients. We regularly send consultants out to our clients for top-up, hands on, retail training. This ensures our team have an in-depth understanding of all of the clients we work with and are up-to-date on all the new changes, policies, and trends in the retail world.

Consistency ensures success and only professional processes ensure consistency. We have invested heavily in processes in our business. This has culminated in our 30-page recruitment consultant’s manual entitled ‘Excel: 40 steps to recruiting’. This manual gives our consultants the knowledge when working, to keep a professional process in place for every step of the recruitment process.

Testimonials

Client

“I have three different Centra stores with many different challenges facing my team. With the help of Barry and his team in Excel, throughout the years I have chosen the right candidates to suit my needs. Excel brings me high calibre candidates capable of doing the job. Barry and his team understand my expectations and they deliver every time. Selecting the right people for the job is crucial in getting your business right. I wouldn’t use anyone else for selecting my team.” Breda Cahill – Owner, Cahill’s Centra

“I have dealt with Excel Recruitment for a number of years and time after time they always come up with the exact person I am looking for. When you speak to Barry and the Excel team, they listen to every word that you say. The overall service I have received from Excel is the best yet.” Edmund Dick – Owner, Dick’s SuperValu

Candidate

“Barry found me a job with Steven Nally’s SuperValu Group. I’m grateful for the fact that Barry thought of me for the role and put me forward for it. I am really enjoying the job and I am looking forward to the future; I really feel it’s been a great move for me.’’ Michael Hickey – Bakery area manager, Nally’s SuperValu Group

Read more: https://www.shelflife.ie/recruitment-the-right-way/#ixzz8YDDekAz6