Why the waitress could be your best hire

Our Community Advocate Sonia reflects on her hospitality experiences and highlights the overlooked skills and people in the industry.

‘Low skilled’ jobs are still very overlooked and undervalued - we might have clapped for them for weeks on end - but we, not only as employers but as a society, continue to cast aside those with retail, hospitality and caring experiences. Having worked 5 years in a hospitality environment - as a bar back, waitress, cleaner, supervisor and kitchen staff - I wanted to cast some light on learnings from ‘low-skilled’ roles through a young, female and immigrant lens.

Small businesses allow personality and values to shine

I’ve worked for some fantastic small hospitality businesses. This massively opened my eyes to the amount of love and sacrifice that is put into the creation, maintenance, and success of a small business. The women I’ve worked for have poured their souls into their seed of an idea, and seeing their journey and successes has embedded an understanding and appreciation of what businesses go through on the daily. These experiences are precisely what made me interested in Collaborative Future’s pilot that I took part in in 2019, and its opportunity of collaborating with one-person-band small businesses.

Flat hierarchies let every worker be seen

A flat hierarchy is something we adopt at Collaborative Future, but my first experience of a non-hierarchical workplace was actually at a restaurant where everyone - the least and most experienced waitress - chef and pot wash - were paid the same. At first, this completely baffled me, especially coming from an Eastern European country where age and experience in the workplace are so tightly tied to one’s income. But thinking of the first bar backing job I was in, the amount of physical labour it required, and how much of a diminishing role it was from the way customers and team treated me, I understood it. The real value of flat hierarchies lies in appreciating the skill and resilience it takes to stay calm and composed when others don’t see worth in your continuous efforts.

‘Low skilled’ jobs do not mean low skilled people

Through my hospitality roles I have met actors, musicians, architects, illustrators and filmmakers - some young and aspiring, squirreling income and waiting for their big gig, and some in their 40s and 50s, often immigrants with jaw-dropping qualifications which only mean something in their home country, and a low confidence in their language to be able to understand and fit into the carefully chiseled culture fits and jargon so many workplaces have created. The lack of acknowledgment and appreciation for the employment experiences gained in an immigrants home country is just one of many aspects of the current world of work that continue to not only limit opportunities of an entire highly experienced and talented workforce, but also stifle the growth of the hiring organisation or business who would have massively benefitted from having these perspectives in the room.

Recognizing the variety of skills

A shift, similar to a project, in its perfect form, is “a very well-orchestrated play” as my boss once shared with me, and ‘low-paid’ roles actually require incredible levels of organisation, communication, problem-solving skills and emotional intelligence while under pressure and continuous change. On every shift, as a waitress I would be; setting the scene and ensuring I’m creating an environment that is welcoming and accessible, ensuring attention to detail from the alignment of items on the table to the lighting to the subtle smells, building relationships with customers through reading body language and anticipating their need and comfort level, storytelling and championing the values of the restaurant by sharing the origins of the people, the place and the recipes. All of these skills easily translate into the needs of other roles and industries, but many employers sadly do not see this and discard talent at the CV ‘sifting’ stage.

A space to build a strong and caring team

With each customer walking in, being an individual with their own tastes and quirks, there are always curveballs to handle on regular basis. “Getting through a bonkers-hectic shift can be a bonding experience..” shares Jacquie - a friend and fellow creative working in hospitality - about the sense of camaraderie that can be built within a team, which I definitely agree with having built strong friendships from my own experiences. Interestingly, the workplaces I’ve been in created by women are where I’ve felt most valued, which might have something to do with sharing and showing love in the workplace - a topic which Tess’s blog series delves into in-depth.

Underemployment can be incredibly stifling

The dominant rhetoric around ‘low-skilled jobs’ is that it often goes hand in hand with ‘lazy’, ‘boring’ or a ‘dead-end job’, but an important element to highlight is that people in these jobs are just TIRED. Even the most motivated minds have a body that needs time to recover and replenish. The exhaustion experienced working in such jobs was described well by our young creative alumni in their blogpost: “..every day I felt a bit more of my soul leaving my body with pieces of it stuck to white businessmen’s credit cards and wallets. I was so drained by working there that I wasn't inspired by my paid creative opportunities and I couldn't muster the energy to make any artwork.” Unfortunately, the low pay and long hour nature of these roles means that not many get the chance to re-energize, making the cycle of exhaustion go on.

Perks and downfalls of a zero-hour contract

So many depend on “low-skilled” work to top up their other low-paid work, especially as agency and zero-hour contracts are a norm in these roles. I have seen and experienced how stressful and disruptive the lack of structure this gives; people having to wait by the phone for a call about an available shift and still not knowing what the monthly paycheck will add up to. The majority of out-of-education people I have worked with have juggled at least 2 or 3 jobs at any given time, just as I and my family have, just to make ends meet. But, on the other side, the reliability of the sector and flexibility of the zero-hour contract means that it does provide a lifeline for others, particularly freelancers. “Like many freelance creatives, I found a waitressing job in order to support myself through the lean times. Freelance commissions and payments are so up-and-down, unlike bills which come in pretty consistently” says Jacquie.

Hospitality is a valid career path

Although my experiences within hospitality were a gateway to other opportunities, and a way to pay my rent and bills, it’s really important to highlight that hospitality is a valid choice of career - it is vital work that keeps the rest of society nourished and perhaps if it was more valued by society more people that enjoyed this work would pursue it. After all, small business owners often start their journey from the ‘bottom’ and work their way up through learning on the job and experiencing all the aspects of the business - from pot washing, to waitressing, to cleaning, to managing, to chef-ing, to doing admin and accounts.

So, the next time someone applies for your project management or graphic designer role and you go to discard their CV because it is full of “irrelevant” waitressing experience, take a moment to think about the broad communication, problem-solving, creative skills and resilience that these people likely possess. This skill, strength and lived experience focussed approach is one Collaborative Future takes as part of the recruitment processes for our own team, our work placement programmes, and our recruitment consultancy support. If you’d like to implement this in your hiring practice to find the best person to enrich your organisation (and not just someone who is good at interviews) you can find out more here, and get in touch. And don’t forget to tip the waiting staff next time you’re out!