26 Degrees in the Shade . . .

How Do I Find Staff For My Bar In Spain . . . ?

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Finding Quality Bar Staff

I get asked the question, “How do I find staff for my bar in Spain”regularly and I think it best to divide the people who ask this question into two distinct groups and then answer according to their differing needs:

1. Families who want to buy a bar in Spain
2. Couples with no children who want to buy a bar in Spain

Families Wanting To Run a Bar In Spain

If you are a family comprising, say a husband and wife and two children old enough to work or similar, you would be able to run a bar with very little need to employ anybody else.

The exception is in July and August when trade could be as much as double that of the other months, so you will need extra help.

July and August

In July and August, you might want to pay a cleaner, so that you can have a bit more time in bed every morning. Apart from a good cleaner who will leave your bar and kitchen spotless and shining ready for you to start your day, you might if your bar was a really busy one, want to employ a waiter/ress for a few hours in the evenings, which is your busiest time in a bar or restaurant. For this you would employ someone on a half-day basis and on a 3-month contract.

After the first three months are up, should you still want/need this person, you simply issue them with another 3-month contract.

When you have employed the person for the duration of two contracts i.e. a total of 6 months I advise strongly that you let this person go. In this way you avoid having to get involved in an indefinite contract “contrato indefinido” and all the obligations that come with it.

Couples Wanting to Run a Bar In Spain

For a couple running a bar or restaurant you will probably need an extra member of staff in the summer months. Here I suggest that it is better to have two people on 3 month, half day contracts rather than one person working full time. This gives you some protection should one person suddenly decide to leave you.

In this case you will have the built-in flexibility of being able to ask the other employee to work overtime to cover, until you find a replacement.

Summary

1. Most small bars and restaurants can be run with three really good people.
2. If you need to employ staff, think in terms of 3 month employment contracts with a maximum of 2 contracts issued back to back i.e. a total of six continuous months of employment, for any individual and then finish with that employee for the season.
3. Think in terms of running the business with yourself and your partner and employing extra staff for the summer months.

We have seldom ever had to go looking for staff, as once we opened our bar, we quickly got to know local people who wanted to work part time.

Staffing Your Bar or Restaurant in Spain

I am going to be talking about the best ways to staff small catering businesses today.

Ours is a family business and has a cook, as opposed to a chef. It’s only practical to have a chef in your business, if you or your partners are going to fulfil that role. To hire a trained chef is expensive and if he/she suddenly leaves you, your business will really suffer.

The ideal way of staffing your bar/restaurant is by employing your own family e.g. you, your partner and two children aged 16 plus.

Of course this is rarely the reality. I am now retired due to back problems, but prior to that we ran our bar for 15 years with the two of us plus a full time waitress, who also washed up and helped at the grille when we were really busy. In the busiest months we would take on a fourth worker, just to wait on tables.

These days, just as in the UK there are plenty of Eastern European and South American workers available, who are very happy to work in a bar/restaurant and they will also work for the minimum wage plus tips.

Tips can amount to quite a lot of money and here they are free of tax. If you teach your workers from day one to smile a lot and be polite to customers, they will receive good tips and stay with you.

If you are going to run a bigger establishment than ours then you must hire summer staff on short term contracts to avoid having to pay out severance pay when you no longer need them. We always talk to our accountant about which type of employment contract will work out most economically for us, before we take anybody on.

One tip: One well-selected, really efficient and committed worker will do the work of two poorly chosen ones.