Labour Shortages: How to Keep Staffing Costs Down

Labour shortages are costing you £10k a month—here’s how to stop it bleeding further

The numbers are simple: if you’re paying £12 an hour for a full-time member of staff and they’re only working 20 hours a week, that’s £1,200 a month. Scale that up to a 10-seat restaurant with three part-time staff and a manager, and you’re already at £6,000 a month before tips, uniforms, or training. Add in agency fees for cover shifts, and that figure jumps to £8,000–£10,000. The problem isn’t just the cost—it’s the unpredictability. A single no-show or last-minute resignation can knock £200–£300 off your day’s takings, and that’s before you factor in the lost custom from a queue that’s grown too long.

The usual fixes—raising wages, hiring more, or cutting hours—only work until they don’t. Wages rise, but so do expectations. Hiring more staff means more training, more uniforms, and more people to manage. Cutting hours risks losing regulars who’ve grown used to your opening times. The real question isn’t how to hire more people, but how to do more with fewer.

The answer lies in three levers: automating the predictable, optimising the busy, and protecting the profitable. None of these require you to fire staff or slash service. They just mean working smarter with the team you’ve got.

Automate the predictable: where the till does the work

A till that can handle orders without a member of staff standing by isn’t magic—it’s a matter of routing the right tasks to the right tools. Take table service: if your system can send a receipt straight to the customer’s phone before they ask for it, you’ve just saved 30 seconds per table. Multiply that by 20 covers an evening, and you’ve freed up nearly an hour of staff time—time that can be spent upselling or managing the kitchen, not chasing down payments.

The bigger win comes in the kitchen. A system that flags low-stock ingredients before they run out stops the scramble for replacements mid-service. It also cuts waste: if your software tracks how often a particular dish gets remade because it’s undercooked, you can adjust either the recipe or the training—without needing a manager to spot the pattern.

The cost here isn’t in the software (see Industry Insights for how to pick a system that won’t break the bank), but in the time you don’t spend firefighting. A restaurant that reduces kitchen remakes by 10%—say, from 15 a week to 13—saves £75–£150 a week in food waste alone. That’s £3,000–£6,000 a year, before you factor in the staff time you’ve reclaimed.

Optimise the busy: when to let the system handle the queue

Peak times are where labour shortages hit hardest. If you’re short-staffed on a Friday night, your options are limited: turn customers away, hire agency staff at a premium, or let the queue stretch. None of these are sustainable. The solution? Pre-shift planning and dynamic staff allocation—both of which your system should handle for you.

Start with forecasting. If your software can pull in historical data—say, your busiest hour is 7:30–8:30pm on a Friday, with an average of 45 covers—you can schedule staff accordingly. But don’t just set and forget: use real-time data. If your system shows a 20% spike in online orders at 7pm, that’s your cue to pull an extra pair of hands from prep or get a runner to help with deliveries.

The other trick is automating the obvious. If a customer orders the same thing three times in a row, your system should flag it—not as a prompt for the waiter to upsell, but as a signal to prep the next course before it’s asked for. That’s not just efficiency; it’s perceived speed. A table that feels well looked after is less likely to complain about a 10-minute wait.

The edge case here is the false peak. A sudden rush might be a one-off—say, a group booking you’d forgotten about. If your system can’t distinguish between a genuine trend and a blip, you’ll end up overstaffing for nothing. That’s why you need adaptive scheduling: a tool that adjusts shifts based on actual demand, not guesswork.

Protect the profitable: where to spend (and where to save)

Not all hours are equal. A Saturday lunchtime shift might feel busy, but if your average spend is £12 per head and your food cost is 35%, you’re barely breaking even. Meanwhile, a Thursday evening shift with the same number of covers but an average spend of £25? That’s where the profit lives.

The first step is segmenting your shifts. Use your data to identify which hours are cash cows (high spend, low food cost) and which are cost centres (low margins, high staffing). Then, protect the former and trim the latter. That might mean closing the kitchen an hour earlier on a Tuesday, or moving your lunch service to a brunch format with fewer covers but higher-margin dishes.

The second step is pricing by profitability, not popularity. If your best-selling dish has a 60% food cost, it’s not a best-seller—it’s a money pit. Your system should let you hide or deprioritise low-margin items in the online menu without removing them entirely. That way, you’re not losing custom, just steering it towards what actually pays.

Finally, automate the low-value tasks. If your staff spend 20 minutes a day reconciling the till, that’s £1,200 a year down the drain. If your system syncs sales data in real time, you free up that time for something that moves the needle—like training or menu planning.

The hidden cost: what breaks when you cut staff

Here’s the catch: every time you reduce headcount, you’re not just saving money—you’re increasing risk. Fewer staff means:

Longer queues, which turn first-time customers into one-time customers.
More errors, whether it’s wrong orders, missed modifiers, or undercooked food—all of which hit your reputation harder than your margins.
Higher stress, which means more turnover. A team stretched too thin burns out faster.

The key is to cut the right roles. A host who’s also taking orders is a bottleneck. A runner who’s also prepping drinks is a liability. Instead, reassign tasks—not to fewer people, but to the people best placed to handle them. That might mean moving your most organised staff to the front of house and your fastest cooks to the pass.

The maths: how much can you really save?

Let’s run the numbers on a mid-sized restaurant (50 covers a night, 6 nights a week):

Action	Time Saved per Night	Annual Savings (at £12/hr)	Other Benefits
Automate receipts	1 hour	£1,560	Fewer complaints, faster turnover
Reduce kitchen remakes	30 mins	£780	Lower food waste, happier kitchen staff
Optimise peak shifts	1.5 hours	£2,340	Higher average spend, fewer no-shows
Deprioritise low-margin items	–	£1,200 (food cost) + £3,000 (staff time)	Higher average order value
Total	3.5 hours	£5,880	£4,200 in food/waste savings

That’s £10,080 a year—enough to cover a full-time salary or reinvest in training. And because you’re not cutting staff, you’re not risking the service that keeps customers coming back.

What to watch out for

The ‘false efficiency’ trap: Automating too much can make your restaurant feel robotic. If your system handles every interaction, you lose the personal touch that keeps regulars loyal.
Data overload: A system that spits out 50 reports a week is useless. Focus on three key metrics: labour cost per cover, average order value, and repeat custom rate. If you’re not tracking those, you’re flying blind.
Staff resistance: If your team sees automation as a threat, they’ll undermine it. Frame it as tools to make their jobs easier—not a way to replace them.
Hidden fees: Some systems charge extra for “advanced” features like dynamic scheduling. Others lock you into long contracts. Starter covers the basics; Growth adds adaptive staffing tools. See the pricing page for what’s included.
Seasonal swings: What works in summer might not cut it in winter. Review your staffing plan quarterly, not just at the start of the year.

Frequently asked questions

Can I really cut staff without losing service?

Yes, but only if you’re reallocating roles, not just reducing headcount. For example, move your most efficient server to handle both tables and online orders, and use a tablet to let customers order at their table. The key is cross-training: if your kitchen staff can also take deliveries, you’ve got flexibility without extra bodies.

What if my staff won’t use the new system?

Start with a two-week trial where you demonstrate one feature at a time—like sending receipts to phones—and let them see the time they save. Offer a small bonus (£20–£50) for the team that adopts it fastest. Resistance usually comes from fear of change, not the tool itself.

How do I know which shifts to cut?

Run a 7-day report comparing covers, spend, and labour cost per hour. Look for shifts where:

The average spend is below your food cost + labour cost.
The queue never drops below 10 minutes.
Staff are idle for more than 30 minutes at a time.

Those are the ones to trim or restructure.

Will automating orders make my restaurant feel impersonal?

Not if you use it to add personalisation, not replace it. For example, if a regular orders the same thing every Tuesday, your system can flag it to the waiter with a note like “John’s usual—add the garlic bread this time.” The tech handles the logistics; the human touch stays intact.

What’s the quickest win I can make in the next 30 days?

Stop overstaffing lunch. Most restaurants have a 2–3 hour window where lunch turns into a slow period. Use that time to reduce shifts by one person and redirect them to prep or deliveries. The savings will pay for the system you need to make it stick.

If you’re ready to turn the tide on labour costs, start with a system that gives you real-time data, adaptive scheduling, and automated workflows—without the complexity. Berryin’s Starter plan covers the basics, and Growth adds the tools to optimise shifts dynamically. The first step is seeing where your time (and money) is really going—then you can decide what to keep, what to cut, and what to automate.