I would like in this article to share my personal experience in how hiring and staff forecast for new #Restaurant opening differs between Middle East - Especially Gulf region and North American and more specifically # Canadian market .
In the Gulf region , the strategy for hiring for any F&B project might include a mix of local hires (either attract talents from local market and competition ) and a planned recruitment trip to specific countries (Asian , East European , African & some Latin American countries )in order to conduct interviews and create a pool of screened and interviewed candidates for the different positions that are available in the particular F&B project .
The norm in Gulf region is that an employer provides accommodation , transport , Visas , insurance plus a tax free salary to all hired employees , exception might be for local hires who might have their own places to stay so they get a package from what they pay for all the above listed benefits .
With the above given , an employer considers that they can fully control the shifts , days off , holidays of all those staff , so priority is for work and next comes staff welfare .
When it comes to Canadian market , this is completely different , in majority of restaurants and F&B businesses , we can say that up to 85% if not more of the staff are students who needs to work between 10 to 25 hours per week in order to cover their expenses but work is just a bridge for them for a certain period , usually there are no contracts with such staff , you just ask them to start tomorrow and they do , but also it happens a lot that they might simply stop coming to work without any notice and that shouldn't be a surprise as it happens almost in all businesses , so pressure comes on the 15% of what is called full time employees who work 40 hours per week and have more dedication to their work and to business owners as most owners here do spend a big amount of time working in their business , opposite to those in Middle East where a business owner is a businessman who has invested and do visit the restaurant just for socializing or checking visits once or twice per month (with some exceptions for sure ).
In the Canadian market you can never force or obligate a staff to do certain shifts , opposite to ME market where an employer puts a schedule and rotate staff shifts and even put split shifts and staff have to follow , in Canadian market you have simply to fill the gaps with the #Disponibiliy of the staff that you have , if you don't have enough staff to cover certain shift(s) well you as owner , or the Manager or the few full time staff have to cover by working extended hours , and to no surprise , many business owners do consider closing their indoor seating or closing for certain hours as a result of not having enough staff , well yes that has a big impact on their business profitability but no choice as this lack of #workforce is a big pain for the industry . However , in Canadian Market a business do closedown on certain holidays such as Christmas and NYE in order to the staff to enjoy their times with #Families so as we can see , the law is more in favor of employees , staff welfare comes first than work . A big difference between both regions and cultures , it would be an interesting experience for anyone experiencing both markets such as it was for me .
Therefore , either if you are someone moving to #Canada and planning to open your own business , more specifically a #Restaurant or if you are a planning to work in this market this is something for you to be aware of , Vs. also those who might be interested to apply to Gulf region markets , the above might answer some of your questions about the employment and benefits offered in that part of the world .