Saturday needs thirty-four people
There is a wedding for 150, a corporate barbecue for 300 and a small private dinner, all on the same Saturday. Between them you need fourteen servers, six bar staff, five chefs, three kitchen porters, two supervisors and some drivers.
Your staffing coordinator has a WhatsApp group of casual staff, a spreadsheet of who can do what, and a memory of who is reliable. They post the dates in the group, get a flurry of replies, some of which are 'maybe', and then start messaging individuals. By Thursday there are still four gaps, two people have dropped out and one has said yes to the wrong event. The agency gets a call on Friday at a premium.
A group chat is not a rota
Casual event staff are the right model for catering. The work is lumpy and seasonal, and people want flexibility. The trouble is running that model through tools built for chatting.
- Replies in a group are not linked to a particular event, role or time.
- Skills are not recorded: who can carve, who can run a bar, who has supervised before, who drives.
- Availability is asked for per event rather than held, so the same people are asked again and again.
- Confirmations, call times and venue addresses are sent individually and not tracked.
- Drop-outs are discovered when the person tells you, not when a gap would still be easy to fill.
The coordinator becomes the system. When they are off, nobody else can see who is booked for what.
The cost of ringing round
It takes a large share of someone's week in peak season. Late gaps go to an agency, often at a higher cost and with staff who do not know your standards. Good casual staff drift away because they hear about shifts late or only through the group, and the same few people end up doing everything.
On the event side, supervisors arrive not knowing their team, and a missing bartender is noticed at the venue. None of that shows up as a line on a report, but clients notice it.
Shift offers by role, with the gaps visible
- Each staff member has a profile with their roles, any certificates your procedures require, whether they drive, and the areas they can reach.
- Staff set their availability in advance in a simple mobile page, rather than answering each event separately.
- When an event's staffing is set, from your quote or manually, shifts are created by role with call times and venue.
- Offers go out by text or app notification to available staff with the right role, in an order you choose (for example, regulars first).
- Acceptances fill the shift. Anyone accepting after it is full goes on a reserve list.
- A dashboard shows every event's gaps by role, days ahead, and prompts an agency request if a gap is still open at the point you set.
- Confirmed staff receive the details: address, parking, dress code, call time and supervisor name, with a reminder the day before.
| Role | Matched on | Reminder sent |
|---|---|---|
| Server | Availability and area | Day before, with dress code |
| Bartender | Bar experience recorded | Day before, with bar brief |
| Chef | Kitchen level and event type | Day before, with prep time |
| Supervisor | Supervised before | Two days before, with full team list |
Text messages can go through Twilio, and hours worked can feed timesheets later. We keep the staff side to a phone-friendly page with no app to install, because casual staff will not install one.
How staffing week feels afterwards
The coordinator sets up shifts when an event is confirmed, sends offers, and spends their time on the few gaps that remain rather than on the whole rota. Anyone in the office can see who is working which event. Supervisors get their team list in advance.
Staff who want more work see offers as soon as they exist. You can also see who has been offered shifts and turned them down, which helps you understand whether your pool is big enough before peak season arrives.
Is this your staffing week?
- Most shifts are filled through a WhatsApp group or individual messages.
- Only one person knows who is booked for each event.
- Agency staff are booked at the last minute to fill gaps.
- Staff have turned up at the wrong venue or at the wrong time.
- You do not know how many available staff you have for a date until you ask.