by jennypetrini | Mar 8, 2022 | Press
The majority of COVID-19 measures in Switzerland have been lifted since February 17th, 2022. The hospitality industry in particular is benefitting from the removal of COVID-19 protection measures and expects good capacity utilisation, thanks to the increasing number of events and the impending arrival of spring. However, despite the upswing, it is worth taking a closer look at the current situation in the hospitality sector. Many companies were affected by staff shortages in the lead-up to the pandemic, and the landscape of work and recruitment in hospitality have undergone seismic changes since. To better understand worker sentiments, Coople conducted a survey with over 2â000 hospitality professionals who worked before and during the COVID-19 crisis. Once again, the results illustrate just how much oneâs priorities and perception of work has changed for flexible staff.
The Swiss hospitality industry looks back on two years of lockdowns and multiple adjustments to coronavirus protection measures. One of the consequences of this is that medium to long-term planning of operational and staffing needs has become difficult. Recently, restaurants and hotels have been allowed to operate again at full capacity and without COVID-19 safety measures. The fear of another lockdown that prevailed last year will be replaced by operational uncertainty in 2022, which relates in particular to the threat of staff shortages and the expected rush of hotel and restaurant visitors in the coming months.
Only one third of the participants are fully convinced of a return to the hospitality industry
After Coople conducted a large survey among flexible workers in June 2021, 2â000 people were surveyed once again in February / March 2022. All respondents had worked in the hospitality sector before and during the pandemic, either on a full-time or part-time basis. The results show that the attractiveness of jobs in the hospitality industry continues to decline significantly in the eyes of many employees.Â
When answering the question of whether or not flexible workers would like to return to the hospitality industry, only 35.7% were completely convinced that they would like to work in this sector again, compared to 45.3% in June 2021. Nevertheless, 44.5% answered that they can see themselves going back, while 19.7% consider a return to the hospitality sector uncertain to impossible.
When asked why a return to the hospitality industry was unlikely, the four most common answers in 2022 were: the desire for better pay (41%), more flexibility (29.5%), a job with better working hours (26.1%) or the desire for better jo security (23.1%).
Concerns about oneâs professional future decrease
Much like in the 2021 survey, participants were asked to rate the extent to which their professional life has changed due to COVID-19 and whether they are worried about their professional future. Most respondents indicated that their professional life has changed at least moderately to very much (5.7 average value, 0 = no influence / 10 = strong influence). This average value decreased compared to 2021 (6.7 Ă value), which can be explained by a medium-term adaptation to the pandemic situation and a change in and adjustment to everyday life.
At the same time, the individual perception of oneâs professional future among flexible workers in the hospitality industry has also changed: in 2022, just under 35.6% of respondents (values 0 to 2) state that they have little or no worries about their future career prospects (in 2021, only 21%). Compared to 2021 (5.5 Ă value), the distribution of respondents who are moderately to very worried about their future decreased noticeably (4.6 Ă value, 0 = not at all / 10 = very strongly).
Lack of skilled staff and uncertainty in personnel planning as the biggest challenge
When asked about the biggest challenge for businesses in the hospitality sector, 17.3% of respondents cited “lack of skilled staff”, closely followed by the associated uncertainty in staff planning (15.1%). 12.6% of respondents also consider fewer foreign tourists to be a noticeable challenge. As many as 11.2% still see financial bottlenecks as the main challenge for business in 2022.
The upcoming staff shortage can be counteracted with attractive pay and flexible working time models
Daniel Staffelbach, Country Manager at Coople (Switzerland): “Our latest survey shows that despite the lifting of the Coronavirus measures, it is currently difficult for hospitality businesses in Switzerland to fall back on their traditional, experienced staff in order to adequately cope with the expected rush in the coming weeks and months. The survey confirms that many employees in this sector would like to earn more and also have some flexibility in their working hours”.
Yves Schneuwly, CCO of Coople: “We see a recognisable trend here towards a “sustained loss of confidence” in the hospitality industry. We strongly advise that it is important to act now and that it is not enough to just indicate the demand for staff. There needs to be a strategic emphasis on responding to the wishes and demands of staff.”
Average wages are still comparatively low and significantly reduce the attractiveness factor of the industry. The industry and the employers themselves are in a real dilemma here, as many companies cannot (yet) afford to raise wage levels in the current situation.
The 2022 survey also confirms the trend towards greater flexibility and autonomy in the hospitality industry. This trend can not only be implemented by every company, but it can even help save money. Companies that respond to the growing demand for flexibility and systematically rely on a flexible workforce are laying the right foundations in the short and medium term. In order for this trend to be sustainable, companies should strategically build up a pool of flexible workers.
This enables them to react optimally to fluctuations in supply and demand, while positioning themselves as a flexible and attractive employer. Today, staff planning no longer has to be done from the top down, but can also be done from the bottom up with the help of a digital marketplace such as Coople. In this way, employees retain their autonomy in choosing the jobs that suit them and their motivation remains high.
View infographic
About Coople
Since its founding in Zurich in 2009, Coople has developed into Europe’s largest digital platform for staff leasing with over 650,000 registered employees and 20,000 companies. The company places flexible workers for short- and long-term assignments in the areas of healthcare, gastronomy, hotel business, retail, aviation, logistics, events and promotion as well as in the commercial sector.
www.coople.com
Survey/participants:
2,016 participants, not representative of all flexible workers in Swiss gastronomy.
All participants were active users of the Coople platform in the last 8 months.
Coople flexible workers in the restaurant/hospitality industry, e.g. barman/barmaid, receptionists, chefs, waiters or dishwashers
by Laura Anderson | Jun 15, 2021 | Press
Since May 31st, Swiss restaurants are allowed to open indoors again. That should be good news, but many venues are unable to increase their capacity as planned. Some are even staying closed. This is all due to a lack of staff, both front of house and in the kitchen. In a recent survey, Coople asked over 1,300 flexible workers, who worked in the hospitality sector before COVID, how they assess their current career prospects compared to before, and whether their career goals have changed.
The Swiss hospitality industry has been more or less closed for months. Amongst other things, this led to foreign professionals returning to their home countries and Swiss hospitality staff finding jobs in other sectors. Even though restaurants and hotels can open both indoors and outdoors again there is still uncertainty, and many fear another lockdown.
More than one in eight could turn their back on the hospitality industry
At the end of May, Coople conducted a large survey with more than 1,300 flexible workers* who used to work in hospitality either part- or full-time before COVID. Results show that many workers find hospitality jobs less attractive than before.
When asked whether they would like to continue working in the hospitality industry, 45.3% (597 people) of 1,319 flexible workers ‘can’t wait’ to work in the hospitality industry again. 41.3% answered that they ‘can see themselves going backâ, while 13.5% were not sure or âcanât really imagineâ going back. This means that around one in eight flex workers with experience in the hospitality sector could turn their backs on the industry, temporarily or permanently.
When asked why they are unsure or canât see themselves returning to the hospitality sector, the
four most common answers were: Desire for better pay (20.8%), better job security (20.2%), more flexibility (16%) or better working hours (12.8%).
Concerns about career prospects
The survey also asked participants how COVID and restaurant closures affected their professional situation and their expectations for the future. Most respondents (77.19%) indicated that Corona has impacted their career moderately to very much (6.7 Ă value, 0 = not at all / 10 = very much).
Coronaâs impact also influences hospitality workersâ assessment of their career prospects: Only 21.8% of survey participants are not worried about their career prospects (“Are you worried about your future career prospects?”; 5.5 Ă-value, 0 = not at all / 10 = very much). On the other hand, 8 out of 10 survey participants are worried or very worried about their career prospects.
Job losses in hospitality often result in a career change
When asked about their current employment, 29.2% of respondents stated that they lost their job and are looking for work. 23% receive short-time work compensation. 13.6% had lost their job but have since found a new one. Out of this group of 159 people, the majority (63.7%) said that they have changed to another industry and no longer work in hospitality.
Attractive working conditions could help to mitigate the loss of hospitality staff
Yves Schneuwly, Managing Director of Coople (Schweiz) AG says:
“Our survey clearly shows that it is currently difficult for hospitality businesses in Switzerland to bring back their experienced staff. This can slow down their recovery after the crisis or, in the worst case, make it impossible. On the one hand, this has to do with a change in workersâ attitudes. On the other hand, it could be at least partially mitigated by improved working conditions. The question is whether businesses are financially and organisationally able to do so following the long lockdowns.”
The survey shows that many hospitality workers would like better pay. Average wages in this sector are comparatively low today. However, many companies cannot afford to raise wage levels in the current situation. Additional incentives such as bonuses or commission, which could counteract the lack of staff, are also difficult to implement in this case.
However, the survey also shows that increased flexibility and adjusted working hours could keep at least some of the hospitality staff in the industry. The option to return to work at one’s own pace and to have a say in the length of jobs, workload, working days or even work locations are all attractive to many workers.
The future of work will be characterised by flexibility and autonomy. This is no different in the hospitality sector. Companies that meet the increasing demand for flexibility and consistently rely on a high proportion of flexible workers set themselves up for long-term success. With digital marketplaces like Coople, personnel planning can be done bottom up. Done this way, workers can select the jobs that suit them and motivation remains high as a result.
View infographic
* Survey participants:
1â319 participants, not representative for all flexible workers in the Swiss hospitality sector
All survey participants were active users of the Coople platform in the last 8 months
They have completed flexible shifts as bartenders, front of house staff, chefs, waiters, kitchen porters, and more
Average age: 37.3 years
On average, they have worked 257 hours on the Coople platform
Largest number of participants comes from the Canton of ZH, followed by BE, GE, AG, VD, SG
by Annette Burgard | Aug 13, 2020 | Press
When we started pioneering flexible work more than 10 years ago, Coople’s mission was to create the future of work. At the time, the concept of flexible work was new and different. Today, external flexible workers, who help businesses adjust their team sizes according to demand, are essential to many businessesâ core operational capabilities. The recent COVID-19 crisis has shown how flexible workers are essential to ensure our economies can function in any condition. In many cases, it was the critical work of flexible workers that, for example, enabled supermarkets and the agricultural sector to provide the population with essential goods. They guaranteed that vital supply chains could continue working despite severe disruptions due to COVID-19.
To account for the important role that flexible workers play in our economy, we are changing our mission statement to better reflect our strategy. Coopleâs mission is to âMake flexible work as rewarding, meaningful and recognised as permanent employmentâ. It is time for the world to truly embrace flexible work. We commit to continue disrupting the market to take it to the next level.
You will have noticed that things already look a bit different here. This is only the start and we are excited about explaining our plans and Coople’s mission in more detail in September. In the meantime, we’d love to hear any questions or your feedback. You can always reach us at marketing@coople.com.
by Annette Burgard | Apr 3, 2020 | Press
Zurich, 3.4.2020 – Once again, Coople has received the award “Best staffing agencies for temporary work”. In the annual survey conducted by Handelszeitung, Le Temps and Statista, HR managers, external recruitment agencies and personnel service providers rated Coople with the maximum number of points.
“We are extremely pleased about the award and would like to thank all the HR specialists and recruitment agencies who evaluated us”, says Yves Schneuwly, Managing Director of Coople Switzerland. “A special thanks goes to all Coopers who have done excellent work in tens of thousands of assignments for companies in Switzerland. They are the best and most valuable ambassadors for Coople.”
The annual survey of the best personnel service providers in Switzerland is conducted by the Handelszeitung, Le Temps and the statistics company Statista. Coople once again received the highest rating in the category “Best temporary employment agencies”. Yves Schneuwly: “This is clear evidence that the disruptive Coople model for flexible staffing is the right answer to changing needs in the market. With digital solutions that ensure agility and flexibility, it is possible to react quickly to changes in the market – such as we are currently experiencing with the COVID-19 crisis – with re-calibration and sector transfer of employees”.
The rankings of the best HR service providers are based on the responses of HR managers in companies, external recruiters and candidates who took part in the surveys. Participants were invited by e-mail, via the websites of handelszeitung.ch and letemps.ch, the newsletters of Lohncheck and HR Swiss, and via a carefully recruited panel. The overall evaluation is based on the criteria of brand awareness (number of mentions), brand experience (mentions with experience), achievement of an above-average overall score and number of recommendations. For the overall scores, HR managers and candidates were able to evaluate the companies on several dimensions.
Yves Schneuwly: “For us, the award is both praise and an incentive to continuously develop our app and our products. We are currently planning the introduction of “Coople Manage”, our new tool for internal HR management. This will allow our customers to use the Coople app for their entire shift planning. They can reinforce this plan with our flexible employees whenever shifts cannot be covered internally. âÂ
About Coople: Best staffing agencies for temporary work in 2020
Since its foundation in Zurich in 2009, Coople has developed into Europe’s largest platform for flexible staffing with over 300,000 registered employees and 15,000 registered companies in Switzerland. Coople supports companies from the catering, hotel, retail, aviation, logistics, events and promotion sectors as well as from the commercial sector in filling vacancies. Coople has also been active in the UK since 2016 and in the Netherlands since 2020.
www.coople.com
Media contact
Annette Burgard, VP Marketing, annette.burgard@coople.com, 044 554 50 00
by Annette Burgard | Mar 24, 2020 | Press
Zurich, 24 March 2020 – Following the initiative of Swiss business owners, the Swiss Fruit Association (SOV) and the Association of Swiss Vegetable Producers (VSGP) are taking an important step towards securing the 2020 harvest by entering a cooperation with flexible work platform Coople. In order to compensate for the travel restrictions that were imposed in response to the spread of SARS-CoV-2, workers from other sectors are to be recruited as harvest workers via the Coople on-demand staffing platform.
Why is this cooperation important? Increasing travel restrictions in Europe are causing an acute shortage of harvest workers who are needed to secure the supply of domestic fruit and vegetables. Images of empty supermarket shelves have unsettled the Swiss population and wrongly conveyed the impression that Switzerland cannot guarantee the supply of fresh fruit and vegetables.
To pre-empt such a scenario, the heads of the SOV and the VSGP have been discussing solutions for finding the workers necessary to bridge the gap during the phase of these travel restrictions. The cooperation presented today results from the initiative of private businesses in the catering and agricultural sectors. It proposes to hire workers from the catering and hotel industry, who are currently unable to work in their usual sectors due to Federal Council restrictions.
Martin Jucker, co-founder of Jucker Farm AG: “Jucker Farm has been both an agricultural and a catering company for a long time. In addition, we have been working very successfully with Coople for several years to recruit some of our employees. Combining these three elements into an innovative approach seems like an obvious solution: Coople normally provides staff for events and catering. They can now bring the same people to the agricultural sector. I am very pleased that we are able to implement this solution. It will ensure that the agricultural products reach the stores where consumers will be able to access them as usual. â
“We are convinced that this new solution for meeting the staffing needs in fruit and vegetable production can spread rapidly and we know that many flexible workers are interested in these jobs,” says Viktor CalabrĂČ, founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors at Coople, representing the partners involved in the new cooperation. “To make these jobs even more attractive in the short term, salaries must match the expectations of Swiss workers. We therefore expect the federal government to take the necessary measures to subsidize wages in agriculture in line with market conditions during this exceptional situation. In this way, the 315,000 people currently affected by reduced working hours could also benefit more from this new cooperation. Coople can take care of all administrative tasks, including payroll.â
Over 300,000 flexible workers in Switzerland are registered on the Coople platform. Many of them usually work in the catering and events industry during this time of the year. via this cooperation, Coople’s digital platform enables them to find work quickly and without a hassle in other sectors such as agriculture.
Matija Nuic, Director of the Association of Swiss Vegetable Producers: “Providing fresh vegetables for the Swiss population is our top priority. At this time, the security of supply in Switzerland is at stake. Many vegetable producers have reported to us that their seasonal workers cannot enter Switzerland. For this reason, we have started to look for solutions before the situation worsens further. I am very pleased that we have now found a promising solution with this partnership between the associations and Coople.”
Jimmy MariĂ©thoz, Director SOV: “Every year, several thousand seasonal workers in Switzerland contribute to cultivating our crops and harvesting fruit and berries. Due to the exceptional situation this year, we had to quickly find an innovative solution to provide the domestic population with the best Swiss fruit and berries.”
Initiators and partners of the cooperation
Jucker Farm AG
We have been combining agriculture with delicious and unique food experiences for 20 years. From cultivation and processing to direct sales in the farm shops, the farm restaurants, and at events. That is what Jucker Farm stands for.
Swiss Fruit Association
The Swiss Fruit Association (SOV) represents the interests of the fruit industry. The aim of the national industry association is to create good framework conditions for production and processing. The SOV represents the interests of the approximately 13,000 players in the fruit industry vis-Ă -vis authorities, other professional associations and the public. Important services are: Industry information, sales promotion of local fruit and fruit products, education and training.
Association of Swiss Vegetable Producers
The Association of Swiss Vegetable Producers (VSGP) has been the professional organization of Swiss vegetable producers since 1932. It represents the interests of all producers of fresh, stored and processed vegetables, regardless of their production methods. On behalf of its 2,000 members, it is heavily involved in trading, politics, professional training, cultivation, communication and marketing in order to strengthen the positioning of Swiss vegetables. www.gemuese.ch
Hotel industrySuisse
HotelSuisse sees itself as a competence center for the Swiss accommodation industry and, as an association of entrepreneurs, represents the interests of innovative and sustainable accommodation establishments in Switzerland. Since 1882, HotelSuisse, together with its more than 3,000 members, of which around 2,000 are hotels, has stood for a quality-conscious and forward-looking Swiss accommodation industry. The classic hotel industry alone, as a location-bound export industry and backbone of tourism, generates annual sales of over 7.5 billion Swiss francs and employs almost 80,000 people. The member establishments of HotellerieSuisse have over two thirds of the relevant Swiss bed supply and thus generate around three quarters of the corresponding overnight stays.As the umbrella organization of 13 regional associations,
Two Spice
The Two Spice Group is a creative, innovative gastronomy and lifestyle company from Zurich, in whose think tank various operating concepts and brands have been developed for over 30 years. More than ten restaurant brands, a wine shop and an internationally active trading company belong to the group. Marc Saxer & Daniel Kehl: “From the very beginning, it was an important concern for us to operate gastronomy at a professional level. Nevertheless, everyone, both the guest and the team, should feel at home in a relaxed atmosphere. This mixture of striving for quality and lively gastronomy has always characterized our establishments “.
Rathgeb Bio
Rathgeb Bio is a production and service company in Unterstammheim and specializes in the organic cultivation of vegetables and potatoes. Together with regional family businesses, it aims to supply consumers with fresh products. Crunchy, healthy, organic … obviously!
Erik HĂ€mmerli / Bederhof
Erik HĂ€mmerli has been running the Bederhof restaurant in Zurich’s Enge district since 2005. The Bederhof follows the Slow Food concept and focuses on a menu with home-style cooking. In 2011 he and his partners took over the Fischstube restaurant on Lake Zurich. Erik HĂ€mmerli is involved in various catering companies and gives cooking courses.
Coople
Since Coople’s foundation in Zurich in 2009, more than 400,000 flexible workers and 20,000 companies have registered on its flexible working platform. Coople provides flexible staffing solutions to the catering, hotel, retail, aviation, logistics, events and promotion and office sectors. The company has been active in the UK since 2016 and in the Netherlands since 2020.
