Hyatt Regency

4.99 rating of Upshifters

82% return rate

92% fill rate

Challenges

❌ Filling in for busy peaks and avoiding overstaffing with full-time employees.

❌ Temp agencies couldn’t produce a consistent quality and quantity of people - their hotel clients were all busy on the same days.

❌ Lack of transparency with how much temp agencies are paying their workers.

❌ Constantly training new temps who don’t come back.

Solution

“We use Upshift as our primary contract company for our culinary. You can see who you're getting beforehand as opposed to just random people walking in the door. I think that's awesome.”

We have interviewed Karol Osinski, the Executive Chef & Food and Beverage Director at Hyatt Regency Cincinnati to ask him about his experience with Upshift.

Here are some of the things he liked about Upshift in his day-to-day work as a hotel operator:

Having control over who’s coming helps this executive chef plan everything around the staff’s skills.

1. “I know who I'm getting. I can plan around the strengths of those people.”

Karol says, “You can see who you're getting beforehand as opposed to just random people walking in the door.”

One of the biggest challenges with other companies was that they never knew who was coming. “If there are too many cooks in the kitchen, it’s a very common problem when you're just throwing bodies at a problem and you're not sure what you're gonna get.” Karol says.

Because Karol knows who is coming and he has developed relationships with those Upshifters; he can plan around their strengths.

“That affects how you build your schedule. If I can count on having some of my core Upshift staff here, that means that I can staff one of my supervisors at a different time because I won't need two people walking around just basically training for a day.”

2. “I can block people that haven't been successful.”

Not everyone will be a good fit, but Karol has full hiring control,

“I can just prevent them from seeing the shifts that I post so that I don't have to be worried about who's coming in the door.”

3. Showing key shifts to “core group of favorites” only.

During more important events, the executive chef might need more reliable people.

“If I've got some very key shifts that I know what my skill sets are going to be, I can set them to be, you know, my favorites only are allowed to see this shift. Then I know that only the people that we've had before that I have selected from my core group are going to see that shift and come in for it.”

Chef Karol has built a team of “core contract workers” for his kitchens consisting of 3 types of Upshifters

No one likes to train new people constantly.

“It’s great to have somebody that we can rely on and that knows the job and knows the building. It's something as simple as not having to tell people where the bathrooms are constantly.”

The returning flexible team that Karol has built consists of 3 types of Upshifters:

1. A few skilled cooks work flexibly most of the week - including one executive sous chef.

“We have a core group of 6-8 culinary employees that know our kitchens well. One of them was actually the opening executive sous chef of our property in 1984, so he's kind of on the tail end of his career. He works Upshift because it fits his lifestyle.”

2. Skilled cooks who work 1-2 shifts a week.

There is a group of highly skilled Upshifters who work these shifts as an addition to their main responsibilities,

“We have some people who love cooking but maybe work in a different industry now, but want to keep their skills up.”

3. People who want to learn.

“Then there are some people who have a desire to learn a new trade and are using Upshift as a way to gain some experience. They're very reliable for the most part. They need some extra help with some of the basics, but once they pick them up, they're grateful for the time spent on training and are happy to come back.”

Being in control of posting shifts and choosing the pay rate.

Chef Karol likes being able to set the pay himself,

“I like Upshift because I can control the pay that the employees get and so I can ensure that I am top of the range in making sure that my shifts get filled.”

He also feels he can set proper expectations for his contract staff knowing how much they get paid.

Summary - Upshift is their primary staffing provider.

Karol Osinski decided to work with Upshift as their primary culinary staffing provider and exclusive banquet server and banquet setup agency.

“The quality of the help coming in the door through Upshift has been significantly higher than more traditional agencies.”

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