A Meeting Planner’s
Guide to Catered
Events
Chapter Six
Staffing
Staffing is Critical
 Customer satisfaction and repeat
patronage are influenced primarily by
food and beverage quality, service,
sanitation, and cleanliness.
 An inadequate, undermanned,
undertrained staff is incompatible with
successful events.
Volume Swings
 Many caterers experience severe volume
swings.
 Convention centers in particular have a unique
challenge in terms of volume and staffing.
 One day they may have a breakfast for 5,000,
which requires a large staff.
 They may not have another similar function for
two weeks.
 Difficult to keep qualified employees who prefer
more predictable work schedules.
A List
 In addition to full-time management and
permanent hourly employees, many caterers
maintain two lists of service-staff (i.e., banquetstaff) employees.
 A-list personnel are the steady extras; they are
called first when help is needed.
 If enough people are not available on the A list,
the manager will call those on the B list.
B List
 The B-list personnel are casual labor who are
used to fill in the gaps.
 They present more of a challenge than A-list
people because the typical B-list worker is
probably on the B-list of every caterer in town.
 As a result, major functions can go begging for
adequate staff.
 To overcome these obstacles, the caterer must
be a creative personnel recruiter and a superb
planner.
Union Labor
 A unionized caterer usually is required to go
through the local union hiring hall for its steady
and casual servers.
 The union generally keeps lists of steadies and
extras similar to the A and B lists kept by
nonunionized properties.
 If the union has enough advance notice of
caterers’ requirements, especially during peak
demand periods, chances are it can satisfy
their needs.
Payroll Expense
 Most catered events are very labor
intensive.
 Especially those that include many foods
made from scratch in the facility's
kitchens.
 It is not unusual for payroll costs to be
one-third, or more, of a function's total
price.
Payroll Expense
 Payroll expense includes the cost of wages
and salaries, required employee benefits, and
discretionary employee benefits.
 Salaries are determined by the caterer and are
usually consistent with local labor market
conditions.
 Wages may be determined the same way.
 In union shops, wages are determined through
negotiations with union representatives.
Payroll Expense
 Required employee benefits are also
referred to as payroll taxes.
 These include such expenses as Social
Security, Medicare, unemployment, and
worker’s compensation.
 Discretionary benefits include such
expenses as health insurance, 401k
contributions, and holiday pay.
Benefits
 According to National Restaurant
Association statistics, on average,
benefits add approximately 28% to the
cost of each employee.
 If a caterer pays an employee $10.00 per
hour, the total labor cost for that person
will be approximately $12.80 per hour.
 There is a great deal of pressure to hold the
line on payroll costs.
 This puts the meeting planner in a very
awkward position when planning an event.
 To control payroll, a caterer may need to
purchase more convenience foods, reduce
menu options, and eliminate menu items that
require a great deal of expensive expertise to
prepare and serve.
 The other alternative is to charge more and/or
charge separately for labor.
 Scheduling fewer servers and/or compromising
other services are unacceptable options.
 The caterer and meeting planner must stay
within payroll budgets, but it is equally
important to avoid alienating attendees.
 Instead of cutting labor, it is better to pay a
modest labor surcharge so the function can
be prepared and served correctly.
 If a caterer feels that a labor surcharge is the
best option, he or she should suggest it and
plan for it in advance.
 It should not be a last-minute consideration.
Food Production Planning
 Meeting planners usually are not involved in
determining the amount of food production
labor needed for a meal function.
 Most menu prices for a meal function include
the cost of production labor.
 Occasionally a meeting planner will need to
consider paying extra for an action-station chef
or a carver.
 But the bulk of the food production labor
expense will be reflected in the menu prices,
particularly if the meeting planner plans and
purchases a standardized event.
Food Production Planning
 The number of food production hours and
the type of labor skills needed for a meal
function depend primarily on:
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Number of attendees
Amount of time scheduled for the event
Union and caterer human resources policies
Type of service style needed
Amount of convenience food used
Amount of scratch production
Con’t
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Amount of finish cooking needed
Types of menu items offered
Number of last-minute requests
Number of special diets
Accuracy of mealtime estimates
Caterer’s work-scheduling skills
Number of Bar Backs
Needed Depends On:
 Number of bars scheduled
 Capacity of each bar to hold in-process inventories
 Distance between the bars and the kitchen and
storeroom (or from the storage truck in an off-premise
event)
 Degree of ease or difficulty associated with retrieving
backup stock
 Number of attendees
 Hours of operation
 Variety of liquor stock, glassware, garnishes, and other
supplies needed at the bars
 Applicable union and company human resources
policies
Number of Bartenders
Needed Depends On:
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Number of bars scheduled
Types of drinks that must be prepared
Number of drinks that must be prepared
Number of attendees
Hours of operation
Amount of bar-back work that must be
performed by the bartender
 Applicable union and company human
resources policies
Bartenders
 You will need at least one bartender per bar.
 For large events, you should request two
bartenders for each bar plus any wine-service
personnel needed for the meal.
 For small beverage functions you may need
two bartenders, or more, if the event is
scheduled for only 45 minutes to one hour.
 In this case, speed is a high priority.
 With such a short time frame, attendees
normally swamp the bar to make sure they get
their desired number of drinks before it closes.
 One bartender may be unable to handle this
onslaught.
 For large beverage functions, such as a
convention's opening-night cocktail reception, a
caterer generally will try to get by with one
bartender for every 100 attendees.
 This is a standard ratio in the industry.
 The meeting planner should consider a ratio of
one bartender for every 75 guests, which
usually is the minimum necessary if you expect
all attendees to arrive at the same time.
 If there are not enough bartenders when a
crowd hits the door, some attendees may have
to wait too long to get a drink.
Cashiers
 Cashiers are used to sell drink tickets.
 Normally you need only one cashier if the
catered function is small and/or if it is a
leisurely event where attendees are not
pressed for time.
 Larger functions, as well as those where
speed is essential, require more
cashiers.
 In such cases, generally you will need to
request one cashier for every two
bartenders.
Servers
 Depending on the type of event, the caterer will
have to schedule one or more of these types of
servers:
 Maître d’hôtel
 Captain
 Food server
 Cocktail server
 Sommelier
 Food runner
 Busperson
Server duties
 Napkin folds
 Table settings
 Placing table pads and
tablecloths
 Presetting foods and
greeting/seating guests
 Taking food/beverage orders
 Serving food and beverage
 Submitting F&B orders to
chefs and bartenders
 Opening wine bottles
 Pouring wine
 Hot beverage service
 Cold beverage service
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Crumbing tables
Bussing tables
Carrying loaded trays
Stacking trays
Emptying trays
Tableside preparation
Using different service
styles
Handling last-minute
requests and complaints
Directing guests to other
facilities in the property
Handling disruptions
Dealing with intoxicated
attendees
Refusing liquor service to
minors
Requisitioning tableware
and napery
Service Ratios
 Number of service personnel needed to handle a
given number of attendees is established by the
caterer.
 The number of service personnel needed
depends on many factors.
 The primary ones are:
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Number of attendees
Length of the catered function
Style of service used
Menu, especially its length and complexity
Timing of the event
Con’t
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Room setup
Location of function room
Overtime required
Number of head-table attendees
Number and type of extraordinary
requests
 Applicable union and company human
resources policies
Service Ratios
 Many caterers will budget one server for
every 32 attendees at a meal function
regardless of the style of service, the
type of menu, or whether the servers are
responsible for wine service.
Service Ratios
 Service is critical.
 Many excellent meals are ruined by poor
service.
 Service levels can run from one server per 8
guests to one server per 40 guests.
 Most caterers’ staffing guides allow for the 1 to
32 ratio.
 Meeting planners should try to get 1 to 20 or 1
to 16 if there is poured wine or banquet French
service.
Type of
Table
Rounds of Rounds of Rounds of
10
8
10
Rounds of 8
No. of
tables
2
5
2
2
No. of
servers
1
2
1
1
Type of
service
American
American
Banquet
Banquet
with preset with preset French/pour French/poured
ed wine
wine
No. of
bussers
1/3
2/3
1/3
1/3
No. of
attendees
20
40
16
16
Captains
 Request at least one banquet captain for
each catered event.
 For very large meal functions, one
banquet captain should be scheduled for
every block of 250 attendees (i.e., for
every block of 25 rounds of 10).
 Alternatively, a banquet captain could be
scheduled for every 10 to 12 servers.
 Meeting planners should insist on a “set-by”
time of approximately 15 minutes before the
function begins.
 This is when all F&B and service staff should
be ready to go.
 Begin alerting attendees by starting the music,
dimming the lights in the prefunction area,
ringing chimes, or making announcements to
signal attendees that it is time to enter the
function room.
 Servers should be standing ready at their
stations when attendees walk into the room,
not against the wall talking with each other.
 For most conventional meal functions,
the salad course usually takes about 20
to 30 minutes and the main course about
30 to 50 minutes, from serving to
removing of plates.
 Dessert usually can be handled in 20 to
30 minutes.
 Normally the entire banquet service is 1
1/4 hours for the typical luncheon and 2
hours for the typical dinner event.
Support Departments
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Kitchen
Beverage
Purchasing
Receiving &
Storeroom
Housekeeping
Convention Service
Maintenance
Engineering
Property Manager
Steward
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Print Shop
Room Service
Human Resources
Controller
Security
Sales
Front Office
Audio Visual
Recreation
Entertainment
Business Services