Miss Polly Café – creating and implementing an HR strategy for a rapidly growing hospitality business
Miss Polly Café is a restaurant and events catering business based in East Molesey, Surrey. Launched in 2017 by husband-and-wife team Jo and Dale Annells, the business has grown from its original single site café to a second location. Now hosting supper clubs, event catering and the provision of a seasonal café as part of the Hampton Court Ice Rink – serving over 40,000 customers.
Originally operated solely by Jo and Dale, the business now employs 48 staff (including an additional 35 temporary workers each year to cover the ice rink). From its beginnings as a small café, it has become an integral part of the local community with a loyal customer base.
The challenge
Scaling the business in such a short space of time meant that HR tasks quickly became overwhelming. With Dale responsible for menus and food development, Jo was managing all operational tasks. This included rota planning and manually generating payroll for staff on different hours and varying contracts. Jo’s time was increasingly being consumed with administrative tasks, taking her away from the elements of the business she loved.
We engaged with Bespoke HR to give us peace of mind that we have access to experts as and when HR issues arise. They have also helped us with other aspects like obtaining sponsorship licences, saving us considerable time. We would recommend Bespoke HR to businesses looking for HR support.
I found the support from Bespoke HR invaluable at the time, as I didn’t have an HR team around me and had to build up the function from scratch. … For anyone seeking a professional HR service, I highly recommend them
We were a new business and engaged Bespoke HR to create our whole suite of HR policies, procedures, templates and contracts … Bespoke HR has been a pleasure to work with, giving us terrific service and we recommend them to any intending client.
What I appreciated most about working with Bespoke HR was their ability to tailor their services to meet our specific needs.
The advice we’ve received has been well considered as our consultant has listened carefully to each individual situation and understands the culture of our business.
The Bespoke HR team has offered general advice and support at each stage of our employee lifecycle. From onboarding and home-working assessments to policy writing and exit interviews. We would recommend them to anyone looking for HR services.
The solution
Jo and Dale enlisted the support of Bespoke HR based on a recommendation from a friend. The business was immediately matched with an HR consultant with a background in hospitality HR. Senior HR Consultant Nicky Mori has worked in the sector for over 15 years.
Nicky explains, “As the business had grown so rapidly organically with Jo and Dale at the helm, they hadn’t had the opportunity to formalize HR processes. My role as a consultant is always to get to know the business, understand its ethos and growth plans to advise on how HR can support to achieve these goals. I see myself as an extension to their team.”
The first step was to conduct an HR audit to identify any gaps specifically for HR in hospitality. This highlighted a number of areas where the business could be left unprotected. Based on this, Nicky created a full Hospitality HR strategy in line with the business KPIs.
