The best five apps to help hospitality

TiPJAR helps hospitality workers earn more money for free. At a time when most people operate without cash, TipJar allows consumers to pay tips via their smartphone. They simply use their phone camera to scan a QR code, which directs them to the TipJar website, they can then select server, tip value and pay via Apple Pay, Google/Android Pay or credit card. Tips are sent straight to the server’s account.

In response to the pandemic, TiPJAR developed a Furlough Calculator to help those who needed to plan their finances. The calculator helped over 50,000 people.

You can find out more here: https://www.wearetipjar.com

While staff are furloughed, it’s vital they stay engaged, equipped with the latest skills and making good use of their weeks away from the work environment. Businesses will need them to be physically and mentally well and ready to get back to work once restrictions are lifted.

With a wide range of easy to access courses for the industry, from subjects ranging from wellbeing, compliance and management skills, Upskill People has a great platform and over 200 courses to help your team shine and show them how much you value them.

Delivering millions of courses each year to some industry leaders worldwide, they are widely endorsed and proven to deliver bottom line benefits.

Head to https://upskillpeople.com/ to find out how you can support your team now.

When hospitality shut down under Government instruction, hospitality tech business Harri launched a free-to-use recruitment portal to help redeploy those out of work into different sectors such as food retail and supply, farming, social care and delivery. 

Supported by UK Hospitality and the Scottish Tourism Alliance, the jobs portal has helped displaced and furloughed workers from the hospitality, leisure and tourism sectors during the COVID-19 crisis. The scheme has had commitment from over 30 companies in the UK including Amazon, Just Eat, Compassionate Care, Care UK, Morrisons, Bestway Retail and Waitrose and posted around 4,000 vacancies in total. The portal has had over 66,000 visitors in 4 weeks and over 5,000 applications.

During the crisis, Harri also launched free mental wellbeing courses for Employers and employees alike and had over 15,000 enrolments. “We at Harri wanted to support businesses under pressure to support team members” said Tom Howes, Head of Talent Development Technologies at Harri. “By doing this we know that it will prepare them for what comes next; being an employer of choice for the future,” 

You can find out more here: https://harri.com

As the landscape of hospitality evolves, many businesses will return to the marketplace with a click + collect and/or delivery service. Regular sit-in trade may not be possible due to government restrictions. In addition to this, customers may be reluctant to socialise or may experience financial hardship. As a result, take away will offer a clear route to revenue that many operations will have to adopt in order to survive.

In anticipation of this, Kitchen CUT have developed F+B To Go. This is a free tool that enables businesses to create digital shop fronts and menus, to take orders online, to track and monitors via an easy to use dashboard and to accept payment too. The tool is so simple that businesses can be up and running and taking online orders within an hour!

There are no set up costs, no subscription fees and no product limits for the whole of 2020.

You can find out more here: https://www.kitchencut.com/fb-to-go

Yapster is a messaging app designed for industries with teams that rarely access a work computer. Perfect for busy F+B Teams, the app allows colleagues to send texts, photo and video messages in a safe online workspace. Group chats can be simply created based on teams or projects. For larger companies, there’s a directory so that you can easily find colleagues by name, department or location.

The current situation means that many staff currently furloughed. The messaging and news feed functions of Yapster are a great way to keep teams informed. Being able to message and get updates, will and help staff feel connected to the business and their colleagues. In order to make this available to as many people as possible, Yapster launched their ‘Unleash the Underdog’ campaign. Hospitality businesses with over 100 staff on furlough have been able to access the app for free. This campaign will run for the entire time that the government’s Job Retention Scheme is in effect. After this time, there will be a 30 day wind down window. There will be no charges or liability to cancel once this period is over.

Head over to https://yapster.info to see how your team could benefit.

Trail App

Trail is a work management app that replaces paperwork, email and spreadsheets in Hospitality & Leisure businesses. Some of the best brands depend on Trail to manage daily jobs, from food safety to brand standards. 

Trail  gives you central control – ensuring your teams know exactly what to do in a changing climate. 

If you’re closed, you’ll be wanting to reopen with a safer, leaner business and nothing is quicker and easier to implement than Trail.

You can find out more here: https://trailapp.com