Al Faisaliah Group & Flexible Staffing | How did they Succeed? [Case Study]

Al Faisaliah Group is a private company that owns many restaurants such as Steakhouse, Piato, Firegrill, and more. After the official release of flexible work policy in Saudi Arabia, Al Faisaliah Group decided to pioneer and adopt flexible staffing as part of its recruitment strategy.

In collaboration with Sabbar, Al Faisaliah Group successfully incorporated flexible staffing across their restaurant in Riyadh and scored high ratings and satisfaction rates by their staff.

How did they Succeed in Implementing Flexible Staffing?

Turky AlMarshedy, the Chief Human Resource Officer of AlfaCo (A Subsidiary of Al Faisaliah Group), summarizes 3 important points for success

1. Strong partnership between Human Resources and Operations

Since flexible staffing operates using short-term hourly contracts, Al Faisaliah Group realized that the main challenge lies in how to retain trained and quality staffers. The HR and Operation department decided to team up in order to create a great work environment that promotes positivity and collaboration, and therefore, improves staffers’ loyalty and retention.

The collaboration entailed allowing the HR team to get a closer look on the results of hiring at the branches via consistently-scheduled feedback sessions, as well as enabling the Operations team to voice out and get a hands-on approach on hiring based on their specific needs.

Sabbar’s technology contributed to Al Faisaliah Group’s outstanding efforts by streamlining the communication and removing the friction between employees in HR, Operations, and flexible staffers. The tech platform specifically enabled Al Faisaliah Group to:

• Dynamically request staffers on a weekly or even daily basis, which allowed them to scale in or out based on operational needs at the branches.
• Manage staffers’ schedules and seamlessly track their attendance through mobile-based clock in and clock out using geofencing technology.
• Replace staffers automatically in the case of any emergency cancelation or absence.
• Monitor performance of the staffers via a rating system.
• Simplify finances by handling weekly payment for staffers through hourly wages payroll system.

2. Hiring and integrating Saudi workers in F&B industry

Al Faisaliah Group realized that work in the F&B industry is challenging and physically exhausting. In addition to continuous standing especially during peak hours, they also realized that it is exceptionally challenging for Saudis giving the long-lasting cultural stigma surrounding this type of work in the industry.

However, Al Faisaliah Group envisioned hiring Saudi locals as part of their long-term growth plan and concluded that it’s an important success indicator of the industry in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, they’ve focused their strategies on:

• On-boarding Orientation: Spending time training their staffers and educating them about the products & best practices boosts their self-confidence and equip them with the right skillset to excel at the job.
• Collaboration at the branch: Treating flexible staffers as part of the main staff allows them to build strong relationships and increases staffers’ loyalty towards the brand.
• Growth & development: Gaining professional and personal skills is rewarding. In fact, it’s one of the main reasons that gives staffers the sense of achievement that keeps them coming back to the branch.

These strategies have proven successful giving the high employee satisfaction rate and the high retention rate that Al Faisaliah Group achieved with their flexible staffers.

Sabbar’s technology came into play by providing a platform to exchange ratings and feedback which allowed staffers and supervisors at the branches to be heard and improved their communication.

“We noticed that flexible staffing enabled Saudis to gain new and unique experiences and skills. We are glad to contribute to their development through Sabbar who helped us achieve the best results”

Lama Al Madi
Organizational Development & Recruitment Supervisor

3. Using technological solutions to manage flexible staffers

Sabbar partnered up with Al Faisaliah Group throughout their journey with flexible staffing starting from sourcing, interviewing, and on-boarding staffers to work in F&B, ensuring requirements are met (including staffer’s health card & attire), tracking their attendance and performance, automating last-minute cancelation replacement, and ending with streamlining weekly payments.

Sabbar also supported Al Faisaliah Group during the high fluctuation of demand, which is a costly and inevitable challenge of hiring in the F&B industry. This variability was accounted for using Sabbar’s flexible scheduling which allowed the company to increase the number of staffers on weekends during the high demand on their restaurants, and decrease them when it’s substantially reduced during weekdays.

Flexible scheduling was especially useful during high and low seasons. Al Faisaliah Group was able to request more staffers during the summer, and decrease them when the demand subsided through a single click of a button. In 24 hours, Sabbar was able to reduce the number of staffers without any extra cost or losses since the trained and qualified staffers have now entered a private pool to work with Al Faisaliah Group at any time across their branches.

Al Faisaliah Group succeeded in utilizing flexible staffing using Sabbar’s platform that streamlined hiring and communication. This allowed Al Faisaliah Group to meet the constant changes in demand and requirements efficiently, and maintain operational stability and excellence throughout their branches.