Forward Thinking Food and Hospitality Culture to Drive FIFO worker Retention

FIFO workers. Image via Coastlive

Forward Thinking Food and Hospitality Culture to Drive FIFO worker Retention

Future Food have been working with multinational companies in the remote mining and resources sector over the past three years to improve the working life of their FIFO employees through modernised food and hospitality standards. In an ever-tightening labour market, these forward-thinking companies have for some time identified that retention of the current work force is critical to supporting their company values, business goals, profitability and to providing value to their shareholders. As part of the retention strategy and general FIFO worker well-being, modernising the food and hospitality principles have become a key driver of worker satisfaction and improving camp life to create a ‘home away from home’ environment while at work in remote areas. 

Changing the ‘food & hospitality’ camp culture requires a project team with a strong commitment to bringing existing (and sometimes new) service partners, internal company stakeholders and FIFO workers along for the journey to a new and improved food culture that also incorporates modern elements of hospitality service that are now the everyday high street norm. Future Food understands both the remote catering challenges and the high street standards, bringing SME knowledge and ability to drive real change in the camp food and hospitality culture with the project team.

The first step in the journey for the project team is to always understand the exact nature of the food and hospitality challenges for each company through the ‘known and lived’ FIFO worker experiences, customer survey data and company history and experiences across the camps in the past five to ten years. Future Food also engage in an immersive experience as part of the process, observing, reviewing and validating the on-site FIFO worker experience and catering partner delivery standards.

From all of the gathered information, recommendations are made, and the project team set objectives and goals for changing the food scope and the hospitality culture tying back to resolving known issues and modernising the food standard to an everyday experience. Often this process is part of a larger objective, such as issuing a new tender to the market or negotiating with existing soft service providers. With the objectives set, Future Food can rewrite the food scope from the ground up or use the base existing scope and modernise the components parts to meet FIFO worker expectations.

While there are many companies providing a variety of soft and hard services to the mining and resources sector across Australia, the food & hospitality formula tends not to vary greatly. The food scope is typically outdated, often exemplified by descriptions of food as examples written 15 to 20 years ago like ‘pickled pork’ which has no meaning in a modern food landscape. ‘Service’ standards are rarely mentioned in detail, rather service ‘resources’ are articulated on a roster in line with ‘contractually obligations’ to be compliant and functional but not quality focused. Future Food use a process of mapping out service requirements, end to end that are relevant to each companies’ objectives to identify opportunities for improvement that include a service quality delivery aspect.

As part of the new food and service standards, it is critical for all parties to understand what the new paradigm physically looks like – what does good look like? Creating benchmark standards – with a visual representation (photos) - documenting the standard and communicating that to all stakeholders sets the scene and allows for alignment of objectives and goals with the catering partner and their on-site teams. The change in food scope components, service and uplift in standards is often only realised at the moment of truth – the first service under the new contract.

This visual standard is too often left to the traditionally trained chefs who can put food on plate, but struggle to apply modern food display principles to buffet style food which does not meet the expectations now set by food in the high streets of our cities and town.  The ‘Eating Experience’ in remote camps is no longer a commodity – it must be a positive experience that not only brings nutritional benefits to FIFO village residents but represents a connection with ‘home life’ and the family and friends back home. The Catering Partner must be guided to re-write the rule book on what has been 1990’s catering and what modern, on trend good food is in 2021 and beyond.

Modernising food is only half the equation with interior design or the physical setting for the food and hospitality space being a critical component too often left out of the discussion. These human interfacing touchpoints are just as important as the food, service and execution of the food on the day providing a visually appealing and cohesive space that supports and lifts the food journey. More than just a stainless steel bench and plastic chairs  - a modern and approachable interior design provides a level of comfort and ‘normalcy’ to the experience for everyone, where food can be the hero and the reward, celebrated at the end of a long day not treated as another functional process to be endured each day in a ‘factory’ setting.  Future Food are familiar with the remote setting and the challenges its presents to creating modern spaces which is why we have worked across disciplines with experienced partners to deliver design, equipment and built solutions. 

With all that focus on changing the ‘food & hospitality’ culture and in order to close the circle, it is important not to lose site of the goal – improved FIFO worker satisfaction and higher employee retention. To ensure the new food scope and service is having a measurable impact, feedback from FIFO workers must be collected and measured against previous performance. This will supplement regular and routine audit inspections carried out by the resources company management team as part of evaluating and continuously monitoring the success of the new contract services. Future Food have developed these processes and then tied all of the feedback and inspection data back into KPIs agreed in the contract services agreement providing a measurable outcome against short-to medium term goals to improve food and dining at work.

David Mallon and Francis Loughran at BHP’s Packsaddle site

From a holistic viewpoint, the time FIFO workers spend outside of their working day is exceptionally limited and the ‘food and hospitality’ culture is the only human interfacing touch point guaranteed to capture all residents each day providing the ideal opportunity to improve satisfaction and lead to overall greater well-being.  Food and hospitality - It’s all about people, whether you eat at home or 2500km away in a remote mining village. 

Learn more around our Mining and Resources Services here.

---

Tell us your thoughts on this Future Food Article

All information collected remains confidential and anonymous

---

Cover Image FIFO workers. Image via Nexus Private Wealth Management