How to Manage Restaurant Staffing During the Holidays in Ireland

The holiday season in Ireland can make or break your year. You're juggling Christmas party bookings, New Year's Eve menus, gift card sales, and guests who expect service to feel special even when your team is stretched. 

Learn practical ways to manage restaurant staffing during the holidays, from fair rotas to technology, training, and loyalty programmes.

Understand Irish Holiday Staffing Rules And Rights

Before you start building your holiday rotas, it’s worth taking a quick look at your legal obligations. In Ireland, Christmas Day, St Stephen’s Day, and New Year’s Day are all public holidays, along with a handful of others throughout the year.

Employees are entitled to a public holiday benefit such as a paid day off, an extra day's pay, or paid time off in lieu, depending on how and when they work. The precise entitlement depends on their hours and whether they're full-time or part-time. Citizens Information provides clear examples of how public holiday pay should be calculated.

Irish working time legislation also limits average weekly working hours and sets minimum rest periods and break times, which apply just as much at Christmas as during quieter months. The Organisation of Working Time Act 1997 sets out rules on maximum average weekly hours, daily and weekly rest, and Sunday premiums where applicable. The Workplace Relations Commission provides detailed guides and codes of practice that are especially relevant if you’re asking staff to work long shifts or late nights over the festive period. It’s worth sharing a short, plain-English summary with your team so expectations around holiday pay, breaks, and Sunday or late-night work are clear. This builds trust and helps prevent issues when everyone is tired in the last week before Christmas.

Read The Room: Why Holiday Staffing Feels So Tough

The holiday season feels particularly challenging for Irish restaurants because the industry is being pulled in two directions at once. While many consumers are cutting back, restaurant operators themselves are feeling surprisingly optimistic. According to the Voice of the Restaurant Industry in Ireland report from Toast, 95% of restaurateurs expect year-over-year sales growth, and more than half say they are likely to expand or open a new concept. At the same time, restaurants are still under pressure to run leaner, more efficient operations. 

Consumer expectations are influencing this pressure as well. Research from the same Toast report shows that two in five Irish diners feel eating out has become too expensive to do regularly, so when they do choose to dine out, they expect real value and consistently excellent service. That means every holiday service becomes more important, with fewer margin-for-error moments and greater pressure to deliver a memorable experience.

This combination of high demand, increased expectations, and limited labour availability means that simply adding more people to the rota isn’t a realistic solution. Instead, holiday staffing requires thoughtful planning, fair and transparent scheduling, clear expectations, and tools that help a lean team perform at its best.

Forecast Demand And Set Your Staffing Plan

The first step is to understand what “busy” actually looks like for your restaurant. Look back at previous years’ December and early January data: covers by day of week, spend per head, table turn times, and no-show rates for large groups. Layer this with booking trends from this year and big events in your area — from office Christmas parties and local concerts to late-night shopping in your town or city.

This is where a connected POS and reporting tool can make a real difference. Irish operators in the Toast Voice of the Restaurant Industry report highlight that they are allocating around 10% of their budget to technology and 15% to labour, reflecting how closely these two line items are now linked. Restaurants that can see real-time sales and labour data by shift are better placed to protect margins when demand spikes or dips unexpectedly.

For an Ireland-specific perspective on tourism and seasonal peaks, Fáilte Ireland publishes labour market and tourism workforce research that offers useful context on staffing pressures and trends across the sector.

Once you’ve forecast demand, you can build a staffing plan for each key period: Christmas party season, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day or St Stephen’s Day (if you open), New Year’s Eve, and the first weeks of January. That plan should define not only headcount but also roles, seniority mix, and which team members are on point for training, quality checks, and guest recovery when things go wrong.

Use Data On Staff Expectations To Shape Your Hiring

Holiday hiring is competitive, and speed matters. According to the Toast Consumer Preferences Survey 2025, Irish hospitality workers say salary and benefits are the top factor when evaluating a potential employer (49.5%), followed by work–life balance (24%). The same survey shows that 44.5% of respondents feel the ideal interview process is one short interview, with a further 35.5% preferring two rounds. In other words, candidates want a process that’s fast and respectful of their time.

Another insight: 35% of respondents say a formal job offer letter is extremely important, and 39.5% say it’s somewhat important. Clear written offers help you stand out from operators relying on informal arrangements.

Irish hospitality workers also place a high value on training and onboarding: 42% call structured onboarding extremely valuable and 47.5% say it is somewhat valuable, while 59.5% rate ongoing training as extremely important. And 41.5% expect to be fully trained within two weeks, with a further 27% expecting this within one week.

Altogether, the data suggests that if you want to attract and keep great seasonal staff — especially around Christmas — you should move quickly from application to offer, be clear about pay and benefits, and show that you will invest in structured, time-bound training rather than leaving people to figure things out alone.

Build Fair And Transparent Holiday Rotas

Holiday rotas are where goodwill is either strengthened or lost. Industry groups like the Restaurants Association of Ireland and the Irish Hotels Federation have repeatedly highlighted how staffing pressures, unsociable hours, and lack of work–life balance contribute to turnover across the sector.

According to the Toast Consumer Preferences Survey 2025, pay is the biggest factor in staff retention (49.5%), followed by work environment (26%) and fair scheduling (10.5%). You can’t fix everything in December, but you can show you’re listening. One practical approach is to ask team members to rank their preferences for key dates — Christmas Eve, St Stephen’s Day, New Year’s Eve — and then build rotas so no one gets all the most challenging shifts.

Rotate closing shifts and late nights where possible. Schedule guaranteed rest days for those working intense runs of services; fatigue is a safety issue as well as a morale one, especially in kitchens and late-night venues.

Many operators find that switching from spreadsheets to dedicated scheduling software makes the whole process more transparent and less stressful. In the Toast Consumer Preferences Survey 2025, 29% of Irish managers use scheduling software, 38.5% still rely on spreadsheets, and 23.5% use pen and paper. Last-minute changes are the biggest challenge, followed by understaffing. A scheduling tool integrated with your POS can help you see labour and sales together, reducing the risk of overstaffing or cutting too deeply.

You can make holiday scheduling feel more manageable by publishing draft rotas early, setting a clear process for swaps and changes, and making sure each peak shift includes a good mix of experienced and newer staff.

Make Peak Shifts Feel Sustainable

Holiday services will always be demanding, but they don’t have to be overwhelming. Irish labour market research from Fáilte Ireland and academic partners has shown that work–life balance, recognition, and supportive management strongly influence hospitality workers’ intention to stay in the industry.

Simple rituals go a long way in December: a quick pre-shift huddle to run through bookings, menus, and any VIPs; a short debrief at the end of busy nights; and regular check-ins with seasonal staff experiencing their first festive rush. Hot staff meals are especially appreciated when it’s cold and people are working long stretches. Some operators also support late-night transport or taxi shares after major party nights, which sends a strong message that you care about staff safety.

Training matters too. Most Irish hospitality workers expect to be fully trained within two weeks and prefer learning in person. Use a buddy system so each seasonal hire has someone to shadow and learn from. Keep digital training short and centred on essentials like allergens, tills, and menu knowledge.

Use Technology To Keep Service Moving

When you’re operating at full stretch, the right tools can lighten the load. Irish restaurant managers surveyed in the Toast Consumer Preferences Survey 2025 highlight user-friendliness, reporting, and mobile access as the most valuable software features. Many are especially interested in automated inventory management, AI-driven shift scheduling, and digital loyalty programmes.

Integrated restaurant platforms like Toast can help you speed up ordering and payment with handheld devices, reduce delays between the floor and kitchen through a Kitchen Display System (KDS), and centralise reporting so you can spot your busiest dayparts and staff accordingly. Dublin operators such as BANG Restaurant & Wine Bar have seen faster table turns, happier teams, and more reliable reporting after making the switch — benefits that matter even more in December.

If you’re promoting holiday menus, special offers, or extended hours, it’s also worth linking your marketing and operations tools. Email and SMS campaigns, social media, and automated reminders can flatten peaks by nudging guests toward midweek or early bookings.

Communicate Clearly With Guests And Staff

Holiday stress tends to escalate when people are surprised — by queues, set-menu rules, or last-minute rota changes. Clear communication is one of your strongest tools. For staff, that means sharing written expectations for festive standards, dress codes, booking cut-offs, and how emergency shift cover works. Be explicit about what “great service” looks like on fully booked nights and how managers will support the team.

According to the Toast Consumer Preferences Survey 2025, 79.5% of Irish hospitality workers say clear communication during hiring and onboarding is extremely important, and 39.5% have left a job because onboarding or training was poor. Getting this right before the holidays can prevent sudden December resignations.

For guests, keep your website, Google Business Profile, and social feeds updated with festive hours, menus, and booking policies. State how long you hold tables, your approach to no-shows, and whether you split bills. When your marketing and POS systems work together — with guest profiles and automated messaging — you can confirm bookings, send pre-order links, and follow up with thank-yous and January offers without adding extra admin to busy days.

Bring Your Team With You Into The New Year

Managing restaurant staffing during the holidays in Ireland is really about finding the sweet spot between what your guests hope for, and what your team needs to feel supported. When you’re clear on public holiday rules, plan ahead for the rush, and build rotas that feel fair to everyone, you set your team up on solid ground before the season even gets going. Hiring early, keeping onboarding straightforward, and using technology to take the friction out of daily tasks all help your staff stay steady, confident, and calm when the festive pressure starts to build.

When you combine thoughtful staffing with smart marketing and loyalty tools, a hectic December can actually set you up for a stronger, more steady year ahead. And when you invest in your people at the moments when it matters most, you don’t just get through the festive rush — you build a team that feels supported, engaged, and ready to carry your restaurant forward long after the decorations come down.