1st October 2026
"The ambition was to be different. To be consultative and do this everywhere. To provide adequately trained professionals with a background in the right kind of environment. Kitchens need a broad spectrum of abilities, we were there to match the right level of chef with the correct placement." - Nick Taylor, Founder and Managing Director, Jubilee Talent
Nick Taylor spent years working as a professional chef before he decided to do something about the state of hospitality recruitment. In 2003, he founded Jubilee Hospitality in Birmingham. Not because it seemed like a good business opportunity, but because he'd seen first-hand how badly the market was serving its clients, and he knew he could do it better.
More than two decades later, that instinct has built one of the most respected hospitality recruitment agencies in the country. Jubilee supplies temporary and permanent kitchen and catering staff at every level, from Executive Head Chefs to Kitchen Assistants, across a client base of over 2,000 businesses. Thousands of candidates work through Jubilee every week. The reputation Nick set out to build in 2003, for quality and service above everything else, has held.
But reputation alone doesn't keep a business running at that scale. As Jubilee grew, so did the operational complexity behind it. Every booking, every shift, every compliance check and every timesheet had to be managed, and the systems holding it all together were starting to show their age.
"We had grown with our previous software for 20 years, but as the world changed, the development we needed was too slow to happen. Candidates now seek a more modern journey. Compliance is ever changing. Trends were too slow to pick up on and there was no reporting on the front end or dashboard."
For years, Jubilee ran its operations on a system that Nick had built himself. For a business in its early stages, a custom-built platform made sense. It worked the way Nick wanted it to work, and it supported the business as it found its feet.
But as Jubilee scaled, the limitations of the legacy system became harder to ignore. The platform was old school by design: functional, familiar, but fundamentally not built for the demands of a modern high-volume temp agency. There was no candidate app, no client portal and no way to share shifts digitally. With thousands of shifts going out every week, that meant the team was doing everything manually. Shifts were shared by phone and email. Updates were captured on spreadsheets. Candidate communication was time-consuming and inconsistent.
Compliance management had also become a significant challenge. With a large and constantly active candidate pool, tracking expiring documents and ensuring everyone working was fully compliant required constant manual oversight. As the volume grew, the margin for error grew with it. Onboarding was another pressure point. The process wasn't audited, which meant there was no reliable way to confirm that candidates had completed everything they needed to before going live.
The business had outgrown its system. Nick and the team knew it. What they needed wasn't just a new platform. They needed one that could match the scale of what Jubilee had become, without losing the operational logic that had made it successful in the first place.
"The implementation went well. There was a professional level of support from the Panther team, with direct comms to Chris and Ashling for the larger project and a dedicated account manager fielding all the smaller day-to-day requests. Any obstacles we encountered were dealt with quickly, and any development needed to meet our specification was done in great time. The consultants' transition has been greatly received, even to our surprise. We have over 30 users who have all taken to it easily."
Moving a business the size of Jubilee onto a new platform is no small undertaking. With over 2,000 clients, thousands of active candidates, complex rate structures and years of operational data, the migration needed to be handled carefully.
The implementation ran over 15 weeks, with a one-week parallel run to ensure the team could transition with confidence. During that period, Jubilee's full operational data was migrated into Panther: candidates, clients, sites, rates, compliance checks and documents, all transferred seamlessly from the legacy system.
One of the priorities throughout the implementation was making sure Panther worked the way Jubilee worked, not the other way around. That meant a significant amount of tailoring to meet the specific requirements of the business. A custom specialism matrix was built to reflect the range of roles Jubilee places across its client base, feeding directly into invoicing and reporting. Custom invoice consolidation formats were developed to meet the varying requirements of different client types, alongside expense automation to handle the additional costs that are common in hospitality, including tips, accommodation and other expenses, without manual intervention.
Payroll was another area that required careful configuration. Custom export formats were built to automate Jubilee's payroll processes, while Real-Time Information (RTI) submissions were set up to handle automatic HMRC candidate starter and leaver creation in the background. Both digital and paper timesheet options were integrated to accommodate different client preferences, with lightning-fast custom candidate grouping built into the timesheet process to handle the volume Jubilee processes every week.
Custom message templates were also created to automate candidate and client communications: booking confirmations, location details, shift times and any other information workers needed before arriving on site.
Throughout the rollout, the Panther team worked closely with Jubilee to ensure the system was configured correctly and that the team felt confident using it. Training was provided at every stage, and support was on hand to deal with questions as they came up.
The results in the first four weeks alone were telling. More than 5,000 tasks had been created through Panther's Task Management module, a sign of just how quickly the team had adopted the system and begun running their daily operations through it.
"The task management system is essential to the way we work. We are multi-locational and international, on different working times, so we rely heavily on the ability to communicate via a task allocation system integrated into the platform. Without the task management system, there is chaos."
Jubilee today looks very different operationally to the business that moved onto Panther. The manual processes that had slowed the team down have been replaced by automation. The spreadsheets are gone. And the scale that once created pressure is now something the platform handles without friction.
The Task Management module has become central to how Jubilee runs its business. Every day, tasks are created, distributed and managed through Panther, covering everything from business development activity to compliance chasing to day-to-day operational management. For a business operating at Jubilee's volume, having that level of structure and visibility across the team has been transformative.
Shift management has also changed significantly. Where shifts were previously shared manually via phone and email, the team now has a structured digital process, with a client portal and candidate app in place for the first time. Thousands of shifts go out every week without the manual overhead that used to accompany them.
Onboarding has gone from an unaudited, inconsistent process to a fully digital journey with a complete audit trail. Every candidate now moves through a structured onboarding process, and no one can be activated until their compliance requirements are met. Combined with Panther's automatic compliance management and real-time expiry tracking, the business has a level of compliance visibility it simply didn't have before.
On the financial side, the improvements have been equally significant. Commission automation and financial attribution are now handled within the system, giving consultants and resourcers clear visibility of their numbers. Client rebates and trade-related discounting are automated. Real-time profit reporting means the business knows exactly where it stands at any given moment, not at the end of the week, not after payroll has run, but right now.
Invoicing is faster, more accurate and more consistent. Timesheet processing is handled efficiently regardless of whether clients submit digitally or on paper. And with RTI running automatically in the background, the administrative burden around payroll compliance has been significantly reduced.
Taken together, the picture is of a business that has the systems to match its ambition. Jubilee was already one of the most successful and well-known hospitality recruitment agencies in the country. Now it has a platform built to support what comes next.
"The biggest impact Panther has had is to drastically improve the commerciality of the consultants. The reporting dashboard shows live data with such accuracy that users can track and forecast in real time. This means at a management level we don't need to provide numbers or KPIs, the user can see them as they run their own desks. This allows us in management to focus on behaviour and company values rather than talking money, which is at odds with our ethos. Once the worker app is fully operational, the time saved will allow us 20% more consultant time per week and our admin team 30% more time to focus on growth."
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