Say the number
Prices, minimums, terms and what happens when it goes wrong. Vagueness at the quoting stage is how clients get caught out later.
About Element Staffing
A small agency that answers the phone.
Element Staffing supplies vetted front-of-house staff to private events, weddings, venues and catering companies across London. That is the whole business. We do not cater, plan, style or hire equipment — we supply people, and we would rather be genuinely good at one thing.
Why this exists
Hospitality staffing in London has a well-earned reputation problem. Venues book eight people and six arrive. Staff are sent out with no idea where they are going or what the dress code is. Agencies classify their workers as self-employed to save money, and quietly hand the risk to the client. Everybody involved has a story.
None of that is a hard problem to fix. It is just an unglamorous one: interview people properly, pay them properly, tell them where they are going, and answer the phone when something changes. The reason it rarely happens is that doing it costs margin, and most agencies would rather compete on price.
How we are set up
We are an employment business, not an introduction agency. Our staff are employed by us and paid through PAYE — tax and National Insurance deducted at source, holiday pay accrued at 12.07%, pension auto-enrolment where the earnings trigger is met, and a Key Information Document issued to every worker before their first assignment, as the Conduct of Employment Agencies and Employment Businesses Regulations 2003 require.
That model is more expensive to run than the self-employed one. It also means a venue's compliance team can sign us off without a long conversation about employment status, and it means the person serving your guests is actually employed by somebody.
About being new
We are at the beginning. We do not have a wall of client logos or a decade of case studies, and we are not going to borrow either. The site you are reading has no stock photography of smiling waiters on it for the same reason — you would know, and it would undermine everything else we have told you.
What a new agency can offer that an established one structurally cannot is direct accountability. You get the mobile number of the person who runs the business rather than a ticket in a queue. On early bookings, that person is on site. If something goes wrong, there is no account management layer between you and the decision-maker — and the incentive to fix it properly is about as strong as an incentive gets.
How we operate
Four rules we actually hold to.
Turn down work we cannot staff
The fastest way to lose a client permanently is to accept a booking we cannot cover and let them find out on the day. We would rather say no once.
Pay people properly
Employed, PAYE, holiday pay, paid trial shifts, paid weekly. Good staff are not a recruitment problem, they are a retention one.
Brief everybody, every time
The single cheapest quality-control measure available, and the one the whole industry skips.
Talk to us
You will be dealing with a person, not a portal.
Call 020 7946 0000 and it is answered by somebody who can make a decision. Someone answers 8am–8pm, seven days a week. If you are enquiring about something time-sensitive, phone rather than email — the form is for detail, not emergencies.
Contact usThe basics
- What we areAn employment business
- WhereLondon
- CoverageLondon & the M25, nationally for larger bookings
- Staff employedPAYE, not self-employed
- InsuredEmployer's & public liability
- Reply time2 working hours
Next step
Give us something difficult.
A tight turnaround, an awkward venue, a service that has gone wrong for you before. That is a more useful test than a brochure.