Mental Health
​4 out of 5 hospitality professionals
report having experienced at least one
mental health issue during their career
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51% of sick days in the UK are down
to mental health and stress.
What Does Design Affect?
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Staff experience
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Customer experience
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Productivity within a space
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Profitability of a venue
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Efficiency of a venue
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Physical health
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The general working environment
Do any or all of the above affect someone’s mental wellbeing?
Catering Improves Staff Wellbeing
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Various Industries use catering to benefit the health and wellbeing
of the team.
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Demonstrated by the rise in the B&I Industry:
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• Tech Companies
• Banks
• Manufacturing
What do other Industries do to the working environment to enhance staff wellbeing?
Natural Daylight
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How many people would work in an office for 10-12 hours a day with no daylight? Is this acceptable for a kitchen or catering office?
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Isn’t a Kitchen an office?
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While it’s not always possible to achieve natural light in a catering area, it is possible to use artificial sunlight, such as the SAD lights that people use in the winter
What About Team Journeys?
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Touch points
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How the team enter the building
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How they collect their uniform
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Changing rooms
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The staff rest room (in many places the only space is a bin yard)
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What Can We Do?
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Start with a team-first approach. Without the team, there is no business. This is highlighted in an experience-lead industry
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Provide better break areas
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Concentrate on the staff F&B experience
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Treat the team like we would a guest
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Decent light, air flow (if not natural, then AC)
How many housekeeping rooms have decent air flow?
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As a design team, we should spend a day in the operator’s shoes.
Not watching, but working
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Should we reduce the Commercial Real Estate of a building to make staff more comfortable
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The reality is, we can’t do this as the business case doesn’t add up
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What we can do, is focus on the small bits that make a lot of difference
What Can We Do?
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Start with a team-first approach. Without the team, there is no business. This is highlighted in an experience-lead industry
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Provide better break areas
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Concentrate on the staff F&B experience
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Treat the team like we would a guest
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Decent light, air flow (if not natural, then AC)
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How many housekeeping rooms have decent air flow?
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As a design team, we should spend a day in the operator’s shoes.
Not watching, but working
Front of house is the soul of the business. How can we improve the team experience?
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Have a ‘no grumpy Guests’ policy?
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Make sure everything is perfect and nothing ever goes wrong.
Isn’t that supposedly what qualifies for a 3 star Michelin?
What can we do for the front of the house team​
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We need to design the space around how the team works
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Where the business wants to get to
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What is the journey for wine, water, tea and coffee?
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Where the spare cutlery is kept
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Where the laundry is kept for relaying tables
Simple Things
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Would you share a phone in an office over three different rooms?
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But we put VE water taps in, so the restaurant staff have to share with the bar staff
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Put the wine fridge in an accessible place where the team don’t have to walk as far to serve wine
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The reality is, we need to design around the operation and the staffing constraints. This allows staff to work during the busiest days of the week in an efficient manner. We have all worked in under-resourced places and understand how mentally draining it can be
The Potwash​
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Arguably the hardest and most demoralising job
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Often these areas are humid
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Cramped spaces
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Potwash: What Can We Do?​
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Allow more working space
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Decent floor drainage for ease of clearing down
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Higher tables so staff don’t need to bend over as much
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Use waste collection devices in the sinks
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Correct faulty machines​​​​​​​​​​​​
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Isn’t the Kitchen an Office?
The same standards apply
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Kitchens are the Heart of the Operation: ‘The Main Office’
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How many people have a VDU assessment in their office? Factors that are monitored in offices for staff well-being:
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Is the seat in the correct position? (Incorrect seat positioning can lead to back problems).
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Is the keyboard in the correct position to prevent over extension?
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Is there any support for your wrists?
Now let’s look at a chef’s desk. They are nearly always 900mm high. Does that mean all chefs are the same height? Are all tasks are the same?
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How many times do you walk into the office in the summer, think it’s too hot, and open the window? How many times do you turn the heating up in the winter?
The Kitchen:
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Where is the window (or tempered air coming in)?
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Where is the heater? Normally, you turn all the ovens full blast and then the fans down as low as possible. Does that mean that there is increased CO2 in the room?
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How many chefs have early onset white finger disease?
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How often have you closed the window because of the external noise in your office?
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The Kitchen:
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Could you spend a whole 12 hours per day under a noisy fan?
Scenario: You’re tired and stressed from the noise. When you do eventually leave and go home, you’re shouting at your family. That’s if you’re lucky enough to be home before the kids go to bed, making them think that parents just shout all the time.​​​
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What’s the average working day? 8 hours 10 at a push?
The Kitchen:
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Say your hours are 8, at a minimum. Who would leave work at 11 at night and be back at 5 for breakfast?
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Did you know some staff at event catering venues leave between 10 and 12pm for peak events and come back no later than between 4 and 5am for a week (even two weeks) at a time. This is encouraged. Surely, if they had more space and better equipment, this scenario wouldn’t happen. The issue here is that people are designing for quiet days rather than the busy ones. This is the equivalent to designing a restaurant to cope with a Monday rather than a Saturday.​​​​
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How do your feet feel after walking around today, tomorrow and after 4 days of work?
The Kitchen:
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If the kitchen has the same type of floor as this, it’s can be hard on your legs and increase chance of aching if you don’t have appropriate safety shoes.​
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Would you buy a high-end computer from someone that can’t use
a computer?
We have seen designs of kitchens from people who have never worked in kitchens. They don’t understand what general life is like and the impact that the environment can have on the team’s general life. They don’t understand what réchauffant means.
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Solution​
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Spend a day in the operator’s shoes and work for two days in order to understand the impact that working in a catering environment can have on staff’s lives. Act as a pot wash with a low quality machine, and you’ll know that if the machine doesn’t work as well, you just have to stay later and work harder. When are these conditions acceptable in any other form of business?
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Put this into an office scenario, and it’s like saying “well, we have 5 members of staff all of the time, but they will have to stay later and share 4 desks and 3 computers 2/3 days per week.
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The VE have scored and made an assessment as the real value isn’t on the first day, it’s the day that the team is too stressed and decides not to come in to work.
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