What is a restaurant or catering business without its top chef? What is a chef without waiters and waitresses to serve their fantastic food? It’s definitely not one of the finer food businesses in town.
Teamwork plays an important role in the food safety business. With one part of its whole missing, the food business no longer functions as one smooth operation and guess what? This doesn’t only include the staff!
The leader must also be a part of the team whether this is making sure all wait staff, cooks, chefs and other key players is all on the same page or through demonstrating how tasks need to be completed.
A great example of poor teamwork is the famous Hell’s Kitchen television show with Gordon Ramsey as the star. Ramsey is renowned for his bad temper, use of profanity and degradation of anyone in his kitchen. While this is surely 
great for the network ratings and brings a lot of attention, it’s also a great example of what can happen in a kitchen without teamwork present or the leader setting a solid example.
With a crowded kitchen during a restaurant’s busiest time, the atmosphere can get tense. There’s waiters rushing in and out, bringing in orders, taking them back out; too many cooks and not enough chefs and that forever short period of time the food must be prepared before the customer gets angry.
If a sense of camaraderie isn’t established before the shift begins, then rank in the kitchen takes over the feeling of being part of the team. The end result of that can be disastrous causing a lack of helpfulness towards each other, leaving each to their own task and basically asking for potential accidents to happen in or outside of the kitchen.
This video is a little silly but it presents a good message of what happens when people work in restaurants alone rather than working with each other:
Kitchens are definitely a challenging place to work which means that motivation must be put at the top of the priority list. This is because the two most powerful motivators are trying to make a difference and the opportunity to work closely with others to achieve a common goal.
This doesn’t mean hold a cookie on a dangling string in front of your staff; it means care about getting to know your employees so that you can lead and inspire them to become better at their profession. It’s a completely natural feeling for people to work extremely well together when there’s motivation present.
Managers have to provide the motivation by fully training their staff, spending time on the floor with their cooks and giving constructive cri
ticisms instead of degrading, sardonic remarks when someone isn’t performing up to their standards. It’s up to the staff to carry out their responsibilities while staying attuned with their colleagues. It’s a simple thing called respect.
There’s no way around the chaos that will ensue but if respect formed as a mutual bond amongst staff, from employee to supervisor and vice versa, motivation will stay high. This little shift in the professional kitchen paradigm will have everyone working together as a well-oiled team, not to mention, keeping the kitchen running as a smooth operation.
Every fine restaurant wants repeat happy, satisfied customers. The only way to acquire that is to start working as a team from the bottom of the faculty chain all the way up to the top of the management line!
Teamwork is a continual loop that shows teamwork can never be underestimated in ANY company – especially in the professional kitchen!
