How does restaurant staff development work without pressure?
Restaurant staff development works best when the employee sets the goal, the steps and the timeline, and the leader simply supports them. Not everyone wants a promotion, and staff who are happy in their role bring stability to the kitchen. Good restaurant staff development is built on ownership, not on mandatory career moves.
Which growth model works in a restaurant kitchen?
A workable model comes down to three questions the leader asks every team member: what do you want to achieve, which steps do you want to take, and on what timeline? Then comes a fourth: where do you need my help? Support might mean technique training, learning how to manage a kitchen, or cross-training in other areas such as marketing. Responsibility for the goal stays with the employee.
Does everyone need to want a promotion?
No. A commis or chef de partie who is happy with their responsibilities and prefers low stress brings the stability every kitchen needs.
Who owns the growth goal?
The employee. Anyone who wants to become a sous chef or head chef sets their own goal and timeline; the leader doesn't hold their hand all the time.
When should a leader step in?
When behaviour drifts away from the employee's own goal. The leader then reminds them of their own words, for example their goal of becoming a serious, focused sushi chef.
The team member is responsible for their own dreams. It's not my words, it's your words.
Frequently asked questions
What is cross-training in a restaurant?
Cross-training means an employee learns skills outside their own role, for example a cook who dives into marketing or into running a kitchen. It's a common way to support growth without immediately offering a more senior position. The employee decides which direction they want to go; the leader creates the learning opportunities and makes room for them in the rota.
Why is pushing everyone towards promotion risky?
Not every employee wants more responsibility or more stress. Push everyone to the next step and you lose exactly the people who are content and reliable in their current role. Those staff give a kitchen its stability. Syrco Bakker explains that he used to push everyone, and now respects that some people are simply happy with the job they have.
Which questions should you ask in a development conversation with kitchen staff?
Four questions make a practical starting point: what do you want to achieve, which steps do you want to take to get there, on what timeline, and where do you need help or support? The answers come from the employee. That way the leader can refer back to those agreements later when focus slips, without it feeling like pressure imposed from above.
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Video transcript
value. Some people just are happy with the job they do. They don't want to, uh, want to, um, want to promote.
They don't, they just want to stick with their responsibility because they're happy with it and they don't have too much stress. Good, fine. Um, yeah, we have to respect that.
And before, in, um, in, in, in the Western world, I was more pushing everybody to, um, to make steps in their career. So I think that that's also good. And, uh, and that is also, well, great stability in your, um, um, in your, in your company.
But beside that, if somebody wants to be a sous chef or a head chef or whatever, um, yeah, just support them with, with reaching their, their goals. And, um, and well, I think it doesn't mean that, for me that means just, okay, I just ask them, uh, one of the team members. Okay, what, what do you want to achieve?
Which steps do you want to take? On which timeline? Where can, uh, where do you need my help or support?
Um, and then I just like support if they want to learn technique or learn something of managing a kitchen or learn something else, fine. Or they want to learn something marketing, then we do a cross-training, um, yeah, just being supportive. But the team member has to be in charge and is responsible for their own dreams.
So it's not that I think a leader shouldn't, shouldn't hold the hand all the time. We just should remind sometimes like, hey, ah, I thought that you want to be this serious and focused, uh, sushi chef, um, maybe, maybe you have to focus now then. Because you want, want to reach this goal.
It's not my words, it's your words.