Moreal Ethics Kitchen Staff should Practice in Hotel Restaurants
A hotel's kitchen staff should practice and display the highest moral ethics for a number of reasons, among them their own individual career prospects.
In most hotels, many staff are never seen by the majority of guests. Cleaners, handymen and of course the kitchen staff. But just because a member of staff goes unseen by the guest, this does not mean that their conduct can not impact on the hotel experience.
Working in a commercial kitchen is incredibly pressured and stressful, and there are always temptations to cut corners. Does it really matter if the steak is a little short of 16 ounces? Does that carrot that fell on the floor really need to be thrown away or can you just dust it off and put it back on the plate? Does it matter whether the red wine jus is made from the vintage claret on the menu or the table wine at the back of the store cupboard?
For the average member of staff in a hotel's kitchen facility, this kind of temptation is everywhere, but it must be resisted. Most obviously, if a member of staff is caught falling short of their moral duty through a lapse in hygiene standards, it should cost them their job, immediately. If the lapse is noticed by the guest, not only could this lead to illness in the worst case, but it will ruin the guest's perception of the meal, and probably of the hotel. They will never come back. Add to this the fact that many hotels rely on their restaurants to bring in extra revenue from members of the public who dine there, and it becomes obvious that good moral ethical values are essential from the kitchen staff.
A good code of conduct can be written up and posted on noticeboards and in staff areas to promote good ethical behaviour from staff. Practising scrupulous food and personal hygiene is the very minimum that the guests will expect, and this extends to wearing hairnets to cover long hair, using blue sticking plasters to cover scratches and washing hands thoroughly after every activity.
Moving on to food preparation, kitchen staff should be encouraged to use the freshest ingredients possible, and to throw away anything that looks as though it may be past its best. Reasonable guests will wait for fine food, so if a dish comes out of the oven sub-standard, kitchen staff, in spite of the pressured environment of a hotel kitchen, should feel able to discard it and begin from scratch without fear of reprisals from managers.
Essentially, kitchen staff can be made to practice good moral ethics through effective leadership and management policies that set the right examples, and stresses the quality of the hotel's food and dining experience above cost-cutting considerations. Not only this, but staff should be encouraged to remain vigilant and to report any suspicion of ethical lapses in food preparation or kitchen cleaning, or any related activity. Whistle-blowing is not generally encouraged in many workplaces, but a quiet word to a supervisor about a food hygiene concern could avert a food poisoning outbreak that could destroy a hotel's reputation overnight.
Kitchen staff should at all times be encouraged to think to themselves: would I be happy to eat the meal I am about to serve to this guest? If the answer is 'no' for any reason (aside from personal taste, of course), then something has gone very wrong.
