line cook

general assistant

sous chef

chef manager

chef

BaxterStorey

Terrible management and lack of support
General Assistant - EMA3 Eastwood

I worked as catering staff at EMA3 for around 4 weeks before being informed that I had failed my probation (however a probation meeting was never had). Unfortunately, my overall experience with management and the workplace environment was very negative.

From early on, I personally felt there was favouritism within the team and that concerns I raised were not taken seriously. Over time, I also began to feel singled out and heavily criticised compared to others around me, which made the environment increasingly uncomfortable to work in.

One of the biggest issues for me was the lack of training and communication. Although I had already been doing similar work for around 3 years, I was given very limited guidance on site-specific expectations and often had to figure things out myself. On multiple occasions, I followed instructions given to me by other team members, only for those same things to later be criticised. This made it difficult to understand what was actually expected. I felt a lot of the time my team members were setting me up to fail on purpose. 

I also felt there was a lack of consistency in how issues were handled. There were situations where I believed previous conversations or expectations had been remembered differently by management than I personally recalled them, which was frustrating during discussions. At the same time, I did not feel my own concerns were looked into with the same level of seriousness as complaints raised against me. Said complaints were never explained and management could never provide evidence of wrongdoing. 

The overall management approach felt more focused on criticism and micromanagement than support or development, and I personally found the atmosphere very cliquey and uncomfortable. Communication between management also appeared inconsistent at times, which added further confusion around expectations and responsibilities within the role.

I did try to contribute positively and even suggested ideas that I thought could improve day-to-day work, but I ultimately left feeling undervalued and unsupported.

Night Staff rule the roost. If the don't get out early there's all heck to pay and yes they want paying for full shift!
 If they don't want to do something they don't and then say to the Manager they ran out of time. But it would not stop them taking an hour for a 30 min break!

One of the Chefs always late. Full makeup on reapplies it in glass oven doors!
Runs around like a headless chicken all night. Had to be informed them how to use a knife glove as they would use the same glove for raw veg and raw meat without putting on or changing rubber gloves over it.
Back and to to mobile phone never washing hands in between.
Uses degreaser as bio sanatisor and turned round and said it's the same thing. 

Front of house leader rules the roost and if you don't do what they tells you then they will get you back.
 Lack of work from leader as in the cash office calling family member in New Zealand over Facebook for part of the night. If you want to advance they will do their best to stop you.

Out of date raw meat being frozen two days over use by date and writing the out of date, date on the allergens label!

Food in the Freeze stored on the floor. 
Even though the site is new the whole kitchen has been poorly set out things that are needed are not there, some things that are there are not needed.
Utensils are in the way as they are hung in front other items that are being are being used constantly.

Some of the staff are less helpful than others if it wasn't for the others that do more than their fare share nothing would of got done.
  
Kitchen Manager would total override what the day staff had asked night to do so the day shift where on catch up as soon as the walk in each morning. Would tell you that it's out of their hands and it's gone to the area manager but they have not do anything about it. Will never take charge of anything and then blame someone else.

Managed by an incompetent manager who is rude and offensive to the staff. Seems to have no understanding of basic economics and frequently lied about petty things. Shocked me that somebody so useless would be so nasty to others, even making a girl cry multiple times whilst I was here.

The other staff here were nice and had a good laugh. The site itself was modern and spacious.

Often feels like there is no manager at all here as the staff members have no guidance with their job roles and only get feedback when something is wrong. Managers requests often lacked basis in reality or common sense with no explanation offered. Constant issues between staff and manager causing stress for everyone. Constantly running out of important/essential items such as bin bags, gloves and even cutlery almost daily for months? Really weird.

There was some sort of avoidable drama almost every day here and 95% of it was caused by a lack of management or by the poor way in which things were dealt with.

I understood that it was a large and difficult place to manage but the sheer negligence shown towards everything other than sales figures and profit was somewhat bizzare. 

Seemed to me that the elderly lady manager was holding out for retirement and doing the bare minimum constantly at the expense of the wellbeing and happiness of the staff. 

The higher up managers of the company visited the site once or twice but never spoke to any of the staff or made much effort to see how well things were managed. Seemed they were friends with our site manager which makes sense. 

Has potential to be a decent workplace if competently managed.




.

* My typical day at work : 
Start my work at 7 am . Then normally  work in the kitchen, prepare yoghurt pots, fruit pots, salads and sandwiches for a grab and go section. Then, about 9:30 am my job is to  clean surfaces after hot breakfast is served, serving customers as making coffees, selling cakes, confectionery and drinks also need to set up deli and salad bar and keep all place tidy and nice for a customers in the meantime. After that, about 11 am go to the another Savvis building where help my supervisor to get everything ready for a lunch time and serve customers - make sanwiches and coffees. Then, about 1:30 pm, come back to the place where normally work in the morning, clean up after lunch and serve customers. Coffee bar closes at 3 pm . After that need to clean the coffee bar and prepare the place for the next day. Finish my work at 3:30 pm . 

*What I learned:
- how to make all sorts of coffees
- how to be better organised
- improved my interpersonal skills
- how to deal with unexpected situations

* Management:
My manager is well organised, cares about good atmosphere at work and is always happy to help with any problem .

* My co-workers:
Hardworking and cooperative .

* The hardest part of the job: 
When the team is short of stuff and have more requestes in the same amount of time . 

* The most enjoyable part of the job: 
Watching customers happy and satisfied because of a good service .

In my experience after 5+ years of working there. It was like I was in a constant battle with poor management regarding other members of staff not following food safety procedures such as re-dating food,  not cleaning and not carrying out basic day to day duties. You just got told "they were 1 member of staff down" as an excuse for them not doing what they should which i felt was unprofessional and put them on a pedestal as other shifts were often short on staff but still followed procedures and completed the basic tasks.  Lack of support in training form the overall company, even when you inform them of your issues and the stress you feel your under. Basically they  promise to contact you but do not leaving you feeling worthless and not actually a member of the company. Pay is fair if you are doing the job you are employed to do but, in my experience you are often short staffed and are helping in all areas on site to get everything done. This is my experience at one site, I don't know if it is the same if you were to work at one of their more upend, posher sites. It is a nice kitchen to work in, lots of space and good kitchen and safety equipment. Weekend work there is okay but, minimal staff at weekends (1 chef 2 foh) and the day chefs cook all the food for days and nights all week. 

I have being doing job for around almost 3 months including night & day. It is chill working during night because no head manager but the thing is poor management form head during the day. It’s unorganised, they dnt care at all, only thing they care is about you are you working or not small mistake is pointed out like if you are late for 10 mins they cut your wages of 30mins.I know we should be on time. I dnt drive something my bus gets late but rather than talking to me they just cut it. How about them when they are late are they gonna cut there salary. Your health doesn’t matter they only care about company, comparing day & night salaries differences 0.8p that’s all matter. People matters but for night shift they should be more than days. Same job same duties same thing, just because night is little busier than days doesn’t it matter they should give less. Head manager are useless don’t talk to you. Managers already left due to poor management. No guidance at all. I want there for trial day they didn’t give me any induction’s. When I went on my night shift shift supervisor asked me where is fire exit door but I couldn’t answer. They just want people for labour work with less salary. I am glad I left these jobs with toxic head managers. 
Lastly I will say bargain about salary before you accept the job otherwise dnt work there. You deserve more than these company because it doesn’t value your time and experience.

Well as with most workplaces it is the people that make it, i have so far worked at 2 BaxterStorey sites and they have both been very demanding, however I believe this to be one of the safest catering companies to work for. There was good opportunities for advancement in my field, as well as a good balance between work and life, however one site often required overtime and on a few occasions asked me to work multiple 14 hour shifts in a row. A typical day at work consisted of creating high quality food and serving it to customers, i learned many things with BaxterStorey as they helped me through my apprenticeship, as well as learning a lot through their company Health & Safety and Food Safety & Hygiene tests. The use of development chefs within BaxterStorey always keeps ideas fresh, and the training days etc. are a great opportunity to learn. As i previously mentioned co-workers have been very different at the 2 BaxterStorey sites I've worked at, the co-workers at one site I could count as friends as well as colleagues, however at the other the relationship was purely professional. The most enjoyable part of the job is being able to serve the customers the food you've worked so hard at preparing and seeing the good reactions

During the period I worked here I had good days and bad days.
I enjoyed it a lot in the beginning especially when celebrities were coming in the lounge.

Duties wise it`s pretty much the same every day.Menu changes every month so do wines.
I managed to improved my hospitality and waiting skills because everything was complimentary so you could focus on the service.
They were serving high quality food and beverages so knowledge about that can be improved too.

Managers were not really present.Lounge was managed by supervisors that didn`t had much experience and did not care about the employees and the lounge well being/maintenance, their main priority being customers complaints.

Co-workers don`t really have a hospitality background and most of them have no idea about service.
The hardest part of the job was the busy times because many times employees would not turn up for job or abuse the sickness leave. 

No canteen or staff room was provided only a small room with lockers.You had to eat food on corridor next to the bins or downstairs on the chairs with the passengers that were waiting for their flight.
Overall not quite a ''first class'' place to work for.

a typical day at work was consisted of me coming up with ideas to fit the unrealistic weakly budget and wile being under staffed managed to get ready breakfast and lunch on the short time given an with grate food quality. i learned to improve my improvisation skills my time management and inter personnel skills my management was very money target orientated, over all we had a pleasant work relation. the coworkers we always tried to fight the same corner an had a pleasant relation with friendly banter at times they are something i will miss at the place.
the hardest part of the job was accepting that the costumer was not the number one priority or their desires where not met because of the strict unreasonable strain given to the kitchen team. the enjoyable part is knowing that when i first started everything was going wrong at the place and we managed to turn it around and make it an exemplar success for the company. 
the most enjoyable part of the job was working and creating great things together with the team at the same following the company regulations and knowing that they were a team falling apart when i got there and they are now a strong unified team

Applied expecting a 40 hour week as advertised but later discovered it was a 48 hour shift but averages out at 40 hours over a year due to 4 on 4 off.
Unpaid breaks no good for chefs as most of the time if you take the break it puts you behind in prep work. So in effect you work an extra 2 hours per week unpaid.

Was promised a pay rise in a group meeting but didn't receive it even after constant queries to management when it was appearing. Only after giving notice in did payrise finally appear and then wasn't processed by senior management nor the back pay received which should be owed.

All team members pull together  but they need to as we were constantly understaffed, and mostly undervalued and treated like children.

Customers working in the offices got the best of the service while warehouse staff received a basic service.

After lunch service management depart leaving minimum staff to finish evening meal with no proper structure for menus at the evening service. Where lunchtime has printed and large screen menus on display.

Very long days and very physical work but a good limited team on the floor.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Line cook 260 salaries reported	£15.56 per hour
General assistant 320 salaries reported	£12.96 per hour
Sous chef 107 salaries reported	£34,654 per year
Chef manager 86 salaries reported	£32,655 per year
Chef 100 salaries reported	£15.13 per hour

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