Professional pride and dropouts from the chef profession

Abstract

The theoretical base for this article is Spetalen, Eben &Jahnlu, 2016, St. Olav Hospital 2013, and Tidemann &Myklebust, 2005.In these articles you can read that restaurant chefs are often considering a change in workplace or occupation. What can be the reason for this when they are so proud of being chefs?

The restaurant sector is under rapid development and people are eating out more. (Bugge & Lavik, 2007). However, recruitment to the chef profession is sinking (Sundquist, 2016). It is therefore important to address factors influential in restaurant chefs leaving the profession after a relatively short period of time.

The issue: Why do so many restaurant chefs consider changing occupation when they are so proud of their profession?

This article reanalyses data presented in the report “Yrkesutøvelse i restaurant og matfagene – Arbeidsoppgaver, prioriteringer og forskjeller” (Spetalen, Eben & Jahnlu, 2016). In addition to this univariate analysis, I have also compared group means and tested hypotheses using T-tests and ANOVA in SPSS (Johannessen, 2009; Pallant, 2013). Ocational student teachers in Restaurant and food processing (Intake, 2013) based their bachelor theses on the data from Spetalen et al. 2016. In cooperation with three students, qualitative interviews of 23 current and former chefs were conducted.

In explaining the data, I have used the organizational theoretical term “turnover” as this is clearly a problem in the restaurant sector. In explaining the results, factors that attract and repel employees in their occupations, are discussed (Lashley, 2000; Brochs-Haukedal, 2010; Kuvås, 2013).

The results from the qualitative interviews indicate that the following factors are important when chefs actively seek another profession:

• Management – lack of management and lack of professional management.
• Family life- economical security, predicable working hours and overtime. (This is two- fold as it can also be linked to management issues)
• Ambition and desire for further education, there are few possibilities for further education based directly on the chef education.

Other reasons mentioned are work pressure, lack of skilled chefs and constant change of workplace. Factors such as professional pride, professional development and motivation can be considerate as attraction factors as long as they are followed up by employers. According to Lashley (2000), companies must focus on controlling negative factors in their own business as it is difficult to prevent other companies or professions offering attractive conditions.

The purpose of this article is to add new knowledge of how chefs perceive their working conditions so leading to a desire to change profession Further it is important that vocational teacher education is aware of the challenges which exist in the chef profession.