Kitchen Team Leader

Wagestream
The people you work with

My manager, the inconsistencies with hours and constant labor cuts

Social, hours fit around being a student, employee discount at all stonegate venues and jump the queues into clubs.

Can get extremely busy, work entire shifts (8hrs+) with no break as there’s no time to stop, anti-social hours if full time and have other commitments ie family (work into the early hours of the morning), high stress, high pace.

Good exercise, mostly great colleagues

Low pay, head manager barely appears and is often disrespecful, majority of managers spend more time in office than on the floor, lack of funding for travel home, 10 hour shifts with 20 minute unpaid break

the friends i made while working there

The company as a whole have no idea. From area managers and up, it is staffed more and more by people who have never worked behind a bar, so have no real-time idea on what the job entails.
The area managers that have worked in pubs, have gone through the in-house training programmes, which reward the brown nosers.
i have worked with several managers who have never set foot behind their own bars, but know when their area managers are coming, so are efficient at making it look like they do more work than anyone, one in particular who was robbing the company blind, but is still, to this day, held up as one of the best managers within the company.
They would rather spend their money on new carpets, wallpaper and chairs, than fixing genuine problems, like roof leaks and serious building issues.
The bigger the company gets, the less they care about the staff, it was a great company to work for, for a while

Can be great at building your career if you are interested in staying in the industry. Can meet alot of people along the way who become more than work mates and also bring many people out of their shell

Paid minimum wage with constant labour cost cuts leading to more stressful shifts. Action taken by head office with little consideration of the practicality of how it will work. Can be very common for people to feel undervalued.

Cocktails, flexible hours, the rest of the team

Constantly understaffed, continually under pressure from GM and AM to over perform. GM unfocused and management team deflated, unmotivated and tired. Spreads lack of moral to the rest of the team. Given to many responsibilities which feel is above what I'm paid. Dwindling amounts of staff but unwilling to change opening or kitchen hours to help remove some pressure.

Your fellow staff. All staff members excluding the GM talk to you like a friend, and as part of a TEAM.

The GM is absolutely terrible for Rotas. We’re almost always needlessly understaffed. We’re also almost always under equipped in terms of menu items; it’s almost guaranteed Atleast 4 of the items on the menu are out of stock.

The cocktail “training” promised is non existent, it is up to yourself to learn on the fly and quickly. If you’re lucky like I was, your fellow staff will step in to help you get accustomed to making a large amount of drinks.

The pay for the location is absolutely mediocre. For any business, let alone a pub chain worth billions on to be paying the national minimum wage in what is one of the most expensive and profitable locations in the entire UK is laughable and shameful

The other employees make the work environment much better

The long days and working around 60 hours a week during peak season and generally only have one day off a week because of how busy it gets.
It is stressful most of the time.