Finding skilled staff is still the biggest problem facing the region’s F&B outlets, despite the fact that there are thousands of people seeking jobs in the sector.
Fairmont Bab Al Bahr executive chef John Cordeaux, who moved to Abu Dhabi just six weeks ago as part of the pre-opening team for Fairmont’s new property, said that he had been inundated with applications.
“We received 2000 applications in two days,” said Cordeaux, speaking at a Hotelier Middle East executive chef roundtable held last month at Reflets par Pierre Gagnaire at InterContinental Dubai Festival City.
However, he added: “There’s plenty of staff out there in my opinion — my humble opinion having only been here three weeks — but finding quality and skilled staff is key”.
This opinion was shared by the other chefs at the roundtable, including Mina Seyahi complex executive chef Anston Fivas, Radisson Blu Duabi Deira Creek director of kitchens Uwe Micheel, Al Bustan Rotana executive chef Christophe Prud’homme, Mövenpick Hotel & Residence Bur Dubai executive chef Marcus Gregs, InterContinental Hotels Group Dubai Festival City executive sous chef Christian Knerr and Reflets par Pierre Gagnaire head chef Olivier Biles.
Micheel said: “It was a big problem in the past because of so many new openings; people were hired and moved from one hotel to another with a promotion but they were not ready.
“We have a lot of great people but they don’t have the basic training like most of us have from back home; we did three-year apprenticeships,” he pointed out.
Fivas added: “I think it’s a worldwide problem; it’s this era of chefs”.
He said that previously it would be a slow process to work your way up to chef de partie level, but that nowadays people were coming out of culinary school and going straight in to jobs with that title.
Cordeaux agreed, blaming culinary schools for giving their graduates a false impression.
“They come out of culinary school and they think they can cook and their teachers have told them that when they finish they will be a chef de partie, when in actual fact they have no training skills at all and very basic knowledge,” said Cordeaux.
Micheel said that too often, culinary schools focused on “making money” over teaching, but added that there were good government-funded schools being set up in Cairo, Egypt and Oman that focused on proper training apprenticeships.
“I just came back from Cairo where the government funds a school for cooks; their goal is to take kids from the street who would not have had a chance to get a job in a hotel otherwise and put them in the school for six months starting with the basics, from peeling or cutting onions,” said Micheel.
“In Oman again, the government is sponsoring a school and they have 200 students for two years; it’s a proper apprenticeship,” he added.
Micheel said that an opportunity of the current economic climate was that it afforded chefs more time to focus on training and closing the skills gap.
InterContinental Hotels Group Dubai Festival City executive sous chef Christian Knerr said that he was focused on training internally.
“Last year, we promoted 15 stewards to commis chefs. We trained them and in some cases they have a better attitude than some chefs de partie.”
He added that it was important to ensure kitchen staff and chefs didn’t get bored working in one role and that managers needed to give them experience working in different positions or different outlets.
“After summer, I’m going to smash down the whole manning and try and transfer people internally in the hotel,” said Knerr.
For a full report from the executive chef roundtable, see the July issue of Hotelier Middle East.
