Ensuring daily cleanliness of a hotel’s restaurant and kitchen premises is the primary function of the kitchen stewarding department. But despite numerous growth prospects of this job profile, it fails to be in the career list of Indian students By Kahini Chakraborty
Known to be the backbone of the kitchen and restaurant operations, the responsibility of a personnel working in the kitchen stewarding department is enormous. The specific expectation from the department staff, who reports to the chef, is to represent the highest standard of excellence in kitchen cleanliness and organisation. The main purpose of this position is ensuring that the kitchen is clean, well maintained and organised at all times. They are expected to maintain a proper level of clean inventory with high standards of cleanliness according to the sanitation code. If the department staff excels in their demonstrated job performance, there are numerous growth opportunities for them. “It is best to multi-skill kitchen stewarding staff so that they get an opportunity to upgrade their skills and find better employment opportunities of a cook or waiter,” says Manoj N Patkar, associate professor and HOD – food production, Apeejay Institute of Hospitality, Navi Mumbai.
But that all said, students in India do not even consider a career in the kitchen stewarding department after completing a three-year degree/ diploma in hotel management. “Educated students pursue alternative career options as compared to that of the kitchen stewarding department. Aspiration levels are high in such students and they do not want to be associated with floor cleaning, mopping, wiping glasses, plates and menial work,” highlights Patkar. Agreeing to the same, Vernon Coelho, HOD – food production, Institute of Hotel Management, Catering Technology & Applied Nutrition, Mumbai says, “Not many students begin their career in kitchen stewarding. It is a normal tendency to give only four departments importance during training. Also there isn’t any specialisation course for a kitchen stewarding supervisor where people need to be trained as it is the backbone of F&B.”
Learning curve
According to Patkar, learning opportunities are limited in this department as the work is monotonous and the kitchen stewarding job profile is generally outsourced in the hospitality industry. “There are many facility management companies such as Sanjay Maintenance Services or Aramark Patman, etc who provide manpower for kitchen stewarding jobs in the hospitality industry. A few hotels do recruit people on their payrolls for the kitchen stewarding department,” he points out. While Coelho states, that a staff in this department can learn about hotel opening and ordering all operating equipment for the hotel in coordination with the F&B and purchase departments. There is tremendous growth for staff thereafter into the F&B field. The job role teaches planning and detailing about budgeting. “The scope for career growth is good enough abroad, especially on cruise lines. A basic two year experience at any good five-star hotel is enough to secure a job on cruise lines,” mentions Patkar.
According to Vernon Coelho: Career growth scope
Profile is mostly related to a back-end support to the F&B department.
- MT stewarding
- Assistant manager stewarding
- Chief steward
- Director stewarding (handling more units)
- Shift to F&B and then grow to become a GM
When asked about the remuneration for this job profile in India as compared to abroad, Patkar highlights, “In India the contracted staff of the kitchen stewarding department gets paid around Rs 7,000 to Rs 10,000 per month. The same staff with more than two years of experience gets a four/ five times salary hike of Rs 35000 to Rs 40000 per month abroad. Supervisors get paid around Rs 15,000 to Rs 20,000 per month in India while they earn around Rs 50,000 to Rs 60,000 per month abroad.” Coelho too informs, “If you start with a chief steward’s position as there is a shortage of skilled people in this section the start salary would be between Rs 12 lakh to Rs 18 lakh per annum depending upon the experience held.”
Challenges
As it is considered a thankless job, the staff in the kitchen stewarding department needs to be self-motivated, dedicated and hardworking, ready to take on challenges and develop relations with the vendor. Integrity is of utmost importance. Since it is a tedious job it requires a lot of planning and union challenges. Handling uneducated people and training to develop their skill set is a challenge. Apart from this, Patkar mentions, “Proper knowledge of chemicals and usage of cleaning machinery is a vital challenge and if used wrongly can damage the hotel property to a large extent. Another job challenge especially in India is to work for long duty hours without any overtime. The job of a kitchen stewarding department involves extreme physical hard work and their physical fitness is of utmost importance along with some common sense.”