Claudia Gumina 10/1/2013 FOOD SERVICE EXPERIENCE QUESTIONS Initial impressions discuss the following: (complete by the end

of day 2) 1. What is the general atmosphere in the kitchen? Does it appear to be a positive work environment and what led you to your conclusion? The general atmosphere in the kitchen seems harmonious and organized. All employees seemed to know and understand what they were doing and what step of the food production process they were in charge of. This made for a smooth transition into different meals and effective communication between cooks, food prep employees, servers, etc. Employees seemed very cooperative and willing to help each other out and the environment seemed pleasant and cordial. 2. What management style/s do the food service director and other supervisors use? Are they effective? Why or why not? What do you like and dislike about their management styles? The people in charge at Havenwood Heritage Heights engage in a team management style in which there is a focus on contribution and involvement. They aim to get work done efficiently while at the same time, maintaining a positive environment among employees. This management style appeared to be effective at HHH because people were organized, seemed satisfied with what they were doing and were eager to do their jobs. I liked that everyone seemed like they were an equally important part of the team when it came to the food production process. I did notice, however, that many people delegate their tasks to others, when they do not need to because some roles may be unclear. It may be too early for me to understand the whole process, but this was my initial impression. 3. What methods do they use to communicate with their employees? Are they effective? What would you suggest might make it better? The staff at HHH uses emails, boards and face-to-face communication to transmit messages to each other. Melanie stated that not everyone in the staff has an email account so these people need to be reached through other methods. It appeared that the staff engages in diagonal communication in which information flows directly between departments minimizing time and effort. To make it better, I would find a way to make sure all employees had access to an email account and a device where they could read their emails. 4. Do the managers have regular meetings with each other? Are there regular staff meetings? Do you feel they are often enough? The managers just started having regular meeting twice a month, but they did not before. According to Melanie, they were very sporadic. The staff has individual department meetings to discuss issues specific to them. I feel like the staff should

probably meet once a week to discuss issues that came up in the past days because things can change very fast in food service. I do not believe that the managers should meet more than twice a month. 5. Briefly discuss your overall first impressions of the facility. HHH seemed like a very organized, conflict-free facility. The different rooms and machinery seemed clean and everything had a designated place. I walked through many different dining areas and I thought that it was great that there were different places where residents could eat because many of them do not leave the facilities very often and appreciate the variety. Some residents get their meals delivered and some come to the dining rooms. I assume having options is very important to them and they have made this possible at HHH. The staff seemed very engaged in what they were doing, and knew most of the residents by name, which was very impressive and showed how involved they are in providing their service to the patients. Overall, I was impressed with how well organized HHH was and I am looking forward to being part of their team for a month. For all of the following processes include what you like and dislike about each one and what you would do differently. (Complete the remainder of the homework questions by the end of day 5.) Human Resources: 6. Discuss the facilities hiring process. Include all of the steps. The steps for hiring an employee include: 7. Position becomes vacant A notification is sent to HR Requesting advertising Reviewing applications Scheduling interviews Checking references of the people interviewed If a person is selected, then they do a background check criminal and bureau of elderly care Job offering Employee accepting the job offer

Discuss the disciplinary process. Include all of the steps. Do you think it assures fairness? Is it labor intensive or easy to use and understand. Would you as a manager feel comfortable working within the guidelines of this policy? If an employee needs to go through the disciplinary process, he will first receive a verbal warning. If his offense continues, he will receive a written warning. Then he would receive a final warning and if the problem is not solved, termination occurs. I believe it

assures fairness because the employees are given sufficient time to modify their behavior and meet the employers requirements. Even, if they do not fix the problem after the first warning, they still have time to understand what it is they are doing wrong. I think it is very easy to understand and actually had the chance to experience it first-hand during an incident. The employees get to add their own comments to specific forms, which get archived in HR to keep record of the warning. As a manager, I would feel comfortable with the procedures, but I feel like no matter what it is always a very delicate process to engage in. 8. What is the termination-for-cause (firing) process? After going trough the steps in the disciplinary process, and having the employee show no change in behavior, a final check is requested for the remaining balance on the employees account. Afterwards, a termination warning is given and then, badge and keys are collected as applies. 9. How is the scheduling of employees done? Who does it and how frequently? How are requests for time off handled? Scheduling is done every week by Jon, and posted by Wednesday. He has a master schedule and as time off requests come in, he checks to make sure there is enough staff available on that day and someone to replace the person doing the request. He will flip to the month he wants on his master schedule and check for availability. If a schedule is already posted, then the person has to find his or her own replacement. To request summer days off, the request needs to be filed by January. 10. Review a job description and job flow. Compare these to the employees actual workday. Comment on any differences. I reviewed a nutrition aides job description. In it, it was stated that the nutrition aide would prepare, assemble and portion all foods as required and then deliver them to the residents. I did not observe the nutrition aide prepare the food, or deliver it to the patients. These duties were left to the cooks and some nurses. They are required to have knowledge on different dietary restrictions, which I did observe because many residents are on low-sodium or low-fat diets. In the job description, it is stated that food should be assembled attractively and accurately, which is also something I saw. Residents will complain if their plates look messy or if their foods are touching so this is an important aspect of their jobs. They did not have a job flow chart at this facility 11. What is the evaluation process? Do you feel it is adequate? How do you feel about their evaluation tools? Are they specific enough? Do you feel that they effectively evaluate a persons work performance? Is there anything you would do differently? Employee evaluation is done once a year. There are pre-made evaluation forms based on the duties listed on the job description. They evaluate two things: general attitude towards the job and quantity and quality of their job. An employee will get the forms first and do a self-evaluation. Then, the supervisor will get it and fill it out. This form gets sent to HR and a raise is determined. Last, it goes back to the supervisor who reviews it

with the employee so that it can be sent back to HR for filing. I feel like it is adequate because it allows both employers and employees to state their feeling regarding an employees performance; allowing for comparison. I do think the forms could be a little more specific to each persons job, but this might be addressed on the quantity and quality section. The do it individually for each employee, and evaluate different aspects which I think is efficient. I believe that it is a very complete evaluation allowing for feedback so I would not modify it. Financial Management: 12. What is the annual budget for your food service department? 1.946 million 13. How much is spent on average for labor? 1.089 million 14. How much is spent on average for food? 0.723 million 15. What other expenses do they track? Besides food and labor, they track office supplies, cleaning supplies, medical costs, paper equipment, postage, printing, publications, contracting services, travel, seminars, licensing and dues, and repairs and maintenance. The total for this is 1.4 million. 16. What is the average % food cost? If you need to figure it out yourself do so. 37% 17. What percent of labor is cost of benefits? 32% 18. Who tracks the financial data? How often is it done? What data do they track? Scott, the food service director, tracks the financial data once a month and he tracks the expenses mentioned on question 15. 19. Discuss with the manager how they use their monthly numbers to assure they will meet their budget constraints. Scott uses the numbers obtained for expenses in a month and isolated individual categories to compare them with what was allotted in the budget for it. If a categorys expenses exceed what was established in the budget, he makes decisions to change menus, specific items, or ingredients to lower the cost. E.g.: Choosing a cheaper type of meat for a meal. 20. Discuss the ordering process. Include who is responsible and how often. How are orders placed? Do they use a perpetual or par system? What would you do to improve the ordering process?

Johnna, the assistant director, is the one responsible for ordering food. She orders from two different vendors; each once a week, making it a total of twice a week. She uses a par system in which she makes sure her stock is at a certain number. For the US Foods ordering, she uses an online form and for the Favorite Foods ordering, she calls. To improve the ordering process, I would send an order follow-up to the vendors to make sure that what was stated online is correct, and avoid getting the wrong product, which Johnna stated has happened. 21. Who are the facilities main vendors? How often do they deliver? How are vendors selected? The facilitys main vendors are: US Foods which delivers once a wee k on Thursdays and was selected initially through a bid system, and later because the facility became part or the Premier Buying Group, and Favorite Foods, which also delivers once a week, on Tuesdays and was selected because it is a local company, that is fast and convenient and has excellent customer service from when they need something really soon. 22. Discuss the inventory process. Include who does it and how often inventory is used to order? Is it used for financial tracking? How is the dollar figure of product in stock assessed? What would you do to improve the inventory process? Johnna does the inventory once a week for ordering. For financial purposes, it is done twice a year. Someone from finance does it and Johnna puts a value to it. If the inventory value exceeds a specific budget, then the extra amount is taken from that periods food cost. Regarding the dollar value, they take the most recent value of an item and multiply it by the amount they have. 23. Discuss the organization of the storage facility. Who is in charge of the storeroom and what does their job entail? How are stores issued and tracked? Discuss the layout and efficiency of the various storage locations. Include refrigerators, freezers and dry storage locations. What would you do to improve this process and layout? Tom Jackson is in charge of the storage facility and he mainly puts products away on the shelves. Products are laid out following the order guides for a shipment so that Johnna can later track them. The dry products are stored right next to the receiving area, while wet, and frozen products are in a separate cold room (on the opposite end of the hall), which then connects to a walk in freezer. In order to get to the freezer, one has to walk through the fridge. I would have the dry and wet foods closer together to make obtaining ingredients more efficient. 24. Discuss the receiving process. Who does the receiving? What is the process for dealing with order/delivery errors? There is not a specific person checking the receiving. US Foods uses a scanner to check that every item delivered matches what was on the order. Tom Jackson also puts the products away, but by the time this is done, it is to late to complain to the company and they have had to wait for a week for the right products.

25. What are MSDS sheets? Where are they located in your facility? Select one and discuss briefly what is on it and why it is required to be on hand? MSDS stands for Material Safety Data Sheets. They are located next to the cleaning supplies room in the main kitchen. I selected the MSDS for QUIK FILL, a disinfectant, detergent, and odor counteractant. It is required to be accessible to employees in case of accidental contact with eyes and skin or swallowing. In the health hazards data, effects of overexposure are included, and it indicates first aid measures in case of contact. 26. Does your facility use standardized recipes? They do. They have a recipe book, which includes the recipes for each day based on a 5 week cycle menu that gets prepared beforehand. 27. What portion control tools do they use? They use tally sheets if specified. They also use different spoon types with different colors for different portion sized. In the elderly population, appropriate portion sizes are very important because they do not eat as much and many of them do not believe in throwing away food. Quality Assurance: 28. Discuss the theory behind Total Quality Management (Continuous Quality Improvement). Does your facility practice this? Discuss with the manager how TQM in the food service department fits with the entire facilitys indicators (state surveys, self monitoring). TQM is a management philosophy in which processes are refined with the goal of improving the performance of an organization in response to customer needs and expectations. (1) HHH does practice this. They are very invested in customer satisfaction and modify their product based on customer feedback and manager rounds. Because for evaluations, both the employers and the employee are required to fill out a form, employees get to self-evaluate their performance and modify anything that they are not satisfied. They get incentives by knowing that HR will calculate their raise based on these evaluations as well. 29. What type of customer satisfaction programs does your facility run? Discuss the evaluation process and how interventions are determined, implemented and followed up on. For customer satisfaction, they do rounds in which the managers go around asking the residents what their thoughts on the meals are. They also have a comments box in which residents can leave state their opinion anonymously. For evaluating the food, the facility uses test trays, which are done once a month by each of the managers. They use the information gathered to modify prep methods and recipes. The results are brought back to the production manager and it is discussed during manager meetings.

30. Do you feel your facility is doing enough to meet their customers needs? What would you recommend they do to improve their process? The staff at HHH does everything they can to meet their very varied customer needs. With age, senses and skills decline and what may be pleasant for one resident, is very difficult for another. Some residents need their food mashed; others will not take it if it is not crispy enough so being able to deal with this is a big chore. I would try to get more feedback from the patients regarding what they want and make sure the food satisfies them. Different generations like different things and someone preparing the menu may not know exactly what the residents want. 31. Are sanitation audits completed by managers? Yes. Every month, each person gets assigned to a different location. Afterwards, they develop a cleaning list, which gets assigned to different employees. Production Quality: 32. Do they have a formal process for evaluating food quality before service? Is taste testing of the foods encouraged? There is not a formal process except for food temperature, but all the chefs taste the food and they actually have disposable spoons nearby for impromptu taste testing. 33. What other ways can food quality be evaluated? Food quality could be evaluated through blind test trays in which the staff does not know they meals are going to be evaluated. It could also be evaluated by making sure all meals match what was ordered and by evaluating cross contamination. Since some orders are very different, it is important to evaluate that they meet the customers needs. Constancy should also be evaluated. 34. How are food temperatures assured? Food temperatures are assured by using heated plates, which go underneath the actual plate containing the food. This plate is also heated before serving and then it is topped which a cover which contains the heat. 35. What did you discover when monitoring fridge, freezer, serving line, and dish machine temperatures? What could be done to correct any issues? The fridge and freezer temperatures were appropriate and below the danger zone. There are signs warning about this in most areas of the kitchen. Serving line maintains cold and hot dishes separate, and some of the hot are even above what they are required to be. However, when some of the trays reach their destination, specific foods are below an acceptable temperature. To solve this issues, separate carts could be sent for different sections of a floor so that food arrives promptly after being served.