What Does It Mean to Feel Safe at Work?

Happier workers mean happier diners, but how can restaurant owners take care of everyone when they're struggling, too?

It's news to no one that restaurants are in a state of crisis. Yes, the world at large has returned to some facsimile of "normal," dismantling plexiglass barriers between tables, reinstating paper menus, and unmasking servers. But the last three years have left scars on the ledgers and, more significantly, on the people who make their living in hospitality. These issues — work-life balance, low wages, job security, interpersonal conflicts, and entitled customers, among others — are in no way specific to COVID-era challenges but were rather brought to a head in a time when the industry was on indefinite pause-stop-start, and the accepted ways of doing things suddenly didn't make sense.

This past June at the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, Amex Trade convened a group of restaurant professionals for a panel called Holistic and Resilient: Creating Strong Foundations for Innovation, where we hashed out the fundamental questions of what it means to feel truly safe in your workplace and what it takes for restaurant owners and management to create that for their employees and themselves.

What does it mean to feel safe at work?

Gary Obligacion: Director of Development, The Alinea Group

I've been in restaurants for 39 years now, and where the industry used to be, anyone who was working in that restaurant was required to sacrifice themselves to make the restaurant succeed. Whatever the cost, whatever the hours, whatever was necessary. We've now evolved, thank goodness, to a point where we can allow the individuals to stay individuals. Our job is to tap into them being safe, allowing the space for each one of the employees, no matter what their role is. They can come in, give of themselves, hopefully with the spirit of maintaining and making the chef's or owner's vision come true, but they don't have to give up themselves for that to happen. That's safe.

Rose Previte: Co-Founder of No White Plates Hospitality

Open communication with the managers and ownership. If you're not actively in this space, doing check-ins regularly, meeting with empathy and understanding that we all are carrying a lot of pain — you're not present. We are carrying a lot. The first woman who trained me as a server said, "Honey, you're gonna leave your feelings at the door. You're gonna walk in here and you're gonna make 'em smile." We would never do that. I think everyone understands that their feelings are very important.They have time off for mental health needs; it's the same as physical health. This means getting those messages across in an actionable way and with this trust comes safety.

Related: The Food & Wine Pro Guide to Mental Health and Sobriety Resources

Gregory Gourdet: Chef-Owner, Kann

I'm literally one piece of this puzzle, even as the chef and owner. The dishwasher, the busser, the stewards, the prep cooks, and everyone involved is equally as important. I could be removed from this equation and you guys can still run the restaurant. The other half of this is convincing people that it is a safe space because people bring so much trauma from years of toxic conditions in the workplace, the pandemic, the reckoning. But we're almost one year into the restaurant and some of my staff feel like they've never been yelled at, they've never had their hours cut. They've never been reprimanded for anything.

I've opened up about my personal anxiety and the meds I take, and we've encouraged therapy and we check in, but sometimes I think we carry the trauma and folks are still scared to go into conversation. When we offer safety, it creates a space where people are courageous enough to speak up for themselves and that courage is appreciated. "Hey, chef, I don't feel good today. I need a mental health day. I'm gonna go check in with my therapist. I was off my meds. I need to get back on." Allowing the space for those conversations helps create safety.

Alex Raij: Co-Chef and Co-Owner of Txikito, La Vara, and St. Julivert

Our restaurants are very tiny, both physically and in terms of staff and team. We don't have layers and layers of management. I feel safe, and I feel like they feel safe, when I am getting the most facetime with them, they're feeling mentored and like they have agency over the work that they're doing — and that it's appreciated. Safety is increased when they feel like they're growing, learning, getting the things that nourish them and make them happy at work. I feel unsafe when I know that I'm stretched too thin and I'm not delivering on those promises, and I can see that the culture starts to shift.

Related: How B Corp Certification Could Help Build a Better Restaurant Culture

What policies have you instituted to make people feel safe?

AR: We've had people who have had to leave, walk off the line to go help a family member or themselves. We've had to move people from one restaurant to another because one restaurant didn't feel comfortable to them. It's just always a conversation. We're gonna be flexible. For people with children, we try to give them day shifts. We've cross-trained all of our front of the house staff from the runner to the most senior person. Everybody feels valued the same way.

GG: We have a nip in the bud type of system in place where if we get any information or feedback from a teammate, we want to address it right away. We don't let things fester. The managers discuss it immediately. If we need to adjust it with that teammate, we do it right then and there. If we think it's leading into a deeper issue, we examine that as well. One of the biggest pieces of managing a restaurant is just managing personalities. If we're literally in discussions with people all day but they feel better and we can address things, that's a successful day.

Related: How to Get Free Mental Health Care If You Work in the Hospitality Industry

What outside help have you gotten?

RP: It wasn't until our second restaurant, but we did get HR. I wish I had done it sooner. A line cook came up to me and said "I really like being here, but the trouble is we love each other so much that when there's a problem, we don't know how to handle it 'cause we don't wanna offend anybody and we don't wanna get anybody upset." It was the biggest aha moment for me where I'm like, oh, we need to create an outside person who's neutral for that very reason. We put HR in the next day.

GO: We have a hotline in place so our employees can have someone to talk to. Walking up to Grant Achatz to have a conversation, "You know, I'm having a mental health thing," is intimidating. Not that we're not open to that conversation, but the employee, depending on their tier or their relationship with us, may not feel comfortable doing that. At the same time we observe, that person's off today, what's going on? We have that "Hey, are you all right?" conversation, maybe sitting with that person, chatting, and figuring it out. You allow people that space to be themselves.

We've instituted some other cool things, like a diversity, equity, and inclusion board that is employee-run. One of the executives of our company can sit in, but they are just there to take those issues to ownership. Because of that, we've become more part of our community, and we've looked at mental health organizations that we give to or that we have as resources. We've had mental health days as part of our benefits package in addition to PTO, so it's above and beyond sick days.

We have to keep looking and saying, "What can we do more?" There is no one size fits all for any company or definitely not for individuals.

Related: I'm Your Server, Not Your Servant

Have you gotten your guests involved in this — especially if this results in them having to pay more?

GO: We have had a 20% service charge for the past 12 or 14 years. People pay before they walk in the door. But that 20% we utilize to finance our programs. For instance, an employee at Alinea Group has their healthcare covered 50% at one year, 100% at two years. We're spending more, but that's OK; the money's been set aside for all these different things and it's just earmarked in different directions than it once was — it isn't for getting new glassware. We haven't had to say to our customers overtly that we are doing this, but when they ask, we tell 'em.

AR: If you don't have a full restaurant all the time, that's not an option for us in New York. I wish that it was. We watched people transition into that model and we were like, of course, those are the restaurants that are doing it because they're full all the time and they have a particular kind of real estate and price structure. For us, that hasn't worked, and yet our servers make the same money that a lot of those restaurant servers are making. We're closed by 10 o'clock and we were before COVID. We've been able to keep staff for a really long time. A lot of them are at 12 or 15 years, and I think it's because we offer other forms of comfort. They feel like a sense of agency and they're getting their needs met and they still have outside passions.

Related: Here's What Restaurants Need from You Right Now, According to Chefs

GG: We have a four-day work week as a model, so that's been really helpful. But in terms of the guests: boundaries, we're only open five days a week. It's knowing when to say, "Hey, we're closed!" when people are trying to walk in. There's education that we need to offer our guests. If you're late for a reservation, that throws things off because you're gonna take longer for dinner and then the next people behind you are gonna take longer. Then the kitchen's there for longer. The entire team's there for longer and it's overtime. We're strict about times. We only have 70 seats and the reservations are a little bit tricky, so there's a high expectation. We've had quite a few challenges with guests being disrespectful to the staff, and I've kicked people out.

It's making sure that when we talk about safety, that the staff feels safe with the guest. It's being super clear and having the team know that you have their back in challenging situations.

RP: My second restaurant benefited from some of the things I learned at the first one, but there are differences. One is more neighborhood and is less than 2,000 square feet. The bigger one that got a Michelin star attracts an entirely different crowd. The restaurants are 10 minutes walking down the street from each other, but they have different service fees. We do 20% at Compass Rose and 8% at Maydan. We were able to raise back of house wages with that, and that does seem to be a message guests understand, but there's still a lot of people who push back. I'm not a professionally trained chef. I come from cooking with grandmas and it's really hard when guests abuse my staff. We had to teach the staff when they were allowed to push back and be very proud of who we are.

One other benefit is education. If the staff wants to take classes, workshops, a trip, we have a significant budget for that. It just has to be tangentially related to the restaurant, which if you make a good argument, you can almost do anything. I really want to professionalize our industry. It means a lot to the staff and creates an amazing culture in the space. I should message that to guests a little bit better, and maybe they would better understand where their tip and service fee is going.

Related: Wait, Are We Really Supposed to Tip 25% Everywhere Now?

Is there any internal language or communication model you have developed to help people express their needs?

GG: We have a full kitchen meeting on Fridays with everyone there. And if you're off on Fridays, you're encouraged to come in. I have a standing one-on-one offer with every single teammate. We've done group meetings. We really encourage free thinking and again that concept of courage. We encourage people to stick up for themselves. Oftentimes people have spoken for the group and while there is strength in that, people are diverse, and it doesn't necessarily represent the entire group at all the time. We've run into some hiccups with that, so it's really a hybrid of settings.

GO: There's been an evolution of communication. Alinea has two meetings a day and the first is front of house. It traditionally was very structured. Everybody would come in, and the managers and captains would sit in these particular seats, and god forbid you sit in the wrong chair when you come in. But the conversation was mostly about the night before and it was interesting to join the company and see that the only people speaking were the management level, the captains, and everybody else would just sit back and listen. They almost had to be there for a span of time to earn a voice so they could say anything. Now anybody who's in the room is equipped and has the courage to actually raise their hand can put something out there. That has benefited everybody. You talk about feeling safe — it's feeling comfortable just having a voice, being able to open your mouth and say good, bad, other without fear of repercussions.

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AR: Sometimes you don't recognize that something is not OK until somebody else speaks up. Even just having somebody stand up for you in the workplace and bring it to our attention can make you feel protected.

RP: You can just have somebody else acknowledge it: I see you, I believe you. This thing is not OK. Shame is a killer. It makes people feel small and invisible.

How do you hold yourselves accountable once the issues are identified?

GG: I dream of a day when people feel they don't have to anonymously say something, where they feel they can come to any of us, voice a concern or a complaint, and they trust that there will be no repercussions. It will get handled and it will get fixed.

It's 95 degrees and really hot in the dish pit. OK, so we've gotta go to OSHA. What legally needs to happen? You get a 10-minute break every two hours. OK, I am working with our landlord. We have a bid out to get the HVAC fixed. It's getting done, but it's $30,000. It's gotta get scheduled. It's not happening overnight, but we're working on this before the next heat wave.

It's, "Hey, these prep tables are too low. Our backs hurt." OK, let's get some risers. It's $400. We can afford that in two weeks. It's proving that we take these concerns and we're handling them. I just want to build confidence in my culture that they trust that, by next month, hopefully the HVAC will get fixed. If not, you're gonna get your breaks. We're gonna have plenty of water. As soon as it can get scheduled, it's gonna happen.

AR: If you're sharing those calculations, you don't realize how powerful that is. It is powerful to tell your employees that this is doable because it's $400, and this is gonna take some time because it's $30,000 and you need a D.O.B. permit.

GO: We took two key initiatives that the employees said we really needed. One was a 10-minute break to step off the floor during our shift. We started integrating a floater who could go around and allow people to step away. There's also a lockbox, and they all know where the key is, and we keep it stocked. There's packs of Goldfish, chocolate bars, Gatorades. They grab a snack, have a 10-minute break, and come back down. That had so much impact on morale. It didn't cost a lot, and it's pretty easy. It took the employees raising their hand and saying, we want it, and us listening to it and saying we'll provide it.

Related: Are You Being Rude to Your Server Without Realizing It?

And what could you use to take care of yourselves and feel safe?

RP: Childcare in America for all industries needs to be better. If I could do that for the restaurant, I would be very grateful.

GG: I need to get out of construction mode. We've had to expand extremely quickly, from 4,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet. Soundproofing is our biggest complaint from a guest perspective and HVAC from the staffing perspective. And once those things are good, I think we can just focus on playing restaurant.

GO: My number one is HVAC by far. We have a restaurant, Roister, that in the summer it rains inside because of condensation on the duct. I'm like, this is not cool. But I also want something more intangible; I want normal to happen. I don't know what normal is anymore. I want things to stop shifting and moving so we can all just get in one spot and say, OK, here we are. Let's adjust and stay here. But change is the new normal and I'm looking to just become static for a minute.

AR: Honestly I want my husband to sleep at night. Maybe that's the normal — that's what I want.

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