CASE STUDY

Barry is a 27-year old who is a foodservice manager at a casual dining restaurant. Barry is responsible for supervising and managing all employees in the back of the house. Employees working in the back of the house range in age from 16 years old to 55 years old. In addition, the employees come from diverse cultural and ethnic backgrounds. For many, English is not their primary language.

Communication challenges abound at any workplace. Barry has some common challenges in his operation.

a. Language barriers: not all employees speak English as their first language making verbal communication a challenge at times.

b. Generational (age) barriers: having employees in various age categories can pose a unique set of challenges; their vocabulary may not be consistent with that of older employees. Work values and attitudes may also affect communication among younger and older employees.

c. Cultural and ethnic barriers: Cultural differences in food safety practices may be a challenge for Barry to overcome. Barry may need to identify cultural beliefs and work to understand the ethnic barriers related to food safety. For instance, two employees come from the same country and they have made comments that controlling temperature in their country is not a priority; food can be at room temperature for long periods of time and nothing ever happened.

d. Nonverbal challenges: Barry’s body language (appearance) is telling others he does not care about personal appearance and cleanliness.

e. Emotional barriers: Emotional barriers can interfere with effective communication. Barry comes into work after a rough start at home. These negative emotions are affecting how he communicates with the employees.

Barry is Serv-Safe® certified and tries his best to keep up with food safety issues in the kitchen but he admits it’s not easy. Employees receive “on the job training” about food safety basics (for example, appropriate hygiene and hand washing, time/temperature, and cleaning and sanitizing). But with high turnover of employees, training is often rushed and some new employees are put right into the job without training if it is a busy day. Eventually, most employees get some kind of food safety training. The owners of the restaurant are supportive of Barry in his food safety efforts because they know if a food safety outbreak were ever linked to their restaurant; it would likely put them out of business. Still, the owners note there are additional costs for training and making sure food is handled safely.

One day Barry comes to work and is rather upset even before he steps into the restaurant. Things haven’t been going well at home and he was lucky to rummage through some of the dirty laundry and find a relatively clean outfit to wear for work. He admits he needs a haircut and a good hand scrubbing, especially after working on his car last evening. When he walks into the kitchen he notices several trays of uncooked meat sitting out in the kitchen area. It appears these have been sitting at room temperature for quite some time. Barry is frustrated and doesn’t know what to do. He feels like he is beating his head against a brick wall when it comes to getting employees to practice food safety.

Barry has taken many efforts to get employees to be safe in how they handle food. He has huge signs posted all over the kitchen with these words: KEEP HOT FOOD HOT AND COLD FOOD COLD and WASH YOUR HANDS ALWAYS AND OFTEN. All employees are given a thermometer when they start so that they can check the temperature of food. Hand sinks, soap, and paper towels are available for employees so that they are encouraged to wash their hands frequently.

Read the case given above and answer the following questions:

1. Who is Barry and what is his role at the restaurant?

2. Explain the following two barriers that Barry faces: a) language barrier b) cultural and ethnic barrier

3. One day Barry is rather upset before he steps into the restaurant……..” List four aspects about him that do not suit him as food service manager

4. Why is food safety training not usually effective

5. What is the reason behind the owners of the restaurant being very supportive of Barry?

6. What are the efforts that Barry has taken to let employees practice safety in handling food?

7. What are some of the facilities given to employees to practice and follow safety rules?

8. List two solutions that Barry can use to solve language barriers.[2] { not from the text}