Do you want to work for the Best Employer in Hospitality 2015 (Caterer.com)? If so, Loungers is for you! We are open all day, every day and serve great quality food and drink in a welcoming, relaxed environment.

We are currently recruiting for a talented Operations Chef. This position is not for the faint hearted, and office monkeys need not apply! We are more interested in a chap or chap-ess who wants to have a part to play in a swiftly evolving company whilst running a truly beautiful business. Frankly, who wouldn't want that?

The role and responsibilities are as follows:

Run a Lounge kitchen

Able to run a busy (£10k plus food sales) Lounge kitchen in line with Loungers standards in respect of:

• Appropriate food quality & timing,
• Green GP conversion,
• Ordering, prep & par level systems in place, GP journey, stocks,
• Food & H&S compliance, Kitchen Equip Maintenance and reporting.

Staff levels, S4, site recruitment, trials, training, driving incentives, emotive elements

Turnaround an under-performing Lounge kitchen

• Ability to step into a poorly performing Lounge kitchen (be it quality, timing, stock, compliance, personnel), identify the cause of the problems and make appropriate decisions to bring it back on track in short to medium term. 
• (Senior Head Chef - alongside the ability to ensure their own kitchen continues to perform well whilst assisting an under-performing kitchen)

Cook-offs

• Deliver effective cook-offs with confidence

Recruitment, training & development

• Identifying people who have the capability & potential to develop and those that don't.
• Ability to train, encourage, develop, mentor and performance manage and communicate feedback effectively.
• Knowledge and understanding of company HR policies, systems and the law.
• Ability to communicate who Loungers are, what is required and the opportunities within the business.

Organisational ability & Intellect

• Display effective time management, document and mechanical systems management.
• Display analytical capabilities and numeracy (P&L's, stocks, S4)

Senior Management interaction and change implementation

• Understand the direction of the business and the Cause.
• Form part of a BOH senior team liaising with COO, Ops Director, COM and ROM to improve BOH systems and implement them.
• Work alongside Executive Chef to trial new dishes, adjust recipes and provide feedback.

Leadership & communication

• Command respect from area HC's / SC's within the area.
• Display decisive and confident behavioural characteristics and effective two-way communication skills.

People and Team identification and development

• Ability to build their own team of people with strength in depth and succession plans for new openings to be resourced from within in an area of up to 10 sites.

Planned site visits to monitor:

• Food quality,
• Food timings and busy shifts,
• Stock control, prep level and ordering systems,
• H&S Compliance,
• BOH wages, shifts, productivity & S4,
• Standard form of feedback developed for a site visit.

People development

• Six monthly appraisals,
• Setting of objectives and monitoring,
• Performance management/disciplinary action.

Recruitment & training

• Ads and CV sifting,
• Interviews,
• Monitoring trial shifts,
• Monitoring training periods.

Menu changes/updates

• Area cook-offs,
• Area stock control communication,
• Report on specific product delivery as requested by ROM/COO/Exec Chef.

Underperforming sites

• 2 to 3 day intensive visits to identify problems and start turnaround process,
• Setting in place improvement plans with timelines and deliverables
  • Short-term cover shifts/shuffling/systems/spec
  • Medium-term - recruit/dismiss/train/re-train
  • Longer-term - succession planning
• Focus on bi-weekly food stocks

New openings

• Recruitment, training at existing sites,
• Pre-opening training, kitchen set-up and prep,
• First week support,
• Continued analysis of people, trade levels, spec, GP, systems etc.