Senior Sous Chef

About the role

The Senior Sous Chef is accountable for the overall success of the daily kitchen operations at The Ritz-Carlton Bacara Santa Barbara. This position requires the candidate to exhibit culinary talents by personally performing tasks while leading the staff and managing all food-related functions.

Responsibilities

• Utilizes interpersonal and communication skills to lead, influence, and encourage others; advocates sound financial/business decision making; demonstrates honesty/integrity; leads by example.
• Supervises and manages employees. Managing all day-to-day operations. Understanding employee positions well enough to perform duties in employees' absence.
• Encourages and builds mutual trust, respect, and cooperation among team members.
• Serves as a role model to demonstrate appropriate behaviors.
• Ensures and maintains the productivity level of employees.
• Solicits employee feedback, utilizes an "open door" policy and reviews employee satisfaction results to identify and address employee problems or concerns.
• Ensures employees understand expectations and parameters.
• Establishes and maintains open, collaborative relationships with employees and ensures employees do the same within the team.
• Celebrates successes by publicly recognizing the contributions of team members.
• Leads shifts while personally preparing food items and executing requests based on required specifications.
• Supervises and coordinates activities of cooks and workers engaged in food preparation.

Ensuring Culinary Standards and Responsibilities are Met

• Develops, designs, or creates new applications, ideas, relationships, systems, or products, including artistic contributions.
• Supervises kitchen shift operations and ensures compliance with all Food & Beverage policies, standards and procedures.
• Recognizes superior quality products, presentations and flavor.
• Ensures compliance with food handling and sanitation standards.
• Follows proper handling and right temperature of all food products.
• Ensures employees maintain required food handling and sanitation certifications.
• Affords assistance to the Executive Chef with all kitchen operations.
• Maintains purchasing, receiving and food storage standards.
• Prepares and cooks foods of all types, either on a regular basis or for special guests or functions.
• Checks the quality of raw and cooked food products to ensure that standards are met.
• Affords assistance in determining how food should be presented and creates decorative food displays.

Ensuring Exceptional Customer Service

• Provides services that are above and beyond for customer satisfaction and retention.
• Manages day-to-day operations, ensuring the quality, standards and meeting the expectations of the customers on a daily basis.
• Improves service by communicating and assisting individuals to understand guest needs, providing guidance, feedback, and individual coaching when needed.
• Observes service behaviors of employees and provides feedback to individuals.
• Strives to improve service performance.
• Emphasizes guest satisfaction during all departmental meetings and focuses on continuous improvement.
• Empowers employees to provide excellent customer service.
• Sets a positive example for guest relations.

Maintaining Culinary Goals

• Achieves and exceeds goals including performance goals, budget goals, team goals, etc.
• Develops specific goals and plans to prioritize, organize, and accomplish your work.
• Understands the impact of departments operation on the overall property financial goals and objectives and manages to achieve or exceed budgeted goals.
• Trains employees in safety procedures.

Managing and Conducting Human Resource Activities

• Identifies the developmental needs of others and coaches, mentors, or otherwise helps others to improve their knowledge or skills.
• Identifies the educational needs of others, develops formal educational or training programs or classes, and teaches or instructs others.
• Manages payroll administration.
• Bridges issues to the attention of the department manager and Human Resources as necessary.
• Utilizes the Labor Management System to effectively schedule to business demands and for tracking of employee time and attendance.
• Reviews staffing levels to ensure that guest service, operational needs and financial objectives are met.
• Participates in employee progress discipline procedures.
• Participates in the employee performance appraisal process, providing feedback as needed.
• Participates in the development and implementation of corrective action plans.

Additional Responsibilities

• Provides information to supervisors, co-workers, and subordinates by telephone, in written form, e-mail, or in person.
• Analyzes information and evaluates results to choose the best solution and solve problems.
• Attends and participates in all pertinent meetings.