Modern restaurant kitchens should nurture their staff to retain them, not scare people away

Ispent nearly 10 years in the Royal Navy and, when I came out into Civvy Street, it was a big shock to the system going from a regimental life where there was no room for error.

This helped me grow from a spotty 16-year-old schoolboy to a man quicker than normal, learning new skills and ways in life.

These were great for transferring in later years and carving the way forward, giving self belief and the correct mindset.

The big take home when I left the Navy was that I needed to tone down my discipline and my aggression to perfection.

I had to realise my staff had not signed up to the Navy, they had signed up to work for me.

In business, you want staff retention and to help nurture and bring people on in life, in and out of work. You need to find a balance between regimental shouting and a buttercup mentality, where the result is that nothing gets done and everyone is too scared to say anything to anyone.

People need to learn that it’s OK to make mistakes – actually, it’s good to make mistakes as it’s the only way to learn and become better individually and as a business.

If we promote the idea of speaking up if you make a mistake rather than hiding it, everyone feels comfortable and happy. Let’s be honest – we have all made mistakes in life and will make plenty more. The big mistake is if we don’t learn from them.

Chef culture is very different from 20 years ago. Kitchens are open-plan, and this encourages interaction between customers and chefs.

It also reduces the old-fashioned “shouty” chef mentality that has no place in the industry. We need to encourage employees into hospitality, not scare them away.

Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen TV show is not the image we need for our industry, for staff or for customers. I wouldn’t sit in a restaurant and listen to – or watch – staff being treated like that, but it is still happening in real life and in too many places.

We have to remember that we all want different things in life. That doesn’t make us right or wrong.

We can utilise people to do the things they like, rather than put them into areas they will not enjoy, resulting in them leaving.

You don’t want to go to work feeling like you need to secure for stormy seas and batten down the hatches – you want to go to work feeling part of team, soaking life

up like a sponge, not being wrung out in public.