Too hot to handle? An analysis of chefs’ job quality in Australian restaurants

Current debates on defining and measuring job quality

Job quality entails an assessment based on a set of dimensions reflecting job characteristics conducive to worker wellbeing (Green, 2006; OECD, 2013). However, the range of job characteristics used and how they are measured remains the subject of debate and a diversity of approaches exist (e.g. Findlay et al., 2013; Handel, 2005; Kalleberg, 2011). These approaches often reflect researchers’ disciplinary orientations, which produces different foci and different measures or indicators (Hurley et al., 2012). For example, orthodox economists tend to focus on pay; sociologists typically examine issues associated with skill, autonomy and job content; and occupational health and safety researchers focus on the physical and psychosocial risks of work (Warhurst and Knox, 2015).

While some approaches rely on measuring job quality using a single indicator, such as pay (e.g. Osterman and Shulman, 2011), it is more common for studies to use multiple indicators (e.g. Holman, 2013). Although there is no agreed definition or measure, a relatively high degree of overlap exists in the number and type of dimensions used by researchers. For instance, studies have included the following indicators of job quality: pay, fringe benefits, working time, job security, skills development, career progression opportunities, health and well-being, reconciliation of working and non-working life, future prospects, task discretion or autonomy, and intrinsic rewards (Clark, 2005; Kalleberg, 2011). Subsequently, a common theoretically informed framework of job quality has emerged, involving six key indicators: pay and benefits, working time, skills and training, progression opportunities, job security and work organisation (e.g. Burgess et al., 2013; Muñoz de Bustillo et al., 2011).

A contentious issue relates to the distinction between objective and subjective indicators of job quality. Some researchers insist that ‘objective’ indicators are the only meaningful way to measure job quality because they generate directly measurable and independently verifiable data (Eurofound, 2012). Objective indicators focus on a job’s material conditions and characteristics, whether economic or non-economic, rather than the perceptions of workers performing the job (Handel, 2005). For example, Osterman and Shulman (2011) focus on pay, an objective economic measure of job quality. Hackman and Oldham’s (1975) seminal job diagnostic survey focuses on task-related characteristics of the job, an objective non-economic measure. Objective indicators tend to dominate job quality research (e.g. Clark, 2005; Erhel and Guergoat-Larivière, 2016; Goos and Manning, 2007; Kalleberg, 2011; Morgan et al., 2013; Muñoz de Bustillo et al., 2011, 2016), often reflecting availability of data and strong reliance on objective indicators among large national and international datasets (Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development (CIPD), 2018; Osterman and Shulman, 2011).

Other studies rely on ‘subjective’ indicators due to an assumption of the importance of workers’ own assessments of job quality (Stuart et al., 2016). Subjective indicators focus on worker perceptions of the job and the extent to which that job meets their personal needs (Brown et al., 2007; Eurofound, 2012). Some studies have found that workers’ assessments of job quality vary depending on their life stage and their personal circumstances (Knox et al., 2015; Lené, 2019; Pocock and Skinner, 2012). The subjective approach is underpinned by the notion that worker preferences and their alignment with job characteristics are critical. As articulated by Kalleberg and Vaisey (2005), ‘[p]eople differ in their expectations and needs regarding work as well as their preferences about the importance of various job facets and so may differ in their conceptualisation in what constitutes a “good” or a “bad job”’ (p. 432). As such, this approach typically includes workers identifying which dimensions are important and their relative importance, as well as their assessment of each dimension and job quality overall.

Based on the subjective approach, Burrow et al.’s (2015) research illustrates how workers can be socialised into accepting, and even taking pride in, objectively ‘bad’ quality jobs while also revealing that extreme variations in subjective assessments can be experienced by jobholders. In a similar vein, Bailey and Madden’s (2017) study of refuse collectors, stonemasons and academics illustrate how jobholders can perceive elements of both meaningfulness and meaninglessness in their work, and how their temporal orientations to the past, present and future can shape their subjective perceptions. Notably, meaningfulness was positively associated with workers’ subjective experiences. Moreover, Cooke et al. (2013) used subjective indicators to highlight the nuanced and contextual nature of job quality, ‘which varies greatly depending on the priorities individuals identify in their lives and the economic and social context within which they are set’ (pp. 520–521). Importantly, however, without the associated objective conditions as a reference point, it is difficult to compare different subjective job quality assessments (Green, 2006) and poor aspects of job quality can be obscured if workers have low expectations or norms (Watson, 2005).

While some studies focus on either objective or subjective indicators of job quality, other studies include both types of indicators (Holman, 2013; Knox et al., 2015). Although the inclusion of objective and subjective dimensions of job quality is not universally accepted, it is gaining acceptance – if only for practical reasons. For example, Muñoz de Bustillo et al. (2011) do not specify whether dimensions of job quality should be objective or subjective, but develop an underlying principle in their Job Quality Index to use only subjective indicators if and when no suitable objective indicators exist. Illustratively, given the difficulty obtaining objective indicators for levels of autonomy at work, their measure includes both objective and subjective indicators. Thus, a more recent development has been to assess both objective and subjective job quality in tandem using an ‘integrated’ approach (Findlay et al., 2013; Knox et al., 2015). While objective measures can be seen as paternalistic and unresponsive to workers’ preferences, a subjective approach potentially suffers from adaptive biases (Budd and Spencer, 2015). A key strength associated with the integrated approach is its ability to overcome the problems of the objective and subjective approaches used in isolation, and harness the information contained in each.

Objective and subjective approaches are clearly evident across the job quality literature. Yet these approaches are by no means equally attended to in all studies (Belardi, 2017). More importantly, we are not alone in recognising that objective and subjective approaches are separate but related phenomena and thus their relationship requires greater understanding (Brown et al., 2012; Knox et al., 2015). Exploring the relationship between the two uncovers how subjective assessments vary with objective conditions, or, how the same or similar jobs can be experienced differently by different individuals (Cooke et al., 2013; Knox et al., 2015). Using a subjective approach in isolation can make it impossible to interpret whether objective conditions or preferences and expectations are shaping the assessment (Osterman, 2013), while an integrated approach can show how preferences, norms and expectations influence job quality (Brown et al., 2012).

While some studies have begun to utilise this integrated approach (e.g. Álvarez-Galván, 2012; Bamberry, 2011; Jones et al., 2017; Kalleberg and Vaisey, 2005), it remains under-utilised. Importantly, one recent study of hotel room attendants advanced the conceptualisation of this approach by demonstrating how objective and subjective dimensions of job quality can be combined to explain workers’ differential experiences of the same job (Knox et al., 2015). There is potential to extend this perspective to workers in higher skilled jobs, such as chefs, an occupation that has received limited attention in academic research despite being the subject of significant public attention. Using this approach, we aim to analyse job quality among chefs and, in doing so, demonstrate the importance of integrating objective and subjective dimensions of job quality, empirically and theoretically.

Research focusing on the hospitality industry suggests job quality is objectively poor and characterised by long and inflexible working hours, low pay, high work intensity, restricted autonomy and poor physical conditions (Harris and Giuffre, 2015; Hay, 2015). These findings are also reflected in the relatively limited number of studies focusing specifically on job quality in restaurants (e.g. Burrow et al., 2015; Haley-Lock and Ewert, 2011). However, there has been limited research on the ‘subjective’ or perceived dimensions of job quality, which may explain why workers tolerate poor material conditions. Additionally, while the current literature related to the quality of jobs in restaurants is limited, the most relevant studies are internationally based, with virtually no research having been conducted in Australian restaurants. These international studies may not be generalisable to the Australian context given the different institutional arrangements. We seek to address these gaps through an analysis of job quality among chefs, structured around six themes – pay and benefits, working time, skills and training, progression opportunities, job security and work organisation. In addition to being considered the most common dimensions of job quality, these themes can be assessed both objectively and subjectively, and can thus form a valuable analytical framework (Burgess et al., 2013; Holman, 2013; Muñoz de Bustillo et al., 2011).

Context, research design and methods

The Australian economy, like others, has transitioned from primary industries and manufacturing towards services (Wright and Lansbury, 2016). Restaurant jobs are therefore emblematic of those increasingly available in the modern Australian economy and, as such, an important focus for improving the overall quality of jobs (Green et al., 2016). Restaurants are a component of the food and beverage services sector within the wider hospitality industry. In 2019, most chefs were male, accounting for 75% of workers, with 72% employed full time. Chefs were predominantly young: the largest proportion were aged 25–34 (37%), with those aged 35–44 (25%) and 45 or older (26%) representing smaller proportions. The share of chefs aged 15–24 was relatively low (12%), due to the lead time involved in training required to enter the occupation. Chefs employed full time worked 46 hours per week on average, which is relatively high by Australian standards (Department of Education, Skills and Employment, 2019).

Chefs are a craft or trade occupation, unlike other occupations in restaurants, which demand technical skills, usually in the form of a vocational qualification undertaken as an apprenticeship. Thus, chefs represent a relatively skilled occupation in the industry. It is common for restaurants to use the traditional Escoffier brigade system where chefs are organised into hierarchical job roles, beginning with apprentice chef at the bottom of the hierarchy, followed by commis chef, demi chef, chef de partie, sous chef, head chef and executive head chef at the top of the hierarchy (Belardi, 2017).

Despite their relatively high skill level by industry standards, chefs’ wages were relatively low when the research was conducted. Median weekly earnings (before tax) for full-time chefs were A$1250 compared to A$1460 for all workers (Department of Education, Skills and Employment, 2019). Such low wages are partly due to the industry’s high level of award reliance. Most workers’ pay and conditions were determined solely by the Restaurant Industry Award – the relevant award for the industry – rather than by enterprise agreements, common law contracts or over-award payments. Indeed, 58% of hospitality employees were award reliant, the highest proportion of any industry, compared to 21% of employees across all industries (Jimenez and Rozenbes, 2017). High levels of award reliance are a symptom of low levels of enterprise bargaining and weak unions in the sector, with only 2% of the food and beverage services workforce a union member in 2016 (Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), 2016).

This article uses a multiple-case study research design. A case study design enables the collection of sufficiently rich contextual information as it retains ‘the holistic and meaningful characteristics of real-life events’ (Yin, 2003: 2), enabling explanation and theoretical understanding of complex, yet bounded, phenomena (Easton, 2010). Additionally, the use of qualitative data preserves the complexity of a multi-faceted phenomenon such as job quality (Hannif et al., 2008; Watson, 2005).

Case study venues were selected purposively, according to product market segment and organisational size. Six sites were considered sufficient to examine potential variation in key characteristics that could impact job quality, with half (three) drawn from each of the following restaurant categories, which are distinguishing market segments: small, independent; large, group-owned; mid-level; and high-end/premium (see Figure 1). Mid-level and premium were defined according to the average main meal price of A$20–35 for the mid-level segment and above A$35 for the premium segment. Low-cost venues were excluded due to the prevalence of takeaway dining in this segment, which forms a different sector from restaurants and involves different occupations, such as cooks rather than chefs. There is also often significant overlap in the low-cost restaurant segment with cafés (Magner, 2015). The selection of case study sites was confined to the inner-city (within a 5 kilometre radius of the Central Business District) of one Australian city to control for any geographical effects, given the regional nature of restaurant labour markets (Cooke et al., 2013; Haley-Lock, 2012).

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Figure 1.

Case study restaurant sites.

ABS (2017a) figures indicate that only 7.6% of café/restaurant businesses employ more than 20 staff. However, there has recently been increased consolidation in the industry, particularly among upper-end restaurants. One benefit of this consolidation is the enhanced ability for multi-venue enterprises to attract and retain staff through improved career progression opportunities, thus potentially improving job quality (Harden, 2014). It was therefore beneficial to study both small and large venues, despite the industry being primarily composed of small businesses. Similarly, prior research suggests that mid-level and high-end/premium firms can influence aspects of job quality, most particularly those related to skill and pay (Haley-Lock, 2012; Knox and Warhurst, 2018).

Within each of the six case restaurants, between three and five interviews were conducted with owners, managers and chefs, resulting in 26 interviews. Additionally, eight interviews were conducted with vocational education practitioners within public and private registered training organisations to provide further industry context. Consequently, a total of 34 interviews were undertaken, between April and October 2015. The participating chefs ranged from 20 to 44 years of age, with slightly more males than females represented, and several temporary visa holders were included in the sample. A limitation of the research design is that union officials and representatives from the Fair Work Ombudsman, who may have provided industry level perspectives, were not interviewed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with each participant. Semi-structured interviews enable a degree of thematic consistency, without imposing or constraining respondents, and enable deeper exploration of emerging themes (Alvesson, 2011; Flick, 1998). Interviews were conducted with both workers and managers as it was important to obtain employee views of their jobs, rather than rely on management accounts (Haley-Lock and Ewert, 2011).

The interviews with chefs explored the key dimensions of job quality: pay and benefits, working time arrangements, skills and training, progression opportunities, job security and work organisation (Burgess et al., 2013; Muñoz de Bustillo et al., 2011). Objective assessments of job quality were based on the material conditions of the job, as outlined by chefs and verified by managers and/or industry representatives. Subjective assessments of job quality were based solely on chefs’ individual perceptions of those job criteria, particularly the extent to which they aligned with their personal needs, alongside their willingness to continue working in their current job, and future career intentions. The managerial staff interviews encompassed restaurants’ business strategies and the (objective) quality of chefs’ jobs in their organisations. These interviews also permitted a degree of triangulation, by accessing a range of views on the objective nature of jobs within each workplace. In order to protect the anonymity and confidentiality of respondents, pseudonyms were developed.

The duration of the interviews was typically 60 minutes, with a small proportion lasting 30–45 minutes. Each interview was audio-recorded and subsequently transcribed, except for one interview where the participant did not consent to audio recording, thus notes were taken during the interview. The data were content analysed to identify relationships between key concepts (Yin, 2003) using an iterative thematic process (Corbin and Strauss, 2008). The data were first coded according to the themes identified in existing job quality research, namely the objective and subjective dimensions of job quality (pay and benefits, working time, skills and training, progression opportunities, job security and work organisation) (Burgess et al., 2013; Knox and Warhurst, 2018; Knox et al., 2015). Sub-themes and additional themes were added as they emerged from the data, as well as the revision of categories considered to be important a priori (Emmel, 2013).

Findings

The findings analyse chefs’ objective and subjective job quality based on the six abovementioned dimensions: pay and benefits, working time, skills and training, progression opportunities, job security and work organisation (including work intensity, autonomy and task complexity). The objective assessment is based on verifiable material conditions, whereas the subjective assessment reflects chefs’ individual perceptions of and response to those conditions and their alignment with personal needs.

Discussion

This article set out to investigate job quality among chefs in the Australian restaurant industry, encompassing both objective and subjective dimensions. Incorporating subjective job quality is especially important because, as well as representing a conceptually novel approach to analysing job quality among chefs, it can help to explain why they tolerate conditions that objectively may be considered poor.

Empirically, the findings extend the hitherto incomplete, ad hoc research on chefs’ job quality (e.g. Harris and Giuffre, 2015). Our results indicate that objective job quality among chefs is generally poor. Pay levels were award based and low relative to median earnings in Australia, with limited pay progression. The work was physically demanding, involving very long hours, an absence of breaks and high work intensity. There was low autonomy given chefs’ low involvement in menu design, limited discretion over techniques and few formal training opportunities. These conditions were not compensated sufficiently by the few positive dimensions involving high job security and extensive on-the-job training.

Thus, chefs’ objective job quality is clearly more problematic than suggested by the extant, albeit limited, research (e.g. Meloury and Signal, 2014). Our findings demonstrate that problems of objectively poor job quality in Australia’s hospitality industry extend well beyond migrant workers in low-skill temporary jobs, as previous studies have revealed (Berg and Farbenblum, 2017; Clibborn, 2018). Chefs’ reported pay levels were often below the legal minimum standards in the relevant award as restaurateurs commonly failed to reconcile annualised salaries with hourly provisions, as required. These findings indicate that underpayment of chefs is not isolated to the high-profile cases reported in the media (e.g. Schneiders and Millar, 2019; Valent, 2019), but rather is a more widespread phenomenon. Given chefs’ stronger agency and bargaining power within the hospitality industry, due to the relatively high qualification and formal training requirements of the job (Wright et al., 2019), we would expect that problems of poor job quality would be less pronounced. Rather, our findings suggest that the extent of these problems is likely to be widespread, encompassing the high- and low-skilled, permanent residents and temporary migrant workers, rather than being contained to groups of workers more likely to work in jobs with objectively poor quality (Clibborn, 2018; Wright and Clibborn, 2019). These findings are especially worrying given the expansion of service-based jobs (Wright and Lansbury, 2016), including chefs (DAE, 2011), and they signal the need to improve job quality (Green et al., 2016) in Australia, as outlined below.

Subjective analysis of job quality can help to explain why chefs tolerated conditions that were objectively poor, overall. The emphasis that many of the chefs interviewed placed on their ‘passion’ for the work allowed them to rationalise widely held concerns about low pay, long working hours and limited career progression opportunities. Typically, chefs tended to overlook objectively ‘bad’ dimensions of the job and focus on the subjectively ‘good’ dimensions, primarily related to skills developed via on-the-job training. This disproportionate weighting of dimensions enabled chefs to perceive a subjectively ‘good’ job as opposed to an objectively ‘bad’ job. Significantly, these findings help to explain why chefs endure, and in some cases enjoy, objectively bad jobs, and how their experiences can facilitate the industry’s poor practices and culture (Iverson and Deery, 1997), at least in part. Relatedly, these findings provide a deeper understanding of chefs’ job quality, by taking account of chefs’ lived experiences of the job, largely neglected by extant research, which focuses exclusively on objective job quality (e.g. Johns and Menzel, 1999; Meloury and Signal, 2014).

Importantly, there was notable variation in subjective perceptions of job quality depending on chefs’ experience, age and gender. Less experienced and younger chefs generally did not perceive long hours and arduous working conditions as problematic if it allowed them to gain valued experience in high-end restaurants or with prominent head chefs. With greater experience and age, however, chefs tended to reassess their priorities and re-weight dimensions, placing greater emphasis on pay, job security, working hours and work intensity as a result of their growing financial responsibilities, family and other non-work commitments, and declining physical capacity. This was particularly the case, though not exclusively, among women who perceived challenges reconciling the demands of chefs’ working hours with gendered caregiving roles. While younger chefs tended to perceive job quality in more positive terms, more experienced and older workers saw the benefits of greater autonomy, career progression and pay. Overall, chefs’ subjective assessments of their jobs seem to transition from ‘good’ to ‘bad’ as their experience and age increases. These findings are likely to account for the low proportion of older chefs working in the industry (Department of Education, Skills and Employment, 2019), which contributes to systemic skill supply challenges (DAE, 2011).

Theoretically, the findings highlight the value of integrating both objective and subjective dimensions of job quality. The objective dimension allows us to characterise chefs’ jobs as poor, involving low-level material conditions and characteristics, overall. While this highlights the need for intervention through policy development (as discussed below), it does not allow us to understand chefs’ willingness to endure, and even seek out, these objectively ‘bad’ jobs. The subjective dimension is critical to resolving this paradox. For chefs, the subjective ‘highs’ of the job tend to outweigh the ‘lows’, as evident in Burrow et al.’s (2015) research, and these positive subjective assessments are associated with strong perceptions of meaningfulness (Bailey and Madden, 2017), particularly for younger and less experienced chefs, who are more temporally oriented to the future, striving to open their own restaurants. For older chefs, and those with families, attempting to cope with the immediate physical demands of their work, excessive working hours and low pay, subjective assessments were less positive and perceptions of meaningfulness more tempered, impacting attraction and retention.

In this sense, the subjective dimension is critical to understanding worker attitudes and, in turn, their behavioural responses to the job, both of which entail a degree of temporality. As such, these findings extend existing conceptual understandings of job quality by illustrating that temporality is an inherent element of the subjective dimension. Moreover, our findings extend upon research flagging the importance of temporality, more generally, by highlighting its consequences for workers and employers, an area posited as important for advancing existing understandings (Bailey and Madden, 2017). In particular, our research indicates that younger workers tended to be more oriented to the future, and older workers and those with families were more likely to be temporally oriented in the present. These temporal orientations were found to influence these workers’ subjective perceptions of job quality, which to our knowledge has not previously been identified in extant job quality scholarship.

Conclusion

This article makes both empirical and theoretical contributions. Empirically, the findings address a large gap regarding the quality of jobs among chefs working in Australian restaurants. In developing a more comprehensive analysis of chefs’ job quality, we have identified and more fully analysed the nature and scale of challenges related to objectively poor jobs among chefs in Australian restaurants and the need for intervention, as outlined below. Moreover, by analysing job quality in terms of its subjective dimensions as well as its objective dimensions, we have been able to explain why chefs subjectively tolerate objectively poor conditions, generating new insights given that previous analyses of restaurants and hospitality have focused largely on objective dimensions (e.g. Harris and Giuffre, 2015; Johns and Menzel, 1999). In doing so, our findings highlight the varying subjective perceptions reflected by chefs of different ages, which contributes to explaining the disproportionate absence of older chefs working in the industry (Department of Education, Skills and Employment, 2019).

Theoretically, these findings highlight the value of examining job quality objectively and subjectively and, in doing so, they point to the different purposes served by each approach. While the objective approach illuminates the material characteristics of the job and related deficiencies, in a regulatory sense, the subjective approach aids understanding of worker attitudes and behaviours, including the inherent temporality in workers’ subjective experiences, evident across workers’ ‘life stages’, and their consequences for employers. There is scope to extend these theoretical insights relating to subjective perceptions of job quality and the role of temporality by examining the impact of workers’ ‘life stages’ more precisely.

Future research could extend the existing literature considerably by theoretically and empirically articulating the importance of the objective and subjective dimensions of job quality and the significance of life stages (Lené, 2019). Future studies could also examine the experiences of different groups of workers, including permanent residents versus temporary migrants, more explicitly. By integrating quantitative methods and/or mixed methods, such research could also overcome some of the limitations inherent in the current qualitative study, including its limited sample size and absence of participants with industry-level perspectives such as union officials and representatives from the Fair Work Ombudsman.We acknowledge these limitations and suggest that they be borne in mind when interpreting the results of our research.

Nevertheless, there are several important implications for government policy and organisational practice arising from our study. Attraction and retention of chefs, especially older chefs, has been a longstanding challenge for the restaurant industry (DAE, 2011). In order to address this, rosters could be redesigned to allow shorter or fewer shifts and/or consideration of 4-day working weeks. Additionally, reducing double shifts and implementing the breaks mandated in the industry award would improve both working hours and work intensity. Similarly, implementing the annualised salary system according to the requirements in the award would also ensure there is a disincentive to rostering staff for long hours, and ensure that they are appropriately compensated for any overtime hours worked.

Improving monitoring and enforcement of award conditions is an important complementary measure. Enforcement is particularly important when employers may be unlikely to adopt these practices of their own accord, especially in industries with low levels of union representation, like hospitality (Weil, 2009). The priority areas of focus for enforcement relate to pay and working time arrangements. Greater enforcement of the requirement to undertake an annual reconciliation of salary-based pay compared to hourly-based pay for workers receiving annualised salaries is clearly needed. Such enforcement would ensure that workers are not worse off financially under this arrangement and that there is no incentive to increase working hours, especially during times attracting penalty and overtime rates. Similarly, it is necessary to introduce greater monitoring and enforcement of break provisions contained within the award to ameliorate excessive working hours and work intensity. Nevertheless, the effectiveness of such activities hinges on the resources afforded to the Fair Work Ombudsman, which are diminished, and the power of unions, which are weak in hospitality (e.g. Knox, 2018). Measures to strengthen the role of unions and the resources of the Fair Work Ombudsman could therefore lead to improved job quality outcomes in the sector (Simms, 2017).

In sum, this article extends pre-existing empirical and theoretical contributions by revealing the prevalence of objectively ‘bad’ jobs and explaining why they are tolerated, subjectively, by chefs working in the Australian restaurant industry. Such insights emphasise the significance of job quality, objectively and subjectively.