Gathering job information

In months 2 and 3, Saveur Européenne’s job evaluation committee, led by the HR director, began the detailed work of gathering job information, guided by Tool 2 and using Tool 5 – Supporting Excel (standard approach). 

They identified 21 unique job roles.

  • Executive and Management

    1. Chief executive officer (CEO)
    2. HR director
    3. Director of operations

  • Kitchen Operations

    1. Head chef
    2. Sous chef
    3. Line cook
    4. Assistant chef
    5. Kitchen maid / kitchen Porter

  • Service and Front of House

    1. Service supervisor
    2. Waiter/waitress
    3. Assistant waiter/waitress

  • Events and Logistics

    1. Lead event coordinator
    2. Event coordinator
    3. Event assistant

  • Sales and Communications

    1. Sales team lead
    2. Salesman
    3. Senior communications assistant

  • Admin and Support

    1. Finance and admin officer
    2. Administrative support
    3. Executive secretary
    4. IT and facilities support

The HR team gathered all available documents for these jobs. These included job descriptions, contracts, payroll records and organisational charts. The process revealed gaps: for example, the job description for ‘head chef’ mentioned kitchen management but said little about financial oversight, and the ‘sous chef’ contract referred to taking over the head chef’s responsibilities when the head chef is absent, without explaining the scope of those responsibilities.

This information was entered into Tool 5 – Supporting Excel (standard approach), covering employer details, job roles and gender representation. Patterns quickly became visible: 85 % of kitchen porter jobs were held by men, while 90 % of administrative support jobs and 75 % of event and logistics roles were held by women. The job evaluation committee recognised these divides as potential indicators of undervaluation and kept them in focus for the job evaluation and classification.

To capture workers’ perspectives, the job evaluation committee distributed the sample worker questionnaire to all 275 employees using an online platform. For kitchen and service workers, tablet stations were set up in workers’ break rooms across all four locations, with HR workers available during peak breaks to help and answer questions.

They also conducted 12 in-depth interviews with workers representing a mix of departments, seniority and genders. One interview, with the lead event coordinator, Marcela Romano, revealed the hidden scope of her role. In addition to event organisation, she was responsible for workers’ training and supervision, financial management, client relations and strategic planning, including building client relationships and ensuring that each event reflected the company’s values and reputation.

Once all the information was gathered, synthesised and anonymised, the team created a job profile for each role using the toolkit’s template. These profiles combined the documented information with insights from questionnaires and interviews. Each profile captured the role’s purpose and the responsibility, skills, effort and working conditions involved.

Downloads

Tool 5: Supporting excel (standard approach)

Sample worker questionnaire