Rhiannon Dhoot has been in aged care recruitment for eight months. In that time she’s visited a lot of homes – and mealtimes matter more than outsiders expect.
“It’s not just like you’re making a meal and sending it out, but you’re able to help them maintain their dignity,” she says.
Dhoot works in recruitment at Sanctuary Recruitment. The agency has mostly placed nurses and assistants in nursing. So while hospitality is a newer area, she says requests for chefs, cooks and food service assistants are rising.
The surprise for hospitality workers
Dhoot worked in hospitality before recruitment and aged care still surprised her.
Texture-modified meals were “something that I didn’t even consider”, she says. Then there’s food safety, consistency and making meals look appetising. “It’s more than just handing up the meal,” she says. “It is kind of creating that whole experience for them.”
Chef Lindsey O’Grady knows the feeling. He’s in his 40th year in hospitality, with restaurants, hotels and international resorts behind him. His first days in an aged care kitchen were “a huge learning curve”, he says.
What both Dhoot and O’Grady agree on is that it’s not a simple switch to go from a restaurant pass to an aged care kitchen. But if you get that switch right, residents will feel it.
Why recruitment agencies ask for aged care experience
Most of Sanctuary’s placements are short contracts. Dhoot says candidates need aged care experience, even when their CVs show restaurants. “They need people that can just get straight stuck into it,” she says.
Her advice to providers hiring from general hospitality is to manage expectations and give support. A cook can be “an amazing chef, an amazing cook with some really great experience” and still be new to residents’ dietary needs. She also stresses working with dietitians and communicating well.
O’Grady backs that up. In his anonymous Kitchen Pulse survey of aged care chefs, communication between care teams and the kitchen came through as one of the biggest challenges. “There’s an education opportunity there,” he says.
Providers are at different stages
Dhoot says Standard 6 on food and nutrition has lifted providers’ focus on hospitality. Some moved early, shifting catering in-house from agencies, and she says they’re “completely transforming” the area.
Others left it late. With a looming compliance review coming, she says, some providers are saying: “Oh god, we need to fix this quick.”
She says she can see the difference when she walks into a home. Those that talk about hospitality and involve residents stand out from homes focused mainly on their RNs and clinical care.
Why kitchens still feel like support
O’Grady says structure explains part of it. Catering assistants are paid $3 an hour less than AINs, he says. A trained assistant who gets the chance to move “will do it”.
Under that is how kitchens are seen. “Food is clinical,” he says, but catering teams are treated as support. Years of attention have gone to what lands on the plate. In his view the order is wrong: give kitchens “the right budgets, the right staffing, and the right training”, he explains, and the change on the plate follows.
Chefs want “a seat at the table”, he offers, not to run the whole dining room. And as providers add beds, “there’s no designated pathway for our chefs to develop”.
The one change that can make a difference
When asked what a leader could change tomorrow, Dhoot’s answer is simple: value hospitality workers. Involve them in menus and meal prep, talk to them, listen, and give them room to grow. She wants the focus to go beyond filling vacancies.
People who move into aged care hospitality want “that meaningful impact”, she says. Leaders who give kitchens a seat at the table can fulfil exactly that.
