Values-driven workplace culture

Giving graduates a grounding in Māori values can help contribute to a more positive professional kitchen culture.

The professional kitchen is a fast-paced environment often founded on hierarchical structures and stressful working conditions. Within this environment, tensions often run high resulting in aggressive behaviours, and at times, bullying and violence towards junior chefs. For the last decade the hospitality sector has been struggling to recruit and retain aspiring chefs into the professional kitchen. Compounding the recruitment issue is the social narrative that the hospitality industry is a poorly paid profession that works long and unsociable hours.

Due to the global pandemic the hospitality sector has suffered significant upheaval resulting in significant numbers of its workforce choosing to leave the industry. Like other countries around the globe, the hospitality sector in Aotearoa New Zealand is having to rethink and reset the way it operates in a new post Covid landscape. Central to this is the questioning of established modes of practice and reimagining a new hospitality future.

In response to the changing landscape of hospitality, the Bachelor of Culinary Arts programme at Te Kura Matakini ki Otago (Otago Polytechnic), Aotearoa New Zealand developed a bicultural pedagogic framework that embraces te ao Māori values. As a strategy to educate chefs into alternative workplace behaviours and cultures, the values of manaakitaka (care and integrity towards self and others), whānaukataka (integrity of relationship), and kotahitaka (a sense of collective unity and ownership) are deliberately integrated into the programme's pedagogy and the courses' learning outcomes. In doing so, this pedagogic framework upholds the world views, values, and mana of Aotearoa’s takata whenua (indigenous people), while also attempting to rebalance the historical practices of the professional kitchen.

Ahurea wāhi mahi ā-whanonga

Ko ngā whanonga pono Māori hei pou mō ngā kaiwhiwhi tohu e whakapiki ahurea ana ki ngā kīhini.

Ko ngā kihini ngaio tētahi wāhi horo i pū atu ai ki ngā whakatakotoranga whakarārangi me ngā āhua hēmanawa. Kei tēnei ao, e putaina ana te whakatete, te riri, ā, i ētahi wā, ko te hawene me te whakawetiweti hoki ki ngā kaitunu kai tēina. I te tekautau kua pahure, he uaua te whai i ngā kaitunu kai hou mō ngā kīhini ngaio. Ka mutu, ko te āhua nei o te ahumahi manaaki, he koretake te utu kaimahi, he roa rawa ngā hāora mahi.

Nā te mate urutā ā-ao, i hinga haere te ahumahi manaaki; i wehe atu te tini me te mano o ngā kaimahi i te ahumahi. Pērā ki ētahi atu whenua o te ao, kia whai whakaaro, kia whakahou anō te ahumahi manaaki ki Aotearoa i ngā mahi i tēnei ao hou whai muri i te mate urutā. Me mātua arotake ki ngā ritenga, me mātua kimikimi i tētahi ahumahi manaaki hou.

Hei whakautu i te horanuku turituri o te ahumahi manaaki, i whakawhanake te hōtaka o Bachelor of Culinary Arts ki Te Kura Matatini ki Otago, ki Aotearoa, i tētahi ara whakaako hātepe kākano rua e tae ana ki te ao Māori. Hei rautaki kia whakaako i ngā kaitunu kai i ētahi atu whanonga, ka rānga te manaakitaka, te whanaukataka me te kotahitaka ki te ara whakaako me ngā putanga o te akoranga. Nō reira, ka whakaū te ara whakaako i ngā whanonga pono, i te mana me te tiro ā-Māori ki te ao, kei whakarite anō ana i ngā ritenga i ngā kīhini ngaio.

Hune | June 2023