SITXMGT004

monitor work
operations

© SKUP | RTO # 40471 | V1.1.2024

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SITXMGT004 Monitor work operations 1

First published 2022

Version 1.1

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any errors and any suggestions for improvement. Readers are invited to write to us at hello@[Link].

Hospitality Works is a series of training and assessment resources developed for qualifications within the Tourism,
Travel and Hospitality Training Package.

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SITXMGT004 Monitor work operations 2

Contents
1: Monitoring and improving work operations 7
2: Planning and organising workflow 15
3: Problem solving 21
Appendix A: Reports 23

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SITXMGT004 Monitor work operations 3

 SITXMGT004 Monitor work operations

Application
This unit describes the performance outcomes, skills and knowledge required to oversee and
monitor the quality of day-to-day work. It requires the ability to communicate effectively with team
members, plan and organise operational functions, and solve problems.
The unit applies to all industry sectors, and to individuals operating at a team leading, supervisory
or frontline management level.
The skills in this unit must be applied in accordance with Commonwealth and State/Territory
legislation, Australian/New Zealand standards and industry codes of practice.
No occupational licensing, certification or specific legislative requirements apply to this unit at the
time of publication.

Prerequisite
Nil.

Learning goals
• Monitor and improve work operations.

• Plan and organise workflow.

• Monitor and support team members.

• Solve problems and make decisions.

Fact Sheets
• Fact Sheet 4 - Managing Food Safety Hazards and Risks

• Fact Sheet 8 - Working Sustainably

• Fact Sheet 10 - Workflow Planning

• Fact Sheet 12 - Understanding Your Customers

• Fact Sheet 13 - Costing Dishes

• Fact Sheet 15 - Gathering Feedback

Overlap alert
If learners have already completed SITHKOP013 Plan cooking operations, they should be familiar
with the following concepts:

• planning and organising workflow

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SITXMGT004 Monitor work operations 4

 • monitoring efficiency

• delegating work

• providing feedback

• sustainability.
You might consider a brief refresher with an emphasis on applying the existing knowledge and
skills in the context of monitoring work operations.

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1: Monitoring and improving work operations
Leadership and management in commercial kitchens
Management structures and titles vary from organisation to organisation and from kitchen to kitchen
but there is generally a fundamental structure which is similar to the following.

Executive chef
The executive chef has a senior management role. They
are often the business owner and might own more than one
restaurant or business. The executive chef determines the
overall style and design of the menu, decides on pricing,
manages staff and makes decisions about the overall
direction and running of the business.

Sous-chef
Under each executive chef, will be a sous-chef (or in large
organisations, an executive sous-chef supervising a team
of sous-chefs). The role of the sous-chef is to oversee the
day-to-day running of the kitchen and to make sure that the
line cooks prepare food efficiently and to the quality
standards expected by the organisation.

Image by Miquel Ferran Gomez Figueroa on Pexels

Line cooks
Line cooks perform the majority of cooking tasks with the most experienced cooks handling the more
complex tasks. In larger kitchens, line cooks might be assisted by prep cooks, apprentices and
assistants.

Prep cooks, apprentices and others

In larger kitchens, prep cooks, apprentices or trained assistants complete tasks such as peeling,
cutting and portioning ingredients, making stocks and sauces, restocking stations, cleaning and
sanitising busy stations and other prep work.

SHARE PLATE

Participate in a group discussion facilitated by your trainer – what does the management structure
of the kitchen where you work look like? Are the roles similar to those described above? How do
they differ? How does the front of house management structure differ to the management structure
in the kitchen?

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Procedures and systems to support work operations
While the main activity of your organisation may be to produce quality food for your customers, there
are many other activities that need to occur to support you to do that. These include:

• Administration and finance: administration and finance ensures that stock and ingredients get
ordered, that bills get paid (and, importantly, that you get paid), that your legislative reporting
requirements are fulfilled, that menus get printed and a whole host of other, important tasks get
completed which keep the organisation running efficiently.

• Health and safety: every organisation has legislative and moral obligations around providing a
safe workplace. There are added responsibilities around food safety for customers in a
commercial kitchen environment.

TIME FOR SOME FACTS

For more information about food safety, look at Fact Sheet 4 - Managing Food Safety Hazards and
Risks.

• Human resources: every organisation has legislative obligations around industrial relations, anti-
discrimination, rates of pay and recruitment.

SHARE PLATE

Research the relevant award for your workplace in your state or territory. How does it apply to your
role?
Participate in a group discuss facilitated by your trainer about industrial awards in the hospitality
industry.

• Service standards: the majority of organisations will have service standards. Service standards
incorporate standard recipes and quality standards for the way that dishes are prepared, served,
presented, costed and promoted. Service standards can also refer to your customer service
standards.

LIFT THE LID

You will find more information about service standards at the following links.

• Website: [Link]
sport/tourism/running/customer-service/service-quality-toolkit/systems-standards

• Website: [Link]

Systems to support operations

So what are the systems which support you to achieve all of these functions and processes? Some of
these include:

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• Technology: technology plays a huge part in managing any organisation today. Not least a
commercial kitchen. Think about all of the ways that technology can assist in your day-to-day
operations. For example, ordering and tracking inventory, rostering and workflow planning,
preparing and costing recipes and menus, designing recipes and menus, assisting with food
safety requirements, reporting, communicating with staff and so on.

SHARE PLATE

Work with your group to brainstorm as many additional ways that technology can assist you to
manage the day-to-day operations of a commercial kitchen.

• Policies and procedures: policies and procedures are the recipes for your organisation. They
help ensure consistency, guide decision making, ensure legislative compliance and, perhaps
most importantly, drive quality.

LIFT THE LID

Read more about policies and procedures at the link below.

Website: [Link]
procedures-and-processes
What policies and procedures does your organisation have in place? How much importance is
placed on them?

Managing and monitoring efficiency

Efficiency can mean many things in a commercial kitchen. Is it how quickly a dish is prepared? Is it
how cheaply ingredients are ordered and shipped? Perhaps it refers to reducing waste and energy
consumption. Actually, monitoring efficiency means monitoring all of these things and more. It means
managing all of the people and processes within a commercial kitchen to ensure that quality dishes
which meet the needs of the customer are produced in a timely, cost effective way with as little waste
and using as few resources as possible.
Sounds simple doesn’t it!

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 Image by Kampus Production on Pexels

LIFT THE LID

Read more about managing and monitoring efficiency at the following links.
Website: [Link]
remember/f/15968
Website: [Link]
What strategies will you use in your kitchen to monitor and manage efficiency?

TIME FOR SOME FACTS

One of the most important things that you can do to support efficiency is to plan effectively. For
more information about effective planning, look at the following Fact Sheet:

• Fact Sheet 10 - Workflow Planning

Innovative approaches to improving efficiency

Earlier, we looked at technological approaches to improving efficiency. But there are other innovations
that can improve efficiency as well. Consider:

• innovative kitchen design

• emerging food preparation techniques

• innovative convenience food products

• innovative food ordering and delivery systems

• new waste reduction and recycling options.

SHARE PLATE

Work with your group to brainstorm additional innovative efficiency approaches. Share your
findings with the class.

Time management principles

One of the most important things that we can do to support efficiency is to manage our own time and
to support others to manage their time effectively. This includes supporting and coaching people to
prioritise their time appropriately. We will look at supporting and coaching in more detail later. For
now, let’s look at time management and prioritisation.

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 LIFT THE LID

Read the following articles about effective time management.

• Article: [Link]

• Article: [Link]
Now research an additional three articles and compile a list of time management strategies you
think will work for you. How will you apply these at work?

LIFT THE LID

Read the following articles about setting priorities. While they don’t relate specifically to setting
priorities in a commercial kitchen, they do contain useful information about setting priorities more
generally.

• Article: [Link]
3-steps-for-taking-control-of-your-time/

• Article: [Link]
Participate in a discussion with your group about how you might apply the advice in the articles
in a leadership role in a commercial kitchen. Share your findings with the class.

Organisational goals and QA initiatives

Quality assurance is the process of ensuring that your product and brand maintains a certain level of
quality. In the case of a commercial kitchen, it’s about more than just producing good food though. It’s
about ensuring that everything that the organisation does is of a consistently high quality. So, for
example, in the case of a restaurant:

• it complies with all of its legislative requirements

• it has best practice employment practices in place

• it has an excellent food safety program

• it has a continuous improvement program in place

• it is socially responsible

• it has best practice training programs in place for its staff.

All of these initiatives are underpinned by goals, objectives, policies and procedures which are
monitored and regularly reviewed and updated.

LIFT THE LID

You can read more about quality assurance at the following link.
Website: [Link]

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SITXMGT004 Monitor work operations 11

Identifying and resolving quality problems
Regardless of how good your quality assurance program is, from time to time you will still get quality
issues. In fact, a measure of success in your quality program is that it identifies problems and helps
you to resolve them.

LIFT THE LID

The following article provides a system approach to problem solving.

Article: [Link]

SHARE PLATE

Your trainer will provide you with a problem so that you can practise applying the problem-solving
strategy.

Feedback and coaching

There are times in every leader’s working life when they will
need to provide supportive feedback and coaching to members
of their team. This may be to help a team member to
reprioritise, it could be to coach them in developing a new skill
or it could be to support them in changing behaviours. The
ability to provide clear, positive and supportive feedback is
invaluable.

Image by Antonius Ferret on Pexels

LIFT THE LID

Read the following article about providing feedback and then participate in a group discussion
about giving and receiving feedback. When have you had to provide feedback? How did it go?
What did you do well? What would you do differently next time?
Article: [Link]

SHARE PLATE

Your trainer will provide you with a range of scenarios so that you can practise providing feedback.

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 TIME FOR SOME FACTS

Look at the following Fact Sheet:

• Fact Sheet 15 - Gathering Feedback

Emerging trends
The hospitality industry moves rapidly. Trends come and go, tastes change, technology evolves and
the preferred dining styles and eating habits of customers certainly shift rapidly. So how do you stay
up to date with current and emerging trends? And, perhaps more importantly, how do you evaluate
trends to decide what is relevant to your industry sector or job role?

LIFT THE LID

The following articles provide some useful information on identifying and evaluating trends. Read
the information and then compile a list of strategies that you could use which is relevant to you.

• Article: [Link]

• Article: [Link]

• Article: [Link]

Working sustainably
There are great opportunities within hospitality and particularly within commercial cookery to make
decisions which have a positive impact on sustainability. When we think of sustainability, we tend to
think only of environmental sustainability but, in this context, sustainability is broader. We need to
think about the relationship between operational efficiency and financial sustainability as well as the
benefits to the environment of course.
When we work efficiently, we also tend to reduce waste, reduce our use of consumables and energy
and make responsible purchasing decisions.

TIME FOR SOME FACTS

Look at the following Fact Sheet:

• Fact Sheet 8 - Working Sustainably

Social responsibilities and sustainability

Of course, as well as financial and environmental sustainability, there is also an organisation’s social
responsibilities to think about. Research shows that organisations which are socially and
environmentally responsible tend to perform better against quality and financial markers than those
that aren’t. So, as you can see, there are benefits all around.
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 LIFT THE LID

You can learn more about leadership and social responsibility at the following link.
Website: [Link]
leadership?c=acn_au_responsiblebusigoogle_11120039&n=psgs_0120&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIq9fD
zpXe6AIVRYmPCh0jVggiEAAYASAAEgKNsvD_BwE
Read the article and then participate in a group discussion led by your trainer. How do you think
being socially responsible benefits the organisation, the organisation’s employees, the environment
and society?

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2: Planning and organising workflow
Scheduling work
In other units you have learnt a lot about scheduling work in a commercial kitchen including:

• assessing the current workloads of team members

• setting goals

• scheduling work to maximise efficiency

• customer service

• assessing and meeting customer needs

• costings

• working within budgets.

Take a few moments now to review that information because you will rely on the work that you have
done previously when it comes to your assessment.

TIME FOR SOME FACTS

Look at the following Fact Sheet:

• Fact Sheet 10 - Workflow Planning

• Fact Sheet 12 - Understanding Your Customers

• Fact Sheet 13 - Costing Dishes

Contingency planning
A contingency plan is a plan designed to help you respond to an event which may or may not happen.
In the context of a commercial kitchen, contingency planning should be done alongside your workflow
planning to help you deal with certain risks.
Contingencies could include:

• delays and time difficulties • a lack of the skills that you need amongst
available staff
• difficult customer service situations
• issues around rostering
• equipment breakdowns or technical
failures • staff performance issues

• a lack of financial resources • procedural requirements

• problems with staffing levels • product development and marketing.

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 SHARE PLATE

Your trainer will provide you with a range of scenarios relevant to your training kitchen. Develop a
contingency plan for each scenario.

LIFT THE LID

We looked at contingency planning from the point of workflow planning but it is also important to
look at contingency planning from an overall business perspective as well.
For more information, watch this video on contingency planning.
Video: [Link] (10:16)
Take notes on what you learn.

Delegating
It’s rare that, as a leader in a busy commercial kitchen, we can complete all of the tasks required
during a busy service period ourselves. That means that we need to be able to entrust some of the
work to others and that’s where delegation comes in. Delegating means entrusting or authorising
another person (usually someone who reports to us) to complete a task on our behalf. There are
several principles of effective delegation.
The five principles of delegation for frontline management are:

Clearly communicating what is required and when.

Gaining a commitment from the other person to complete the task.

Avoiding creating undue interference to the person in completing the task.

Selecting the right person to complete the task.

Seeking regular reports from the person on progress.

LIFT THE LID

For more information about delegating successfully, read the article at the following link.
Article: [Link]

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Monitoring and prioritising workflow against goals and
timelines
Throughout this resource (and in other units) you have looked at strategies for setting goals, workflow
planning, setting priorities and monitoring. It is here that all of that comes together.

SHARE PLATE

Your trainer will break your group into small teams, and you will take it in turns to be the team
leader during a service period in the training kitchen. Your trainer will also provide you with the
standard recipe/s, ingredients and equipment that you need. During the service period you will be
responsible for:

• Workflow planning

• Rostering

• Providing timely input to appropriate management regarding staffing needs (in this case your
trainer)

• Briefing your team

• Setting objectives for each member of your team

• Assisting each member of your team to prioritise their workload

• Providing feedback and coaching as required

• Assessing the progress of workflow against workflow plan and adjusting as required

• Monitoring and responding to operational and service issues

• Debriefing your team at the end of service

• Completing operational and staff reports (see Appendix A).

Sharing information
Sharing your information, your experiences and your knowledge with your team has many benefits
including:

• building trust

• it builds a culture of learning

• it helps to build a culture where knowledge is valued and shared openly

• it role models open, proactive knowledge sharing

• it encourages innovation and the exploration of ideas

• it builds skills and expertise in others

• it supports decision making capacity.

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© SKUP | RTO # 40471 | V1.1.2024

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 LIFT THE LID

Read the information about knowledge sharing at the links below.

• Website: [Link]
knowledge-with-co-workers/

• Website: [Link]

• Website: [Link]
change/knowledge-lens/stories/2012/knowledge-sharing-leveraging-trust-and-leadership-to-
[Link]

• Website: [Link]

Image by Trường Trung Cấp Kinh Tế Du Lịch Thành Phố Hồ Chí Minh CET on Unsplash

Challenging and testing ideas

Many organisations with an innovative culture will test new ideas in-house before taking them to the
market to test them. This looks different depending on the market sector that they belong to. In a
commercial kitchen, this could simply mean cooking a new dish for everyone to taste and provide
feedback on.
Alternatively, it could be asking for feedback on a new menu, a new marketing idea or a new business
process.
Challenging and testing ideas within the team in a positive and collaborative way builds trust and
creates team ownership. A team that has had input into the idea or design is far more likely to engage
with the product and to want to see it succeed.

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 LIFT THE LID

You can read more about testing ideas at the link below.
Website: [Link]
[Link]

Completing records
There are a range of records that you will be required to submit depending on the sector of the
industry that you work in, your role and your organisation’s requirements. Records might include:

• performance reports • hazard reports

• staff records • storage reports

• time cards • standard recipe cards

• purchase orders • menu costings

• workflow documents • financial documents

• mise en place lists • reports.

• food safety records

Regardless of the type of record that you are completing, all documents should:

• be completed accurately

• be written using plain English

• use professional language

• avoid the use of stereotypes

• should be gender neutral

• should be filled out according to your organisation’s policies and procedures.

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3: Problem solving
Identifying problems
Earlier, we looked at one systematic approach for identifying and resolving problems. There are many
other approaches. What seems to be clear is that the first step in resolving a problem is to clearly
identify and understand what the problem is.
It’s also important that you look at a problem from two perspectives – its impact on the organisation
and its impact on the customer. You may need to consider how the two interrelate as well.

LIFT THE LID

Read the information about the first stage of identifying and understanding problems at the
following link.
Website: [Link]

Resolving problems
Once you have a handle on what the problem actually is, you can initiate a short-term action to
resolve the immediate problem and then move on to analysing the issue for long-term impacts.
This is where you can bring your team in to assess possible actions and solutions. If a team member
has been instrumental in bringing the problem to your attention, you might consider encouraging them
to be involved in solving it.

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 LIFT THE LID

For more information about resolving problems, read the article at the following link.
Article: [Link]

Monitoring
Once a problem has been identified and resolved, the resolution should be monitored and assessed
for success. What does the feedback say? Has the resolution worked? Does the resolution need to be
refined or adjusted?

LIFT THE LID

For more information on monitoring problem resolution go to the link below.

Website: [Link]

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Appendix A: Reports

Performance report
Add your goals for service under the following headings and report on level of achievement at the end
of service.

Service period: ____________________________________________________________________

Date: ____________________________________________________________________________

Team leader: _____________________________________________________________________

Recipes served: ___________________________________________________________________

What are your goals for this

Achievement Comments
service?

Food safety goals

Food quality goals

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 What are your goals for this
Achievement Comments
service?

Timeliness of dishes goals

Number of dishes served

goals

Customer satisfaction goals

Teamwork and efficiency

goals

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 What are your goals for this
Achievement Comments
service?

Food storage, clean up and

handover goals

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Staff report
Add your goals for each staff member under the following headings and report on level of
achievement at the end of service.

Service period: ____________________________________________________________________

Date: ____________________________________________________________________________

Team leader: _____________________________________________________________________

Recipes served: ___________________________________________________________________

Staff member and goals Achievement Comments

Name and goals

Name and goals

Name and goals

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 Staff member and goals Achievement Comments

Name and goals

Name and goals

Name and goals

Name and goals

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 Reflection

• What skills and techniques did I use?

• What policies and procedures did I follow?

• How did I ensure efficiency, safety and quality?

• How did I ensure that my team met quality standards?

• What did I learn and how might I apply this in future?

• What might I do differently next time?

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© SKUP | RTO # 40471 | V1.1.2024

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