Thank you. Millennial's get a bad rap...I've met and worked with just as many lazy, incompetent and entitled older employees as I have younger. But I digress...
Could you expand on this line of thinking a bit? How does a politically correct kitchen affect the overall performance of the employees?
That seems like a bit of a red flag to me, to be honest. Are you upset that you can't yell, scream, belittle, engage in inappropriate workplace behavior (innuendo, harassment, etc) in order to get your message across?
If those are the only tools in your management toolset, I can understand how you are having difficulty managing your staff.
So you started with basically a whole new kitchen staff, and somehow they are doing all the same bad things that the previous staff did? Did you not instill a training program, have standards, clearly defined roles, job descriptions, recipes, etc? You had and opportunity to rebuild a kitchen the "right" way, and yet somehow everything went back to the old way?
That sounds like a complete failure of leadership. I like that you acknowledge "it's your fault" and take responsibility, but honestly you sound clueless about how to run a staff without yelling/screaming (I'm assuming).
My advice would be to:
Standardize job descriptions and tasks/stations. Everyone should know what they are responsible for and how to achieve those goals. <--- it's hard to hold someone responsible for doing a job if there isn't clear, concise communication on what that job is. When disciplining someone you can also point to specific things in their job description that they failed to do (I'm writing you up because you failed to get to work on time for 2 shifts this week, or I'm writing you up because you didn't follow the recipe for "X" and what you produced doesn't meet our standards). Clear communication of expectations is paramount to good management.
Recipes for each item, again for accountability and standardization.
Kitchen wide daily tasks that need completing (putting away deliveries, weekly cleaning tasks, etc) and assign them daily
Make yourself visible and available to talk to.
Employees will sneak around and try to get away with things if they think the chef will yell and belittle them instead of offering solutions and constructive feedback. If I mess up a batch of tomato soup, and the response from the chef is to yell/scream/throw a tantrum, the next time I mess something up I'm going to try and hide it so I don't get yelled at. But as a manager, if you offer solutions (OK Tom, it's only 4:00 so you have time to remake that soup. I'll wash the lettuce for you while you get the new batch going. We have to find a solution because this is the second time this week you burned soup and that's not acceptable--let's talk before you leave about what went wrong and steps we can make to make sure this doesn't happen again) you'll get better results from most people.
Try and find out what motivates your employees. Is it money? Food/cooking? Identify one or two that you can mentor and can (hopefully) become your "key" personnel. If you have 1 or 2 core workers, who you have a good relationship with, who are aligned with your vision, it can work wonders. They can help you hold others accountable (peers holding peers accountable is amazing and often means more than managers doing it) and give you feedback about what other employees are thinking/feeling.
Good luck!
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