The Kitchen Assistants' Activities as a Regulating Factor: Case of a University Restaurant

This paper aims to present the results of the Ergonomic Work Analysis realized with the staff that serves meals at three units of a new University Restaurant project in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). The focus was on the activity of the transported ready-made meal distribution at the serving counter. The initial demands were to analyze the high rates of staff turnover and the complaints related to the kitchen assistants' physical fatigue and mental strain. The systematic analysis of the different ingredients portioning process was carried out in order to identify the causes of the physical and mental exhaustion reported. The method of self-confrontation interviews allowed to understand the strategies used by the kitchen assistants to reduce distinct sources of conflicts. The diagnostic and validation of the suggested recommendations were presented to the restaurant director. As a result, the initial project's concept of fixed portioning became more flexible.