Hawthorn Senior Living

As it is with most retirement living facilities the front managers have little to no experience with food service. If you are the executive chef at this facility you will report directly to a Head Chef with Hawthorne Retirement. However the front management will expect you to report to them as well. They will constantly scrutinize everything you do and provide little support instead of working as a management team. Expect them to provide disciplinary action to your staff without your input. In addition, if they decide that your personality is not a fit, expect them to do what ever they need to do to have you removed from the unit, instead of engaging in a conversation.

 When this unit first opened it was well ran by managers who were invested in the residents and their experience. The current live in managers care more about their longevity with the company and securing their living environment than the resident experience. The company itself is built on a beautiful American success story. The owner of the company has rooted family values and the training provided by head office can be endless. The company has now grown so large that most of those values only appear on paper and are not practised in this particular unit in Woodstock. 

If you are taking a salary position at this unit be sure you negotiate with the following in mind. 
- you have a very small staff, mostly part-time staff and tight timelines.
- you will be a "working chef" you will be online, cooking and serving at times.  
- you are required to serve 2 options for each meal including an "a la carte" menu. with a budget below the average per day cost of most other retirement units. Menus are provided by head office but you are encouraged to be inventive and adjust to the taste of your residents
- the wages for the staff aside from the executive are average so expect a revolving door of staff and little support from your front managers to secure the wages needed for a successful unit. 
- expect a ton of paperwork and a slightly more detailed PNL than most retirement units.(this is not a bad thing and is beneficial to learn) 
- You MUST have a strong sous chef, this person will be your only support system when you need to be out of the building.
- lastly your servers are essentially janitors. So expect little to no experience in serving from these individuals. Your evening servers will be part time students. 

Overall i would not recommend this unit to an experienced executive chef. Perhaps to an entry level executive that needs the experience (as head office provides great training) 

Overall the residents are the ones who suffer at this unit due to the environment and revolving door of staff. 

I have worked in the Kitchen of a Hawthorn Senior Living establishment for about a year as a part time prep cook and a dishwasher. I would say that neither of these positions have realistic time frames for one person to complete and that the workload can be overwhelming, especially considering I was making just above minimum wage. Even if I complete the main components of my job there is never enough time to clean properly within my scheduled hours and as such I am required to stay longer to finish everything. I barely have time for my lunch break, and have never been able to take my two 15 minute breaks. It is also incredibly difficult with the rapid change of management that occured. I have met 5 couples who have stayed, and each time there was a shift they attempted to change a bunch of things and/or add more work to my roles. There are never enough hands to complete everything. On another note, while I have enjoyed many meals given for lunch I do think some of the options are rather strange. 

this was the WORST job. the management was so mean and NEVER helped us. We were late every single shift and they yelled at us for it instead of helping us. By the end of my time there, the managers stopped letting us fill out availability, and would schedule us for shifts if we were available or not and we couldn't call in. This place was also so poorly run. The only good thing is one of the cooks would always send us home with food. Servers were quitting all the time by the end of my time there, and none of us liked the job. Almost every single server I worked with towards the end was looking for another job and I suggest you do the same. They could not keep servers. DO NOT WORK HERE!! Any other job would be better. I would give this place zero stars if I could.

I feel bad for the supervisors, in Woodstock their great people & don’t get credit for the work they do. When your running someone else’s business you have a budget to follow and can’t go outside of it. I feel really bad for them because they take the slack from the employees who know they deserve more as workers. As for the work at cedarview, you are WAY over worked. You serve 2 meals and have to clean residents rooms. I was going in 45-1 hour early so I could start my day and get out on time, which I wasn’t paid for. 
Again the management at the Woodstock retirement home were great. The work however was absolutely outrageous.

Managers are completely unprofessional, which would explain why we’d get new ones every few months. In my experience here there is only 2 tolerable managers here, wouldn’t be surprised if they left too. The new ones that came in recently are so unbelievably rude and I know other co-workers have issued reports too, but nothing is being done about it. Even the chef’s and residents get fed up. I will say this gave me a good step into the workforce, but I wouldn’t recommend this job to others.

I applied to this job because i love working with older people and it was an opportunity for me to gain work experience. after working there for nearly a year, i quit my job because of the stress and unprofessionalism i encountered. at one point they made us clock out and continue to work. they also gave us our schedules the day before the next work week. they claim to be the best retirement home in guelph but i wouldn’t put a dead dog in there. i highly recommend applying somewhere else unless you like stress and anxiety while also dealing with incompetent managers

Hardest part of the job would have to be completing all asked tasks in a timely manner with added jobs to help others complete there duties. Work schedule causes a very stressful environment, you have a strict timeline but the executive chef and management always add extra and question why you are behind.  Management does not seem to care about staff and the turnover is very high; added stress from constantly having new servers and having to babysit in the kitchen during mealtimes. 
Most enjoyable part was free food, if it was a good meal day.

Everyone is so friendly and they host lots of activities for the residents. Excellent work and organization during the pandemic and the food is very delicious and familiar. Building is very clean and tables are reset every meal. Workers are very talkative and interesting. Overall wonderful place and flexible hours.

The worst job I ever had. Micromanagers make this place a horrid place to work. No other place I worked in 25 years has such negative morale. Write-ups come easy instead of proper training and helpful assistance. Timelines are not realistic and several shifts go without breaks. Menus are often full of items that are not wanted or liked by the residents. The revolving door is the way staff go through this place. I would not recommend this place to anyone for a job.

Absolutely the worst job I have had in my 35 year career. Days are long , But the main problem is the workload. its the kind of company that wants to make everything from scratch but does not have the staff in place to do it. Management are self centered and make staff do there jobs as well as your own. The only place I ever worked where Chefs have to serve coffee. The only benefit to this job is the free food. I would defiantly think long and hard before working for this company.

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