Staff Shortage Closes Wetherell Dining Hall

Due to severe shortages in dishwashing staff, Wetherell Dining Hall combined its staff with Elm Street Dining Hall for this week’s dinner service.

According to Wetherell Dining Services Manager Heidi Dumont, this is the first time in Wetherell’s history that the dining hall has had to stop serving a meal because of a “labor crisis.” Currently, one worker in Wetherell and three workers in Elm are on medical leave, which has left several full-time positions vacant.

“Dish washing is a hard job. If it’s a job that nobody wants, you have to increase the wages. So it’s a supply and demand situation…It seems like the right thing to do, especially with the cost of housing in the area,” [Jordan] said.

Dumont explained that the merging of the two dining halls for dinner is an effective short-term solution, as Elm has also been struggling with staffing shortages. “We wanted to combine our labor to actually be able to efficiently provide meals and service,” Dumont said. “Across the board they’re short, and it’s mainly the dishroom area.” In addition to closing the dining hall for dinners, the staffing shortage has led the school to postpone the International Festival.

Before they stopped serving dinner, the Wetherell staff struggled to manage a job that, on average, involves six to seven workers, with a three-person dishwashing crew. The dining hall has consequently been using paper plates and plastic utensils for all meals. “It’s not something that we want to be doing, but it’s a necessity at this moment,” Dumont said.

Two high school students and one elderly man currently make up the Wetherell dishwashing crew for the evenings. According to Dumont, Wetherell is “relying on temporary labor,” which only provides a daytime workforce. This state of affairs is still an improvement as both full-time and part-time positions for pot washing were vacant until Wetherell took measures to fix the problem. “All the food that gets manufactured, everything that you see on the line—there is a pot associated to that,” Dumont said, explaining the gravity of the situation.

Lead Dishwasher Catherine Holmes said that the shortage has increased the workload of the remaining workers. “We all do a little extra,” she said. “Everybody’s good about that…it has worked out pretty well, but we’re all looking forward to filling in our empty spaces.”

Both Elm Street and Wetherell are working with Human Resources (HR) to find a long-term solution for the shortage in positions. “At this point, we don’t have anybody in the pipe to hire. So we are working with our HR department and trying to get somebody on board,” Dumont said.

Dumont attributed the understaffing to a general increase in employment opportunities due to the current economy. She noted that in her 17 years working at Wetherell, the dishwashing positions have seen recurrent staff changes. “It’s a hard position,” she said. “We don’t have very much turnover here, but in those positions, we do. I’ve had three in the last year.”

Director of Dining Services Melinda Leonard also credited the difficulty of the job for the frequent restaffing. “Turnover of this position is largely driven by the fact that the work is physically demanding,” Leonard said. “This is not unique to PEA; due to extremely low unemployment rates, these jobs become harder to fill.”

According to the job description, the full-time dishwasher position which consists of a daily eight hour commitment, requires “the ability to remain standing for extended periods of time, go up and down flights of steps, lift and push heavy objects as well as stoop, squat, bend, kneel, crouch and lift.” The description further states that a dishwasher must be able to “lift and transport up to 50lbs without assistance” and “work in hot temperatures with daily exposure to hot water.” There are four job postings for dish- or pot-washing staff.

The pot-washing job calls for intense manual labor. “[Pots are] bigger than anything you’d find in your kitchen. I’ve had trouble lifting them myself, so it’s really a tough job in that respect,” Holmes noted. “Otherwise, it’s a good job.”

However, History Instructor William Jordan expressed additional concerns about the low compensation dishwashers receive for such a demanding job. “I know that there are a lot of people who live in the trailer parks in town,” he said. “I was talking to an employee at the dining hall today who is looking to rent an apartment and really can’t find anything that she can afford based on what she’s making at Exeter as a dining hall employee.”

Jordan continued that while costs of living in New Hampshire have been rising, wages have not. “The town [of Exeter] is becoming kind of gentrified. They’re building these really expensive houses now…There’s a statewide housing shortage and affordability crisis in the southern part of New Hampshire,” he said.

While Jordan acknowledged that “there are a lot of priorities that the people in charge have to juggle” when it comes to Academy finances, he expressed his wishes for PEA to “play a leadership role within the boarding school community and make a commitment to paying its workers a living wage.” “Dish washing is a hard job. If it’s a job that nobody wants, you have to increase the wages. So it’s a supply and demand situation…It seems like the right thing to do, especially with the cost of housing in the area,” he said.

Senior Vinayak Kurup expressed that in addition to paying dining hall staff adequate wages, Exeter must call attention to the pivotal role these workers play in school operations. “The work and the requirements [of dishwashing] are very rigorous, and when you think about that, you realize that one thing Exeter does phenomenally well is keep this out of the student view,” he said. “I think it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to just run into the place where individuals are washing [dishes] while walking through Elm Street or Wetherell. I think because of that, the student body doesn’t realize and doesn’t know.”

Upper Nick Schwarz also highlighted the importance of appreciating dining hall staff, as well as all PEA staff members at large. “The staff often go unappreciated and unrecognized,” he said.

“I definitely don’t have a solution for [work compensation], but it does feel like the staff need to be better rewarded for their work at Exeter,” he said.