Room for Improvement

Eliot and Kirkland House's beautiful new dining halls have turned into a headache for the Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) employees who work there. The two dining halls were refurbished this summer, the first step in a series of dining hall renovations scheduled for the next few years. The new dining halls have drawn praise from students for their design and the quality of the food; for some employees, though, the redesigned halls have meant longer and harder hours and increased tension with HUDS management.

Staff members say that since the renovations, their workload has increased, their jobs have become more grueling and their break time has nearly disappeared. In interviews with The Crimson over the last month, some employees in Eliot and Kirkland say they are doing twice as much work as last year. And employees say management has not been understanding of the new strains they are under. A few staffers have quit their jobs out of frustration.

Most of the problems in the new dining halls could be solved if HUDS decided to hire more full-time employees. Under the old arrangement, Eliot and Kirkland shared a kitchen and four chefs. Now, each has a separate kitchen and two overworked chefs. If HUDS committed to hiring a third chef to share between the two halls--an idea that is under consideration now--it would cut the strain on the chefs substantially. Doing so would also directly benefit students. As it is, the two-chef teams in Eliot and Kirkland are often too busy to fill grill orders and struggle to keep serving plates filled.

The renovations have also made some employees' jobs physically more difficult. HUDS introduced new plates in the dining halls this year--ceramic dishware that weighs three times more than the old models. The new plates are nice, but they create an unnecessary burden for staff. HUDS should either find a way to accommodate employees' concerns about the dishware, or get rid of it.

Most of all, though, HUDS planners should keep the problems that have come up in Eliot and Kirkland this year in mind as they go to the drawing board to concoct renovations to the rest of the dining halls on campus. With a little foresight, this kind of tension can be avoided in the future. The renovated dining halls are an aesthetic and culinary addition to the Harvard campus; we hope they'll turn out to be a better workplace for HUDS employees too.