The Restaurant Career Ladder:What If Hospitality Progression Was Visible?

If we want better restaurants, we have to build better people. Hospitality career progression has to be part of that conversation. We talk a lot about restaurant concepts, menus, interiors, service and investment, but underneath all of that are the people who have to make those businesses work every day.

If we want people to build careers in hospitality, we have to give them more than a job. They need opportunities to learn, take on responsibility, specialise, lead and understand where their experience could take them next.

The question is: can someone entering hospitality today actually see a career ahead of them?

By Chef Dumebi

Hospitality • Careers • Leadership

A job is not necessarily a career

Over the years, I have watched people enter hospitality in one role and eventually move into something completely different. Someone may start as a cleaner, kitchen assistant or line cook and, with the right exposure and training, discover skills that take them in another direction.

Sometimes the person you hire for one position has abilities you haven't discovered yet. They may not even know what they are capable of because they haven't had the opportunity to try anything else.

This is why I don't think the responsibility of a hospitality business should stop at filling positions. We also need to pay attention to the people doing those jobs, create opportunities for them to learn and recognise when someone is ready for more responsibility.

Who could this person become while they are here?

That question has influenced how I have developed people in my own businesses.

Joy: from kitchen assistant to Doha

Joy started with me as a kitchen assistant and wanted to learn more about cooking and becoming a chef. While she worked with me, she had the opportunity to develop those skills and gain experience in the kitchen.

She eventually moved on, did her own thing and later went to work in Doha. A few months ago, she contacted me and told me about some of the things she had achieved since then. It was good to see how far her career had travelled from those early days in the kitchen.

You may only employ somebody for one chapter of their career. What they learn during that chapter can travel with them for years.

The job someone has today doesn't have to define what they do tomorrow.

Kenneth: progression through the kitchen

Kenneth started with me as a cleaner. He later became a kitchen assistant, then a grill assistant, before working more closely with me on sauces and production. We made things from scratch, including ketchup and ice cream, and over time his knowledge and responsibilities grew.

After several years, Kenneth moved on to work at RSVP and another reputable restaurant in Lagos. He is still doing well.

His progression happened gradually: exposure, responsibility, practice and then more responsibility. There wasn't one big promotion that suddenly created a career. Each stage gave him something he could take into the next one.

This is often what development in hospitality actually looks like. Someone learns one skill, becomes confident in it, is exposed to another area and gradually becomes capable of doing much more than the job they were originally hired to do.

Beatrice: recognising skills beyond the job title

Beatrice also started with me as a cleaner, but I could see quite quickly that she had abilities that could be used elsewhere in the business. I remember thinking, No way. You're too good to be a cleaner.

There is nothing wrong with being a cleaner. Every role matters in a hospitality business. But I didn't want the position she had started in to determine the limit of the opportunities available to her.

Beatrice moved into front of house and later became one of our social media managers. She still works with me today, creating content.

She is a good example of why hospitality businesses need to look beyond someone's current job title and recognise potential. Sometimes people already have useful abilities. Sometimes those abilities need training. And sometimes they simply need somebody to give them the opportunity to try something different.

James: from line cook to private chef

James started as a line cook and today works as a private chef for a reputable family.

His career took a different route again, which is exactly the point. Progression in hospitality doesn't always mean moving from commis chef to chef de partie, sous chef and eventually executive chef. There are many possible directions.

Someone might become a private chef. Another person may move into pastry, restaurant management, food production, events, procurement or hospitality marketing. Someone else might eventually become a trainer, consultant or business owner.

We need to make more of those possibilities visible.

Perhaps we need a career map, not just a ladder

The traditional career ladder is useful because people need to understand progression. But hospitality careers aren't always linear.

ENTRY → SKILLED → SPECIALIST → SUPERVISOR → MANAGER → LEADER

Within that structure, there can be many different pathways. Kitchen, pastry, bakery, front of house, beverage, procurement, operations, production, events, content, marketing, technology and education can all become careers in their own right.

Not everyone needs to become an executive chef, and not everyone needs to own a restaurant.

An industry also needs exceptional restaurant managers, general managers, maître d's, pastry chefs, bakers, beverage specialists, procurement professionals, trainers, event producers, marketers, operations specialists and educators.

When those careers are visible, hospitality begins to look less like a collection of temporary jobs and more like an industry in which someone can deliberately build expertise.

What would make progression visible?

This doesn't necessarily require complicated programmes. A lot can begin inside individual hospitality businesses.

People should know what their current role requires, what good performance looks like, which skills they need to develop and what positions or specialisms could come next. Clear job descriptions, defined role levels, skills checklists, regular development conversations and opportunities for cross-training can make a significant difference.

There also needs to be better support when people move from technical roles into management. Being an excellent chef does not automatically make someone an excellent kitchen manager. Being a strong waiter does not automatically teach someone how to manage a restaurant team. Leadership, communication, costing, scheduling, conflict management and training are skills too.

Restaurants can also work more closely with culinary schools, colleges and training providers so that education and employment are not operating as completely separate worlds. If we want a stronger hospitality industry, the route from learning to employment to progression needs to become clearer.

Development is bigger than staff retention

Staff retention matters. Constantly recruiting and retraining people is expensive, disruptive and difficult for any hospitality business. But I don't think the conversation should only be about how we stop good people from leaving.

A better question is: how do we make the time people spend working with us genuinely useful to their careers?

People will move. They will join other restaurants, relocate to other countries, start businesses, become private chefs, change specialisms or leave hospitality altogether. That doesn't automatically mean the business failed to retain them.

If someone leaves with stronger skills, more experience and a clearer understanding of what they can do, they contribute that knowledge wherever they go next. That is also how an industry develops.

The goal isn't simply to move someone up. The goal is to help them move forward.

The restaurant of the future has to develop people

When I think about the restaurants and hospitality businesses I want to see across Nigeria and Africa in the future, I don't only think about better food, stronger concepts or beautiful dining rooms. I think about the careers being built inside them.

I want a young person entering a restaurant to be able to see hospitality as a genuine profession. Someone starting as a kitchen assistant should be able to understand how they could become a chef, production specialist or kitchen manager. Someone starting in front of house should be able to see a route towards restaurant management, guest experience or hospitality leadership. Someone interested in sourcing should be able to build expertise in procurement and supply chains.

We also need to stop presenting restaurant ownership as the ultimate definition of success. A strong hospitality industry needs highly skilled people who build long careers inside other people's businesses, as well as those who eventually start their own.

For that to happen, employers have to do more than recruit people to fill today's vacancies. We need to train them, expose them to different parts of the business, recognise potential and make the next stage of development easier to see.

Better restaurants need better careers inside them.

If someone joins a hospitality business today, they should be able to ask not only, What is my job?

Where can I go from here?