It’s been a rollercoaster week for Burlington restaurant Hen of the Wood after an email from the general manager to employees drew backlash on social media and highlighted questions about the restaurant industry’s attitude toward sick time.
“If you feel sick with a cold and do not have coverage for your shift, you are expected to show up for work,” the general manager said in the email, which was subsequently shared on Reddit.
The email was also posted on Twitter and went viral.
Seven complaints were filed with the Vermont Department of Health. Seven Days first reported on the complaints.
“None of the complainants identified themselves as employees of the establishment,” Ben Truman, spokesperson for the department, said in an email to VTDigger. “Most reports referenced seeing the information on social media or Reddit and being concerned.”
It was “an internal communication going horribly wrong,” Hen of the Wood owner Eric Warnstedt said in an email to VTDigger.
He sent out an email of his own to staff summarizing what he said he had told managers.
“If you are a little lower energy (or have) sniffles, please mask-up, wash, and sanitize, and carry out your duties as a manager,” was how Warnstedt described his message to managers. “If symptoms carry on to include flu-like symptoms of notable fatigue, fever, chills, body ache, worsening sore throat, nausea, vomiting, etc., then we suggest touching base with me or your manager and getting a test as soon as possible.”
But even this guidance went against Department of Health recommendations, Truman said. The department provided Hen of the Wood with additional guidance recommending that even employees with mild symptoms should stay home until they test negative for Covid-19.
“Make sure that messaging to your employees includes mild symptoms as well,” the guidance said. “Covid-19 is frequently associated with mild symptoms, particularly for fully vaccinated individuals, so we recommend people experiencing abnormal symptoms, even if mild, seek testing for Covid-19 and isolate from others while their specimen is pending. If the result is negative, they should return to work after symptoms improve.”
Warnstedt told VTDigger he thinks he understands where his general manager was coming from when she asked employees with colds to show up for work unless they could find someone to cover for them.
“It only takes one person to take advantage of the easy call-outs, and I think she spun out,” he said. “The pressure is getting to everyone that is in a front-facing industry. This industry is brutal these days.”
Brutal because restaurant owners and general managers must make sure their staff stays healthy while also ensuring that enough people show up to keep the restaurant open.
“There’s actually a fairly easy answer in that,” said Cara Tobin, co-owner of Honey Road, another Burlington restaurant.
Tobin said she and her partner closely follow guidelines from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and talk to the staff to make sure they are comfortable with the Covid-19 protocols the restaurant adopts.
Honey Road staff are required to be masked and vaccinated.
“Right now our entire staff is vaccinated,” Tobin said.
Guests must provide proof of vaccination.
“If somebody thinks that they have a cold, we ask them to stay home and get tested,” Tobin said. “If they’re negative, then that’s great, but we still want them to not come in if they’re clearly very sick.”
Tobin believes that because people know her restaurant’s safety protocols, she is getting an increasing number of applicants for jobs.
“We’re getting people that are looking for a safe environment to work in,” she said.
Tobin said she builds in flexibility in scheduling by opening only four days a week. That allows her to take into account that employees may call in sick or take time off to get tested.
Owners and employees are facing a challenge to the traditional restaurant culture.
“It’s always been part of the restaurant culture to come in regardless of whether you are sick or not and just power through,” said a kitchen manager in Burlington, who asked not to be identified to speak frankly about his workplace. “If you don’t come in, there’s going to be somebody else that’s going to have to cover for you. It’s not the type of work environment where the work can get done tomorrow.”
Recently, that’s been changing, the Burlington kitchen manager said. People might come to work with a throat tickle, but colleagues are “more compassionate about being sick because it could be a deathly illness,” he said.
Marcel Desobies, head chef at Positive Pie, a restaurant in Montpelier, also said the culture in the restaurant industry is changing. At Positive Pie, they draw a hard line, he said.
“If somebody shows up, and they’re saying: ‘Hey, I’m sorry, I’m sick, I don’t feel well,’ we’d say: ‘We’re sorry you feel bad, please leave immediately and go home,’” he said.
Desobies said staff with proof of vaccination are allowed to take masks off.
He said for every 40 hours worked, the restaurant allows two hours of paid sick leave.
The health department recommends all employees in food service stay home if they are unwell or have a fever, regardless of vaccination status.
State regulations prohibit employees who have persistent sneezing, coughing, a runny nose or a sore throat with a fever from working with “exposed food, clean equipment, utensils, linens, or unwrapped single-service or single-use articles,” Truman said.
The health department recommends that if Covid-19 is not suspected, employees stay home until they are without a fever for 24 hours and all other symptoms have resolved.
On Thursday, Hen of the Wood held an all-staff meeting to address the fallout from the viral post.
“We don’t want anyone working sick, getting co-workers sick, or getting our guests sick,” according to managers’ notes summarizing the meeting, which Warnsted sent to VTDigger. “Contrary to the poorly worded email, it is not our policy, position, or intent to force anyone to work when sick.”
The notes acknowledged that staff members feel pressure when trying to decide whether to call in sick.
The notes said from now on, the pressure would be taken off managers to decide whether staff should stay home. That decision would be left to employees themselves.
According to the notes, the restaurant is considering identifying the positions in the kitchen, such as grill cook, where someone calling in sick would cause a breakdown and training more people to fill in for those positions. The notes said a strong majority of employees supported keeping masks optional and supported adding a vaccine requirement for diners or a requirement that diners prove they had a negative Covid-19 test in the past 72 hours.
In a Facebook post Friday, the restaurant said it is considering increasing paid time off to take some pressure off sick employees.
The notes summarizing the staff meeting said the restaurant’s primary struggle is staying open as it cannot afford any more extended closures or it will not be able to meet its commitment to 130 people that depend on the restaurant for their livelihoods.
— Riley Robinson contributed reporting.
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