Sous Chef

Apply Before
21/01/25

Job Schedule
Full time

Education
High School certificate.

Work Experience
Relevant experience from restaurant/commercial kitchens

Required Languages
Good knowledge of written and spoken English

Vacancy Timeline
15 working days

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Job Description

Background

UN City Copenhagen comprises two campuses with a total of 2,000 employees. Campus 1 opened in 2013 and houses 1,700 employees from 108 different countries working in 11 different agencies. Campus 2 is home to UNICEF Supply Division with 400 employees and is the largest humanitarian warehouse in the world.

The 11 UN agencies resident in UN City vary in size and mandate. They do, however, share a common agenda: to achieve the 17 Sustainable Development Goals by 2030.

Prior to the construction of Campus 1, several agencies were in different parts of Copenhagen. Gathering the organizations in the same building facilitates and enhances cross-organizational cooperation.

UN City has become a hub where agencies can collaborate, share knowledge and work with experts from different fields and sectors.

Job Purpose and Organizational Context

The kitchen, located in Campus 1 and guided by its Head Chef, is dedicated to delivering a premier culinary experience, with a primary focus on plant-based offers, throughout the in-house canteen, café, and catering services. Assisting in this role, the Kitchen Operations and Sustainability Manager supervises the Kitchen team, with the support of two Sous Chefs.

The kitchen team comprises 5 chefs, 3 kitchen assistants and 3 dishwashers. The aim is to spearhead a transformative culinary journey that necessitates effective communication, diligent monitoring and reporting, and robust engagement with both internal staff and visitors. The canteen offers a daily menu of two main dishes and one side-dish (for an average of 450 people per day), with special consideration for organic, seasonal, and regional produce; personally plated/served by our chefs. This position will focus on our catering and cafe assortment and lead the team connected to this area of kitchen operation.

The kitchen team is today in search of an experienced, adept, and well-informed Sous Chef to co-lead the team under the supervision of the Head Chef and the Kitchen Operation Manager; a creative trained individual who is passionate about working with side stream products and circular solutions, a true team player with high quality standards, capable of infusing positive energy into the group and possessing a strong sense of discipline when it comes to kitchen operations and training; someone with a genuine interest on sustainability and responsible cooking, who could introduce innovative flavors, exhibits high motivation, and passion to the team.

In a dynamic and international work environment, the position offers:

- A five-day working week (Monday to Friday) of 42,5 hours per week (½ hour lunch break included), mainly between 7:00-15:30, with occasional evening shifts required to meet business needs.
- Full-time contract with a competitive tax-free salary,
- 6 weeks earned vacations + 10 days UN holidays,
- Health insurance

Duties and Responsibilities

Among other responsibilities this will be the focus for the Kitchen assistant:

- Co-lead and support kitchen team during the daily operation.
- Daily engage in planning and preparing the food with the team.
- Implement new recipes through a sustainable approach where up cycling and circular food systems play a significant role, while assisting kitchen team on menu creation.
- Coordinate and support kitchen team with purchase optimization and ordering, by keeping detailed records and minimizing waste, while working with existing systems to improve food waste/loss reduction.
- Manage budgetary concerns concerning food-cost and equipment purchase optimization.
- Supervises all food preparation and presentation to ensure quality and high gastronomic standards.
- Lead kitchen team on overseeing and organizing kitchen stock and ingredients and set-up daily operation procedures.
- Ensures a first-in, first-out food rotation system and verifies all food products are properly dated and organized for quality assurance; assists the team in maintaining a clean and efficient kitchen.
- Trains new kitchen employees to kitchen standards, SOP, and introducing kitchen framework.
- Follow the internal sustainability principles and implement the same with the kitchen team.
- Work on planning and implementing social dinner events with guests from different UN agencies.
- Be a team player that takes pride in making sure the team delivers the best possible outcome with high wellbeing standards.
- Be open to communicate and focus on customers’ needs, while managing direct contacts between kitchen team and customers.

Institutional Arrangement

Competencies

Core

Achieve Results: LEVEL 1: Plans and monitors own work, pays attention to details, delivers quality work by deadline.

Think Innovatively: LEVEL 1: Open to creative ideas/known risks, is pragmatic problem solver, makes improvements.

Learn Continuously: LEVEL 1: Open minded and curious, shares knowledge, learns from mistakes, asks for feedback.

Adapt with Agility: LEVEL 1: Adapts to change, constructively handles ambiguity/uncertainty, is flexible.

Act with Determination: LEVEL 1: Shows drive and motivation, able to deliver calmly in face of adversity, confident.

Engage and Partner: LEVEL 1: Demonstrates compassion/understanding towards others, forms positive relationships.

Enable Diversity and Inclusion: LEVEL 1: Appreciate/respect differences, aware of unconscious bias, confront discrimination.

Cross-Functional & Technical competencies

Business Management: Communication

- Ability to respond timely and appropriately with a sense of urgency, provide consistent solutions, and deliver timely and quality results and/or solutions to fulfil and understand the real customers' needs. Provide inputs to the development of customer service strategy. Look for ways to add value beyond clients' immediate requests. Ability to anticipate client's upcoming needs and concerns.

UN Policy Ethics: UN policy knowledge -ethics

- Knowledge and understanding of the UN staff regulations and rules and other policies relating to ethics and integrity.

Required Skills and Experience

Education: High School certificate.

Experience: High School certificate with 6 years relevant experience from restaurant/commercial kitchens, or, 3 years’ experience as sous chef.

Required skills:

- Culinary skills from restaurants, canteens, and hotels.
- Be interested in sustainability and responsible cooking.
- Teamwork and good communication skills.
- Baking and patisserie skills and/or interest.
- Excellent knowledge of daily kitchen operations tasks (Mep, menu creation, cleaning procedures, ordering, stock control, etc.).
- Proven management skills of a large team
- Attention to detail with a positive and self-motivated attitude.
- Excellent time management and the ability to prioritize tasks.
- Good administrative skills.
- Solution oriented with a high portion of creativity and innovative spirit.
- Previous experience in an international environment is an asset.

Desired skills in addition to the competencies covered in the Competencies section.

- Demonstrate commitment to UN’s mission, vision, and values.
- Display cultural, gender, religion, race, nationality and age sensitivity and adaptability.
- Demonstrate/ safeguard ethics and integrity.

Required Language(s) (at working level): Excellent knowledge of written and spoken English.

CV and Cover letter must need to be in English and submitted on Jobindex.

Apply with QuickApply on Jobindex.