TONY BALDWIN
Hotel Services Manager, Crowley Care Services, NSW
I’ve worked in aged care for 17 years now. My background is hospitality and before I commenced working in the aged care sector, I was working in education as a catering manager and teaching hospitality. One day, I saw a position advertised in aged care and it caught my eye. The next week I saw it advertised again and after a little bit of research, I applied for the hospitality job and that is how my journey began.
My role is Manager of Hotel Services and I oversee the catering, the café, housekeeping and laundry services. On a daily basis, it’s my role to ensure residents are happy and everything from rooms to meals are good quality and consistently of a high standard.
Nutrition in aged care is important. We cook fresh and nutritious meals every day and our catering team regularly speak to and gather feedback from residents and staff in regards to the menus and food planning. We find residents’ feedback invaluable and there is lots of recipe conversations happening as many of our residents previously cooked for their own families for many years so they like to still be involved and share their experience and knowledge with us.
The team enjoy being open minded to feedback; it allows our team to build a relationship with the residents and show them that we respect and acknowledge what they have to say. It’s surprising how often it leads to improvement.
My team makes a birthday cake for every resident’s birthday. It doesn’t matter how many birthdays there are in a day here, they all get an individual cake. Sometimes there can be up to four in one day! They appreciate the gesture and it’s a small effort that makes someone’s day a whole lot better!
I would like to encourage more young people in hospitality to consider working in aged care. If you are a chef and ready to be challenged from a different angle in this exciting industry, aged care is a surprisingly great opportunity for you. The experience you will gain is enormous and the sector is also open to new and innovative ideas.
At Crowley Care Services, we continue to increase our function and event opportunities for residents, families and the community, including a Christmas Buffet last year that was attended for more than 200 people.
