Southern Adventist University’s employee shortage had been an issue in the campus eateries even before COVID-19, but it worsened during the pandemic, according to Teddy Kyriakidis, Food Service director.
“A lot of universities are shutting down venues, reducing hours, just cutting back on what they do,” he said.
Last month, Kyriakidis sent an email to the student body regarding reduced Food Services venue hours.
“As [COVID-19] continues on our campus, food service venue hours are likely to change with short notice, typically either closing early or altogether due to short-staffing,” he wrote in the email. “Menu offerings may also change due to labor or product shortages. We will post these time changes at the specific venues and communicate as we are able.
“We encourage you to plan ahead and not wait until the end of a meal period to purchase your food,” the email continued. “We also encourage you to mitigate these staff shortages by joining one of our food service teams.”
Kyriakidis said student workers are down by 30% campus-wide, but cafeteria full-time staff is at 75% to 80% capacity.
“Some parts of the industry [have] reduced their staff to one-third to a half,” he said, referring to the worker-shortage among food service departments at other universities.
Similar issues are happening with CK2. Kim Armstrong, CK2 manager, is facing COVID-19-related obstacles.
“Due to never knowing when a CK2 student worker and/or supervisor will go into quarantine, it’s a challenge to always have enough workers,” Armstrong said.
On January 25, 2022, five CK2 workers were down due to quarantine and illness, she added.
When numbers are high, Armstrong and Kyriakidis discuss when to open or close the eateries they manage, depending on the amount of workers in quarantine.
According to Armstrong, the opening and closing hours will be passed to Kari Shultz, director of student life and activities. Shultz will then post the hours in the Weekender email.
“We continue to pray for God’s leading and know he carries us in the palm of His hand,” Armstrong said.
