Labour productivity in hospital foodservice

The objective of this research was to examine the relationship between quantitative labour productivity in hospital foodservice departments and variations in selected factors such as number of beds, staff turnover and the use of convenience foods. Thirty such factors were tested for their value in predicting labour productivity in the foodservice departments of a sample of public general hospitals in Ontario with rated capacities of 90 or more beds. In this research the outputs of hospital foodservice departments were separated into the two components, goods and services, and then evaluated against the labour required to produce them, given the variations in selected factors. Four of 20 variables tested against the output of goods (mealdays) collectively explained 48% of the variation in number of mealdays produced per labour hour. The four variables were: unionized staff, number of beds, percent patient mealdays of total mealdays, and percent part-time hours of total hours worked. None of 10 variables tested against the output of services (clinical counselling) showed any reliability in explaining the variation in number of patients seen per clinical labour hour.