Dietary Aide

A dietary aide’s main job responsibilities include helping prepare/serve the food for the residents, clean work areas and assist any residents that need help eating their meals. The dietary aide works along with the Food Service Manager and Cooks to prepare meals. He/She also assists in clean up, kitchen maintenance and setting up and taking down the dining areas. Other job duties include delivering food to residents’ rooms, preparing and serving snacks and taking inventory of food and kitchen supplies.

 Skills:

Dietary aides must possess certain skills to be able to fulfill the duties of the position.

• These skills include attention to detail and the ability to follow instructions, dietary needs and meal orders.
• The dietary aide must be physically able to prepare food, serve meals and assist the meals.
• Along with physical skills, a dietary aide must be a team player, be able to take initiative, compassionate and patient when working with elderly residents, as well as the residents’ family members and coworkers.

Requirements:

• Long term care facilities require a dietary aide to have at least a high school diploma or equivalent and at least one year of experience working in institutional food service.
• Dietary aides are required to work days, evenings and weekends.
• They sometimes must go into work on short notice, so they must be flexible in scheduling.
• When at work, dietary aides must maintain good physical health and hygiene and adhere to all dress codes for the facility.
• A dietary aide might have to participate in training and continuing education courses.

Work Environment:

• Dietary aides in long term care facilities spend most of their work shifts on their feet and walking around performing various tasks.
• During day-to-day activities, a dietary aide might have to lift up to 50 pounds in food supplies and other goods.
• Working in a kitchen setting means extreme temperature changes, from excessive heat in the cooking area to freezing temperatures in walk-in freezers.