by CHOW Ambassador Matthew Ward

Mental Health Awareness Month gives our industry a necessary opportunity to talk about burnout, anxiety, stress, exhaustion, grief, substance use, and the pressure people carry in hospitality. It gives us permission to say some things out loud that, for too long, many people in our industry have been expected to keep buried.

But when May ends, the work cannot end with it.

Awareness matters, but awareness cannot be the finish line. If we truly want to create healthier kitchens, dining rooms, bakeries, dish rooms, cafés, hotels, and hospitality teams, then we have to move from awareness into practice. We have to take the momentum of Mental Health Awareness Month and turn it into something our teams can actually feel in the day-to-day rhythm of the work.

But I also want to be clear: hospitality leaders are already carrying a lot.

Chefs, managers, supervisors, and operators are navigating labor gaps, callouts, food costs, guest expectations, production demands, safety standards, training needs, service pressure, and the constant pace of the operation. The answer cannot be to hand leaders another complicated initiative, another binder, another checklist, or another unrealistic expectation that makes them feel like they are failing before they even begin.

I have had to sit with this tension myself.

As much as I believe in the need for more care in hospitality, I also know what it feels like to be the leader walking into a shift with too many callouts, too many expectations, and not enough hours in the day. I know how easy it is for a well-intentioned conversation about mental health to start sounding like one more thing leaders are being asked to carry.

That is not what this can be.

If checking in is going to matter in hospitality, it has to respect the reality of the operation. It has to fit inside the work, not sit on top of it.

Hospitality leaders are not therapists, and we should not ask them to be. A chef or manager cannot carry every personal struggle on the team. They cannot solve problems outside of their role, training, or scope. But leaders can notice. Leaders can ask better questions. Leaders can respond with practical support. Leaders can know when to connect someone to the right resource. And leaders can build small moments of care into the way the work already happens.

That is the difference between making mental health another impossible responsibility and making care part of how we lead.

During Mental Health Awareness Month, I shared a clip from The Pivot Podcast featuring Ryan Clark. In the clip, Ryan speaks emotionally about losing someone close to him to suicide. It is a difficult story to hear, but an important one.

What stayed with me most was the simplicity of the questions that came out of that conversation:

You good?
Are you OK?
Do you need anything?

Three simple questions.

When they are asked with real intention, they can create space. They can interrupt isolation. They can remind someone that they are seen, valued, and not carrying everything alone.

As I continued to sit with those questions, I started thinking about what they sound like in hospitality.

What does “You good?” sound like before service?
What does “Are you OK?” sound like in the middle of a rush?
What does “Do you need anything?” sound like when someone is quietly burning out?

Because in hospitality, checking in cannot be performative.

A rushed “you good?” while walking away is not care. But checking in also does not have to be a long, heavy, formal conversation every time. In real-world operations, it has to be simple enough to live inside the shift.

It has to be practical.

That is where checking in becomes more than a kind gesture.

It becomes a leadership skill.

As chefs, we are trained to notice things.

We notice when a sauce is too tight, when a station is not set, when a plate leaves the pass without the right garnish, when a ticket time starts to slip, when a delivery is short, when a dining room begins to lose its rhythm. We notice the details because the details matter. They are part of the craft. They are part of the standard.

But we have to become just as skilled at noticing each other.

The quiet coworker.
The cook who is always “fine.”
The manager who never says no.
The person who jokes through everything because humor feels safer than honesty.
The team member who keeps showing up physically but is slowly disappearing emotionally.

Hospitality has always been about care. We build experiences around care. We anticipate the needs of guests. We read the room. We respond to pressure. We serve.

But if care is part of the work, then it has to include the people doing the work.

And it does not have to start with something monumental.

It can start with a simple framework:

Notice. Ask. Act. Follow up.

Notice

This may be the most natural place for hospitality leaders to begin because noticing is already part of the job.

We notice flow. We notice timing. We notice body language. We notice when the room changes. We notice when a station starts to fall behind, before the ticket times tell the full story.

The opportunity is to apply that same awareness to our people.

Someone is unusually quiet. Someone is snapping at coworkers. Someone is making mistakes they normally do not make. Someone is always the first one in and the last one out. Someone never asks for help. Someone looks like they are carrying more than the work in front of them.

Noticing does not mean diagnosing. It does not mean assuming we know what someone is going through. It simply means paying attention.

In a busy operation, that may be the first and most important step.

Ask

Once we notice, the next step is to ask. But the question has to fit the moment.

Before service, when there is still a little room to set the tone, the question might be:

How are you coming into the shift today?

That question does not require a long answer. It simply gives someone a chance to say, “I’m good,” “I’m tired,” “I’m a little off,” or “I may need some help today.” It connects the human side of the shift to the operational side.

During service, the question has to be more direct and practical:

What do you need right now — hands, time, product, or a reset?

That kind of question helps move someone from panic to clarity. Maybe the person needs another set of hands. Maybe they need product. Maybe they need two minutes to reset the station. Maybe they just need help prioritizing what comes next.

After service, the question can become reflective without becoming complicated:

What can we adjust before the next service?

This matters because not all pressure is unavoidable. Some pressure comes from poor communication, unclear expectations, weak systems, bad timing, or preventable issues that keep repeating themselves.

And when a leader notices someone who seems different or withdrawn, the question might be:

I noticed you seem a little different today — how are you doing?

That is not an interrogation. It is an opening. It lets someone know they are not invisible.

The goal is not to force vulnerability. The goal is to create enough trust that people know they can be honest when they need to be. A team member is more likely to speak honestly when they believe the response will be steady, respectful, and supportive — not punitive or dismissive.

When someone does share something personal, leaders have a responsibility to handle it with discretion, respect, and the appropriate level of support.

Act

This is where checking in becomes real.

A question without action can feel empty. But action does not always have to be big. In hospitality, some of the most meaningful support is practical and immediate.

Send hands to a station. Give someone five minutes to reset. Help prioritize the prep list. Remove a nonessential task. Clarify expectations. Step in for a few minutes. Adjust tomorrow’s setup so the same pressure point does not repeat.

This kind of care does not lower the standard. It supports the standard. People are more likely to perform well when they understand what is expected, have the tools to do the work, and know they are not alone when the pressure rises. In hospitality, care and accountability should not be treated as opposites. The best leaders learn how to hold both.

And when the need is beyond what a leader should handle alone, connect someone to the appropriate resource — HR, an employee assistance program, CHOW, 988, or another support system.

That last point is important.

Leaders need to know their limits. Caring about people does not mean trying to become everything for everyone. Sometimes, the most responsible form of leadership is recognizing when someone needs support beyond the operation and helping connect them to the right place.

Leaders should also know what resources are available before a crisis happens. The middle of a difficult moment is not the ideal time to start figuring out where support lives.

There is strength in knowing when to step in, and there is wisdom in knowing when to bring in additional support.

Follow Up

The follow-up does not have to be dramatic.

It can be as simple as:

Did that help?

How did the rest of your shift go?

Let’s look at tomorrow so we do not repeat the same pressure point.

Follow-up is what turns a moment of care into trust. It tells the person that the check-in was not just a passing comment. It shows that the leader meant it.

This is especially important in hospitality because our industry moves so quickly. We often solve the immediate problem and rush into the next one. But people remember when a leader circles back.

That is how culture changes in real time.

Not all at once. Not through one big speech. But through repeated moments that tell people, “You matter here.”

The Leadership Self-Check

Before leaders can check in on their teams, we also have to be willing to check in with ourselves.

This may be the hardest part.

I also know that I have not always gotten this right.

Like many chefs, I came up in environments where urgency, pressure, and emotional toughness were often treated as part of the job. There were times in my career when I thought keeping everything moving was the same thing as leading well. There were times when I was so focused on the execution in front of me that I may have missed what someone was carrying beside me.

That is hard to admit, but it is necessary.

Growth as a leader means being willing to look back honestly without staying stuck in shame. It means asking what we inherited, what we repeated, and what we now have the responsibility to change.

Chefs set the emotional temperature of a kitchen. Managers set the tone of a dining room. Supervisors influence whether a shift feels steady or chaotic. Leaders bring energy into a space long before they say a word.

If we walk in reactive, the team feels it.
If we lead from frustration, the team absorbs it.
If we normalize panic, the team begins to operate in survival mode.
If we reward the people who never take breaks, never say no, and never ask for help, we should not be surprised when burnout becomes part of the culture.

So, leaders also need a few questions for themselves:

What energy am I bringing into the room today?

Am I leading from urgency or from clarity?

Am I rewarding people for burning themselves out?

Those questions are uncomfortable, but necessary.

Many of us learned leadership in environments where emotional control was not modeled well. We saw anger mistaken for authority. We saw exhaustion mistaken for dedication. We saw silence mistaken for strength. Some of us inherited ways of leading that we now have a responsibility to examine.

That does not make us bad leaders. It makes us accountable ones.

The next generation of hospitality professionals is watching what we normalize. They are watching how we handle stress, how we speak under pressure, how we respond to mistakes, how we treat the quietest person in the room, and whether our version of excellence leaves people healthier or more depleted.

This is where the momentum of Mental Health Awareness Month has to become something more lasting.

We need tools.
We need language.
We need practices.
We need leaders who understand that care does not have to be complicated to be meaningful.

Ryan Clark’s conversation stayed with me because the questions were so simple:

You good?
Are you OK?
Do you need anything?

Hospitality needs those questions. But we also need to translate them into the real conditions of our work. We need questions that fit before service, during the rush, after the shift, in a quiet one-on-one, and in the mirror.

The goal is not to add another heavy responsibility to leaders who are already stretched thin.

The goal is to give leaders simple, practical language they can use in the moments where culture is actually shaped.

I am still practicing this myself.

I still have to remind myself to slow down, to listen longer, to check my own energy before I walk into a room, and to recognize when urgency is starting to turn into reactivity. None of us will get this perfect. Hospitality is too fast, too human, and too unpredictable for perfection.

But perfection is not the goal.

Practice is.

Checking in is not extra work.

It is leadership work.

It is culture work.

It is retention work.

It is how we begin to build kitchens, dining rooms, bakeries, dish rooms, and hospitality spaces where people can do excellent work without losing themselves in the process.

Mental Health Awareness Month may end, but the responsibility does not. The real work begins in the everyday moments: noticing, asking, acting, following up, and looking honestly at ourselves.

Start with one question. Use it consistently. Listen to the answer. Follow up when you can.

Hospitality has always known how to care for others.

Now we have to practice caring for each other with the same intention.

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