I flitted from job to job wanting to find an environment like the one I had at St. John and though I stumbled across a few gems here and there, too often I found myself in the same old dysfunctional kitchens. In one place, the head chef didn’t have time to write a proper rota so we all just worked all-day, six days a week. You’d have a break in the middle of your double shift, but it wasn’t enough time to leave and there was nowhere to sit, so we’d just sit on the floor outside the staff toilets. These situations aren’t always toxic – this one was just caused by a massive disconnect between upper management and staff – but they’re no less culpable for affecting people’s happiness and mental health.

Ultimately, I created Countertalk because I was fed up of working in broken kitchen environments; I knew there were good kitchens out there, and I wanted to create a platform that highlighted them, and helped people find their way into healthy, happy workplaces.

We started with a few educational events and one-on-one advice-led coffee mornings, designed to promote healthy work environments and the people in them. After a year of match-making people into jobs through Instagram, we decided to create a more structured employment platform where companies could advertise for roles via Countertalk. As part of the platform, we vet employers about specifics of their business: how long is a trial? Is it paid? What is the gender balance of your front and back of house teams? Do you actively work to employ without bias? What is the pay per hour for the job? Through our website, prospective employees can look through the roles and apply directly, knowing that every employer on Countertalk has been thoroughly checked out.

We also try to cultivate a really invested community of people who all care about creating better work environments. In the past year we’ve run open events on staff retention, managing insecurities, leadership techniques, starting a food business and more. We run industry nights for people to network and get to know one another, and we send out weekly newsletters with job alerts and helpful information.

Our educational food-based events have also proved popular – we subsidise the ticket price so it's affordable for people in the industry! We’re lucky to have many very talented chefs as part of the Countertalk community, and we’ve run workshops on bread, pasta and ice cream in the past, with lots more planned for the future. Whether you feel stuck in a workplace that doesn’t support you, or you just want to join us for our next event, please do come and check us out!