Time to train

Educating staff is difficult in today's fast-paced kitchen environments. Here, six industry professionals talk about the need for on-the-job experience.

What type of training do you provide for staff?

Yves Givel: Each of our hotels has full training and development programmes in place with a training manager and additional operations trainers, depending on the size of the property.

This training team covers the core training for all employees, ranging from general orientation to service excellence skills, as well as leadership skills sessions.

In addition to both the core and leadership skills training, we also have a departmental skills training programme in place.

This is based on the tasks required for each position.

George Kunnappally: We conduct a three-day classroom session at our corporate headquarters in Bur Dubai.

The employees start by watching training videos with an instructor, which gives them an insight into their expected job profile.

Each employee is provided with a copy of the Charley's operations manual, which discusses in detail all the methods of preparation for the menu items, pre-opening procedures, post-rush tasks, cleaning and maintenance of equipment and storage of food.

Training is also provided on supervisory and line-staff functions, with seperate modules for communications skills, up-selling techniques, and telephone etiquette.

Rodney Sims: Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) provides training workshops covering all aspects of meat handling and food safety to a wide range of customers including importers, retailers, and chefs in the Middle East.

These customers are all importers and buyers of Australian meat, so the training addresses aspects such as meat handling, food safety, customer service and extensive meat quality attributes.

Training is provided on a monthly basis around the year by a MLA-certified master butcher and certified executive chefs qualified to provide training in the workplace to retailers and importers.

Prakesh Chugani: We have five levels on which we train our staff including technical, functional, IT and language skills.

Our group HR initiates the training programme by soliciting areas where training is required and then arranging for the personnel to receive the appropriate training.

For our outsourced staff, Dulsco has appointed a performance coach to focus on training.

Does your company conduct training in-house?

Wong Fatt Seng: The majority of the training programmes at our hotel are conducted in-house by internal associates - either the training manager or departmental trainers.

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