“The only thing more costly than training people and having them leave is failing to train them and having them stay.”
Guy Armstrong, President, Innovision and Sunrise Basic Training
Many hotel and restaurant managers will tell you that great service people are born, not made. But before you start recruiting at the local maternity ward, consider that natural-born service professionals are few and far between. If you want to develop a consistent service team, you’ll have to develop them yourself. This means training.
However, because training takes time and resources, many managers hesitate: why should they should invest in training someone when it’s possible they’ll take those skills to a competitor’s operation for a few cents more per hour?
This logic is counterintuitive: the only thing more costly than training people and having them leave is failing to train them and having them stay. An untrained employee is not only less productive and less consistent, he or she can be a liability to your operation.
eLearning resources can be a cost-effective resource for employee training. The courses are easy to use and easy to implement: all you need is a computer and internet connection, and training can take place without the constant involvement of managers or trainers. eLearning courses make an automatic and permanent record of your employee’s training, which usually includes the result of a quiz or other assessment that ensures the understanding and retention of key concepts. In this way, elearning builds consistency because everyone gets the same message: important details are less likely to be left out or forgotten as they often are in shadow or on-the-job training.
Effective training has proven to reduce turnover, build teamwork, and foster employee loyalty. Online training for your entire hotel or restaurant staff can pay off with greater consistency and superior customer service, creating loyal customers who generate repeat business and boost profitability.
Critical areas for training in the hospitality industry include new employee orientation, guest service, safety, security, as well as position-specific, front and back-of-the-house skills training such as front desk and housekeeping for hotels and kitchen operations and table service for restaurants.
A blended learning approach can be very effective. Let lodging and food service courses such as the Sunrise Basic Training programs do the heavy lifting of core training, while saving your valuable resources to deliver training on your operation’s specific policies and procedures. While keeping an eye on the big picture, understand that you don’t have to do it all at once: select a training area or topic that will be most effective in your hotel or restaurant, and get started. Remember that every learning journey begins with a single click. Explore Sunrise Basic Training’s learning resources on OpenSesame.
Guy A. Armstrong is President of Innovision Media Concepts, Inc. and its subsidiary, Sunrise Basic Training, founded in 1997 and dedicated to helping hospitality and service industry clients operate more profitably through high-quality video and web-based training resources. Guy previously served as Vice President of Electronic Media at the American Hotel & Lodging Association’s Educational Institute. He is a graduate of the University of Oregon’s School of Telecommunication & Film and currently resides in Portland Oregon.