Employee training and development (food industry) essay

Employee Training and Development (Food Industry)Employee training and development programs help generate professional workforce and highly skilled personnel.

With today’s growing competition and new trends and policies in all market sectors qualified employees represent key objective for any successful company. We have chosen food industry as our research area to carry out in-depth analysis of training and development of workers. Since food industry is an area associated with goods of first priority significant number of people visit restaurants a few times a week. Experts say, average American citizen prefers restaurant food to home cooking every fifth day.  In this light, education and commitment of employees are vitally important to cater needs of restaurant visitors (Brown 2007). Food industry managers are in charge of implementing cutting-edge approaches and technologies into training and development procedures for effective and immediate results. Skilled employees should learn new  techniques, approaches, and tactics to improve their performance and enable them to get promotion in a short while.

Those who conduct trainings should keep in mind that both newcomers and employees with long-term experience are characterized by different types of comprehension includingOral, Visual, andPractical (Drummond 1992). Professional training and development programs for employee should cover all tools and techniques including flip charts, viewers, graphs, and other additional materials required for education process. Effective training and development programs for employees in food industry require that HR directors and managers first ask themselves why they need to implement professional improvement project. The reasons are: To increase turnover and sales ratesTo turn one-time visitors into regular customersTo promote themselvesTo fall into category of “#1 Eating Place”, etc. (Brown 2007). To do that Human Resources department employees should discuss highly indicated issues with restaurant managers and make sure they possess a clear picture of what exact employees should go through the training to bring most positive results. Upper management executives are responsible for setting up policy based on which department managers treat their employees as if they were their VIP clients.

Restaurant employees especially those who directly deal with customer service imitate attitude they observe on part of their own managers. Employees should understand that they are a crucial part of entire process representing their company in front of end-users who usually come from different walks of life (Noe 2006). It would be appropriate to mention that there is a substantial difference between training and development programs. Training programs are a small number of 2-3 hour sessions aimed at improving practical skills of restaurant staff and bring their qualification one level higher (Noe 2006). Unlike trainings, development programs further career advancement and last from couple of month to a year.

For example, if restaurant manager notices that his/her employees leave their work place 10-15 minutes earlier than scheduled time s/he sets up a meeting or two to kindly remind the staff to follow company policy and timing. However, in case of need of in-depth professional improvement such as introducing Chinese food into international cuisine restaurant long-term employee development program will be required (Drummond 1992). Trainings may also include revision of knowledge possessed (table serving, menu development, communication with customers, etc) and some updates while development programs imply gaining totally new skills, practices, and experience to shortly apply them in practice. Employee development programs in food industry consist of great amount of theoretical materials and methodology used in culinary arts education (Noe 2006). Both training and development programs for restaurant employees encompass the following recommendations:·      No matter the size of the staff (but not less than 10) employees should always be split into groups so the trainer has enough time for each group member.

Also it is necessary to place employees with different type of comprehension separately for better and faster results. Due to the fact that coordinators cannot define type of comprehension for all employees at once they may reform groups during the following sessions based on their reviews and feedback.·      Restaurant managers or supervisors should schedule 2-hour session per day. Otherwise they may lose attention of trainees whose motivation will considerably drop next time (Noe 2006).·      Games and role play are highly important during training sessions. Trainers should come up with a game that will entertain group members and be associated with situations at work. They may choose any game format because non-standard activities always “ take the heat out of the situation” (in case of never-ending theory).

·      No limits should be set for employees. It is highly recommended that instructors and managers  allow employees to express themselves freely through brainstorming any many more activities and exercises carried out during training settings. Even seemingly crazy idea at first sight may appear to be the best technique or trick in the long run.·      Restaurant managers should make sure their employees understand why they need specific type of training and development program. They should possess both short-term and long-term vision of their performance to be able to be even more effective at work. Prior to training sessions it would be a good idea to distribute hand-outs among group members with information on primary goals and objectives of the training and development program (Brown 2007).·      It is important that employees are encouraged to apply new knowledge they receive during training and development program sessions in their daily routine. Similar to learning languages, food industry programs require immediate use of recently obtained knowledge in real life to achieve high results.

·      Tolerant criticism should be present at all meetings as an essential part of any learning activity.·      Recognition and rewards cannot be left behind in any education process including restaurant management settings. Coordinators may choose any type of encouragement for their trainees including bonuses, discounts for them and their family members, etc. Small rewards bring best results (Drummond 1992).·      Employees should be encouraged to find relevant information outside the class such as examples from personal experience and life of somebody else, books, etc.·      Whenever possible instructors should draw parallels between trainings and real life situations and work objectives for every employee.

Additionally, participation of restaurant managers in training programs head-to-head with their employees may serve as a strong incentive for the latter to imitate behavior of the role model.·      After-training results represent most significant part of entire education process. In three or four weeks after the program employee monitoring should be conducted to check whether the staff benefited from the training.

Supervisors are also asked about achievements and changes in work of employees. It is preferable that employees keep dairies first weeks after the sessions to write down changes or improvement in their after-training behavior (Noe 2006).·      Supervisors should keep an eye on real needs of their employees.

Thus, training sessions should be set up also upon request of any employee if s/he feels necessity for some improvement.·      Instructors and managers should remember that if they have effectively conducted training sessions, introduced new ideas and methods, and provided sufficient amount of required materials unsuccessful employers should be terminated. However, each case of termination should trigger revision of HR department performance and company policy in general. To keep the business financially sound in turbulent times restaurant managers now put much effort in not only introducing and thoroughly selecting new employees but also creating friendly professional environment. ReferencesBrown, D. R. (2007).

The Restaurant Manager’s Handbook: How to Set Up, Operate, and Manage a Financially Successful Food Service Operation 4th Edition. New York: Atlantic Publishing Company. Drummond, K. E. (1992). The Restaurant Training Program: An Employee Training Guide for Managers.

New York: John Wiley ; Sons. Noe, R. (2006). Employee Training And Development.

New York: Richmond Publishing.;