TUCSON ARIZ. —Effective employee training not only generates a return on investment, but it reflects a company’s strategy and reinforces its culture, hospitality executives told attendees at the recent semiannual conference here of the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers, or CHART.
“Training for us is the keeper of the culture,” said Frank Sbordone, president and chief executive of Peter Piper Pizza, the Phoenix-based operator or franchisor of more than 140 pizza parlors. —Effective employee training not only generates a return on investment, but it reflects a company’s strategy and reinforces its culture, hospitality executives told attendees at the recent semiannual conference here of the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers, or CHART.
Sbordone credited training with helping to make the brand more profitable over the past 10 years, growing the chain from one whose average weekly per-restaurant sales were an anemic $12,000 into one whose new outlets can ring up more than $70,000 in their opening week. —Effective employee training not only generates a return on investment, but it reflects a company’s strategy and reinforces its culture, hospitality executives told attendees at the recent semiannual conference here of the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers, or CHART.
Sbordone participated in a panel discussion with other hospitality executives during the four-day conference, held at the Loews Ventana Canyon resort here this month. —Effective employee training not only generates a return on investment, but it reflects a company’s strategy and reinforces its culture, hospitality executives told attendees at the recent semiannual conference here of the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers, or CHART.
More than 370 human resources and training professionals attended the event, which included guest speakers and workshops on training methods, recruiting, retention, leadership development and ways to demonstrate how training can impact a company’s bottom line. —Effective employee training not only generates a return on investment, but it reflects a company’s strategy and reinforces its culture, hospitality executives told attendees at the recent semiannual conference here of the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers, or CHART.
Hospitality leaders on the Presidents’ Panel with Sbordone said they are more likely to listen to pitches for more training dollars if trainers and human resource executives can show how the training is tied to the company’s strategy. —Effective employee training not only generates a return on investment, but it reflects a company’s strategy and reinforces its culture, hospitality executives told attendees at the recent semiannual conference here of the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers, or CHART.
“We do not look so much at the [return on investment], but will this lead us to where we want to be?” said Paul Astbury, president of Ocean Reef Club, a private resort community in Key Largo, Fla., that has up to 400 seasonal employees. —Effective employee training not only generates a return on investment, but it reflects a company’s strategy and reinforces its culture, hospitality executives told attendees at the recent semiannual conference here of the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers, or CHART.
Also on the panel were Robert Dann, president of Minneapolis-based CSM Lodging, which operates 37 hotels; Cameron Mitchell, founder and president of Cameron Mitchell Restaurants in Columbus, Ohio; John Vanderslice, chief executive of Miraval Life in Balance resort in Catalina, Ariz.; and Nick Vojnovic, president of Beef ‘O’ Brady’s, the Tampa, Fla.-based chain of 230 restaurants. Jeff Higley, editor-in-chief of Hotel & Motel Management magazine moderated the panel. —Effective employee training not only generates a return on investment, but it reflects a company’s strategy and reinforces its culture, hospitality executives told attendees at the recent semiannual conference here of the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers, or CHART.
Approval for a new training program is more likely to happen if it can improve employee retention, Astbury said. “That’s a shoo-in.” —Effective employee training not only generates a return on investment, but it reflects a company’s strategy and reinforces its culture, hospitality executives told attendees at the recent semiannual conference here of the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers, or CHART.
Panel members said they gauge how well the training is doing by looking at turnover, customer satisfaction surveys and mystery shopper scores. —Effective employee training not only generates a return on investment, but it reflects a company’s strategy and reinforces its culture, hospitality executives told attendees at the recent semiannual conference here of the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers, or CHART.
Most of the panelists said their companies offer English-as-a-second-language courses for employees and have almost all their training materials also available in Spanish. Asked how trainers might get approval for English-language courses at their companies, Vanderslice of Miraval said: “Just show the demographics of the United States. That should clear it up.” —Effective employee training not only generates a return on investment, but it reflects a company’s strategy and reinforces its culture, hospitality executives told attendees at the recent semiannual conference here of the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers, or CHART.
Also during the conference, CHART presented Cameron Mitchell with its Commitment to People Award. The organization gives that accolade every year to a hospitality executive who demonstrates outstanding commitment to the development of his or her employees. —Effective employee training not only generates a return on investment, but it reflects a company’s strategy and reinforces its culture, hospitality executives told attendees at the recent semiannual conference here of the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers, or CHART.
One of the examples cited in the award to Mitchell was his Pass the Plate program for employees. The Cameron Mitchell group operates 10 concepts with 40 restaurants in nine states and has 3,000 employees. In the Pass the Plate program, employees are paid to shadow colleagues in order to see whether they would like to pursue their job as a career. The restaurants also close for major holidays and close early on Super Bowl Sunday. —Effective employee training not only generates a return on investment, but it reflects a company’s strategy and reinforces its culture, hospitality executives told attendees at the recent semiannual conference here of the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers, or CHART.
“Our associates are the foundation of our organization, and when we put them first the results are spectacular,” said Mitchell, who founded the company 14 years ago. —Effective employee training not only generates a return on investment, but it reflects a company’s strategy and reinforces its culture, hospitality executives told attendees at the recent semiannual conference here of the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers, or CHART.
