When owners and managers of pubs, bars, restaurants and hotels start allocating their budgets for 2017, it is vitally important that some of that money is spent on training.
It follows that if employees are up-to-date with best practice customer service protocols they are bound to work more efficiently.
Laws are always changing in relation to issues such as food hygiene and serving underage customers so it is also important they are aware of their legal responsibilities.
If you are still not convinced here are five reasons to train up your staff in 2017:
1 Your people are your business
If the team that runs a pub or restaurant is not up to par there is a very good chance that customers will not bother visiting again.
Conversely, if bar staff are friendly, engaging and knowledgeable they will make a lasting impression on those they are serving.
That means knowing about the drinks and the food they are serving and going out of their way to give customers the best possible experience every time they visit the establishment.
Ask yourself the following questions: who handles most of the physical cash in your business? How do you create amazing experiences for your guests? How do you make more money?
I think the answers are pretty obvious and clearly you have set up the physical and operational environment accordingly but how many businesses actually take time to train their teams to make more money?
The people are the business, train them properly and they will make more money for you, making the business sustainable, profitable and… fun to work in!
2 To help them do their job even better
Even the best employees can get stale and to a certain extent end up on auto pilot. This means that customers are no longer individuals with individual needs but treated more generally and herded rather than individually led through the visit experience.
Re-energise the team and individuals, challenge them with learning additional skills and learning new behaviours. Learning something new has a fantastic habit of giving a team and personnel that energy.
Gaining a qualification will also enable employees to take advantage of best practice customer service techniques and brush up their knowledge of the law as it affects their role in the business.
3 Nurture staff loyalty
When you invest in staff they are likely to be more loyal to your business as a result.
You are showing you care about them and their development as hospitality professionals and are less likely to leave. It costs more money to continuously recruit than it does to train and induct them properly.
They will care about their job more and want to do it better therefore becoming more productive and a real asset to the business.
If employees go for a length of time without any kind of training they often become set in their ways, bored and will inevitably seek out employment elsewhere.
Offer them a career path!
4 To discover future managers and team leaders
When staff members attain more qualifications they can take on extra responsibility.
And when this happens it often marks out those who are comfortable with this and who are potential leaders within your business.
Passing new qualifications also has the effect of instilling more confidence in people and this can only be beneficial in terms of the efficiency of your team.
5 To observe due diligence
When you are serving food and drink to customers it is absolutely imperative that staff are aware of their responsibilities when it comes to the law. The hospitality trade is highly regulated with legislative change a constant challenge for operators.
Managers can circulate details of new guidelines to their team but there is no substitute for studying these laws in more detail.
Food safety qualifications are a great way of showing customers and hygiene inspectors that you have taken due diligence when it comes to legal responsibilities. After all, how many people now make a decision on attending a particular restaurant or pub based on the scores on the doors and customer reviews?
If time is tight, there are e-learning training courses for hospitality professionals where they can learn in their own time.
What do you think? Tell us why you think training is so important in the hospitality sector by commenting