Success Is in Creativity, Essay Example

Abstract

The aim of the present essay is to outline the interview with David Leron, the restaurant manager, at one of Accor Hotels in the USA. The main topic of the conversation was training for the existing staff at the restaurant, approaches to management, philosophy of the company and ways of promotions and professional growth. The second part of the essay is devoted to critical evaluation of their approach and potential ways of the situation improvement.

 Success is in Creativity

Every field of human activity requires a certain degree of personal touch and creativity, the sector of services provision particularly restaurants and hotel business is particularly dependent on these aspects. In the time of fierce competition and numerous numbers of facilities providing the same kind of services, diversity and quality of the services provision are of particular importance in attraction of clientele. A practice and personal experience proves, customers might not remember the details of the menu or the number of services available, but they shall definitely remember the attitude and professionalism of the staff. In other words, investment in employees, improvement of their skills and keeping them interested in work is of particular importance for the general presentation of the trade mark and also for the provision of services customers shall remember. In the interview with the restaurant manager of one of Accor Hotels in the USA, I had an opportunity to see their approach to staff training and place of staff in the restaurant/staff business.

In the interview, David Leron, the restaurant manager, was quite nice to conduct a personal interview in his restaurant, which was situated on the territory of the hotel. Thus, I had an opportunity to see the premises and to see a few members of staff, as well. According to David, the cornerstone of the Accor Standard is passion for service, and no passion would be possible without people doing their job with pleasure and satisfaction. That is why qualified and happy members of staff are crucial for excellent service. In this context, training is conducted in two ways or stages. First of all, when a candidate is interviewed for a certain position and given a job, he/she is going, not through the process of probation, but through the first stage of training. This stage mainly involves the study of job details and learning of existing standards of services provision. For instance, one of the Accor standards is offering of hot milk with tea and cream with coffee in the morning. In other words, this stage refers to learning of technicalities. A particular feature of the initial training is that it is not conducted by a supervisor or restaurant manager but by a colleague. In other words, servers train new servers. When I asked David about payment for the extra duties, he was reluctant to answer, but finally admitted that servers were not paid for extra training duties. When I inquired whether he thought it might have been counterproductive and put too much pressure on the experienced servers, he answered that they were one big family and they were helping each other in everything. The next stages of training were skills improvement of existing members of staff. These were often common sessions for all departments in the hotel conducted a few times a year.

I was particularly interested in how jobs were allocated between existing employees and whether it was possible for them to go from one department to another if their skills and personal inclinations were suitable. David argued that theoretically it was possible, but very few people were inclined to do so, and it was mainly their personal initiative rather than an on-going process of evaluation and promotion. In this case, I have argued that after a certain time people simply get worn by the same type of work and they need change, growth or, at least, certain gratification. In this context, they had a system of bonuses for training and excellent services performance. While training was often gratified by various badges, which were worn for a week or two, excellent performance or a certain time of working for the company was often gratified by a special 30% discount “Bienvenue Card”, which gave an opportunity to the holder to stay in other hotels and dine, in the restaurants of the chain. According to David, all his employees were happy and satisfied with their job and performance.

Although, my interview with David was quite interesting and informative, I have not seen that much passion for investing in staff as it seemed from his introduction. My general impression from the whole training system is that it is quite rigid, formal and corporate style. In this regard, although training is conducted on a regular basis, its main aim is not in improvement of qualification and development of new skills, but rather in unification of all departments under one slogan and one corporate policy. Although there is nothing wrong in explanation of the meaning of the trademark and general standards of the service conduct, more specific approach is required for skills diversification. In this regard, there was no mentioning about how management can evaluate existing staff and assign someone for promotion. David did not mention that any kind of promotion is possible. In this regard, for an employee that reaches the point of having Bienvenue Card, there is no point of further growth and self-improvement. In this context, lack of any interest and motivation would inevitably result in poor performance and subsequently degradation even of existing skills. For instance, if a server sees no promotion or achievement of extra bonuses, constant work in the same place results in burning out of the existing staff and its subsequent constant change. Constant flow of staff means a constant necessity of training to the needed standard and subsequently costs money.

Another concern of mine was the economy on paying training server. I mean, if the server were paid for doing only his job, why would he care for doing extra duties for the same price? It is quite naive to think that the quality of the new server would be the same and that experienced server would pass all his knowledge and tricks just because he was asked to do so. From my perspective, the situation could be improved both in terms of effectiveness and cost-efficiency if a direct dialogue between staff and managerial ladder was introduced. In this context, monthly gathering and discussion of existing problems, suggestions for improvement of service and procedures, introduction of new technologies and practices would of particular importance. It would give an opportunity to make get practical feedback and also see which members of staff are the most active. It would be also beneficial to introduce annual tests in order to check the level of staff’s qualification and subsequent level of improvement. In any case, more creative approach to training is required.