Continuous Professional Development (Hospitality business)

Introduction of Continuous Professional Development (Hospitality business)

CPD includes different characteristics that are needed to develop professional life. It is needed for individual as well management improvement, to get knowledge, to stand in a competitive market, international exposure, to fulfil customer expectations etc. Kolb learning cycle is a good example to explain continuous professional development.

According to Frankie Todd, "continuous professional development is something that takes place when a professional sees his task in new light."

Ref: (Frankie Todd (1987). Planning continuing professional development, New York: British library)

Continuous Professional Development includes improvement in terms reflecting on previous experience and implements the new one and makes it as concrete experience. The whole process is compiled of planning, implementing, reflecting (in terms of feedback), possible risk assessment and finally best result out of it which again extended to maintain and improve it more effectively.

With reference to Continuous Professional Development report is been presented to Restaurant Director, Yishay Malcow. This will definitely help to implement it in ongoing business for improvement.
The following report is on the restaurant Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's. Every professional employee working in this restaurant has capabilities to become strongest future manager in any of the establishment. But to help them to grow in their career, they need to be a part of specific training program. Therefore this report will make manager understand and plan training program accordingly.
The report is not only states the level of employee skills and areas they need to improve in order to achieve business objective, but also states the risk assessment for proposed action plan. It will make restaurant director to keep focusing on his restaurant business objective with implementing proposed plan.

Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's opened in 2001 is well known for serving modern European cuisine. It was awarded one Michelin Star award in year 2002 maintain it for almost 9 years. The restaurant has capacity of 80 covers but can accommodate 180 covers during busy times. It also features private dinning and Chef's table where maximum 7 guests can enjoy their meal in the kitchen with surprise menu chosen by Chef and wines compliment their meal.
The restaurant is divided into two main departments:
• Front of the house- Restaurant Director, Restaurant Manager, Assistant Managers, Head Waiter, Chef-de-Rang, receptionists, sommelier, Commis waiter.
• Back of the house- Head Chef, Sous Chef, Back of the house manager, Commis Chef, Kitchen Porter.

Medium term objectives to retain standards of procedures and quality of product and service:-

1. Consistent fine dinning service:-Any guest dines here expect a decent food and beverage service as average spends per person is around £70. Therefore restaurant director and manager make sure that every employee should provide a guest nice experience and friendly & courteous service.
2. Continuous food knowledge:-Now a day allergy is a very dangerous factor for food industry. So before anything wrong happens to a guest, managers make sure that employee is on top of his food knowledge. And this carries out through daily briefing. Restaurant director wants every employee to explain dish to guest correctly.
3. Staff satisfaction: - Staffs are very well known to be internal customers. So to run business smoothly, restaurant manager possibly take care of every request from the staff.
4. Suggestive selling: - Considering current trend, people like to have food with matching wine with each course. Communication between head waiter and sommelier gives guest a wonderful experience with food and wine. Therefore managers motivate staff to offer finest wine/aperitifs.

As per previous presentation on CPD related to Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's which states medium term objective, external and internal analysis, it is clear that following staff skills need to be develop to meet future goals and objectives.
1. Practising ownership
2. Interpersonal skills
3. Operating machinery correctly
4. Leadership skills

Skills audit (Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's)

Rating score is 1-5 where 5 tend to best score.

Employee Name John Franco Andreas Sam Winston
Practising Ownership 3 2 1 1
Develop interpersonal skills 3.5 4 3.5 2
Operating machines correctly 2 3 3 5
Leadership skills 4 2.5 2 1
Total 12.5 11.5 9.5 9
Total Expected 15+ 15+ 15+ 15 +
The above skill audit is possible due support Assistant manager Mr David Carter.
The above skill audit is wholly depends on observations of managers during job and questionnaires. For more detailed feedback of manager a copy of Skills audit is been attached as appendices.

Analysis of differences found after skills audit
The following areas need attention as per the audit conducted:
• Lack of practicing ownership skills.
• There is a shortcoming of interpersonal skills.
• Some of the members of staff are not confident about operating a few equipments.
• Lack of leadership skills.

The Impact of the above gaps on the business prospects

• Neglected guests' service - if the food is not served to the guest as soon as kitchen sent it, this will cause guest waiting long time as well as food is getting cold. This reflected as lowering the standard and quality of product as well as service and simultaneously loose business which keeping pressure on staff in terms of cutting hours they working.
• Poor Sales – the above issue tends restaurant to lose business in terms of less booking, lowering the brand image of company, bad reviews of customers. This will help competitor to take advantage which is negative sign for any of the business.
• Health and safety issues – if any of the staff members have lack of handling machinery skills may tend to serious injury which causes him/her to call sick and creates work pressure on other staff member which lower down the staff morale.
• Low staff morale – in addition to health and safety issue, leadership and interpersonal skills are also tends to lower the staff morale in terms of lacking in conveying information to other and poor communication skills.
Training and development required to meet business objective:-
1. Cross training
2. Practical training on machinery
3. Management training
4. Menu knowledge
Following is the sample CPD training and development which help to analyse, plan and reflect upon it for coming year.
Example of Training and Development Plan
Knowledge and / or skills to be developed Development Activity Notes
What in particular do you need to learn or develop?
e.g. knowledge of Asylum Law for Level 2 advisors How will I achieve this?
e.g. attend JCWI training course in Asylum Law What resources or support will I need?
e.g. the cost of attending the course, staff cover for the time out of the office
e.g. business accounts using Excel e.g. attend an Excel training course with a professional training organisation

Ref: (http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:L12J06YVNIoJ:www.oisc.gov.uk/servefile.aspx%3Fdocid%3D22+CPD+Training+and+development+plan&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk)

So as reference to above sample plan following is an actual CPD training and development plan to be implement in restaurant Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's.
CPD Training and development plan

Objectives
Time span
Person in charge
Action
Outcomes

Cross Training From 1st May 2010, twice in a month
Assistant Managers On regular basis training given to commis waiter on food service. This help during busy times to serve hot food to the guests which was neglected on the floor.
This creates career development scope for commis waiter and also helps them to increase their knowledge by learning things in their professional life.

Interpersonal skills As soon as management plans to do it.
Restaurant Manager Regular meeting at least once in a month will help management to understand staff issues and will find the way to solve it. This help to increase understanding and respect among each and every staff.
Future manager skills will be developed. Leadership skills and interpersonal skills will be developed which tends to increase staff morale and minimise the arguments among the staff members.

Menu knowledge Every week during briefing Sous Chef and the mangers On Daily briefing, random questions will be asked on menu to everyone including waiters and sommeliers. This will enhance the knowledge on food and also come to know about classical dishes, history behind it, fish origins etc.
It will result in increased confident level and will help staff to face any questions on menu from guests. This will also make sure that everyone knows about allergy and dislikes of the guests related to menu.
In other words it will create confident to serve and express food to the guests.

Practical training on machinery
Twice in 3 months Managers and head waiters During every training session notes will be given to the staff members on particular machinery. Each session will be divided into 2 parts i.e.,
Teaching and Reflection.
Take an example of coffee machine. Each and every staff member will learn how to make different types of coffee. This will resulted in delivering fine quality products and beverages.
It will also reduce the health & safety issues.

The above plan needs to be carried out in set format with reference to individual skills and his achievement. The sample format is been attach as appendices.

Training Evaluation
Step in training cycle where data is collected to ascertain if the training program is achieving its objectives(s).
http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/training-evaluation.html
Following is training evaluation criteria:
1. Well developed – this criteria state that instead of provision of more training, management need to continuously maintain the standards by giving more responsibilities.
2. Developing – this can be referring as continuous professional development by continuously updating knowledge by providing on the job and off the job training to improve standards of procedures.
3. Under developed- this is critical situation where management need to think seriously about where they are lacking behind to provide and fulfil the above CPD and training plan.
Evaluation methods: -
• Multi skill staff: - cross training which is included in training and development plan will be conclude as 'well developed' if the management found staff members are helping each other with same standards and procedure confidently. It can also be measure by placing commis waiter in main restaurant on a particular day. This will easily help managers to success of their training and development plan

• Leadership skills and understanding: - It is necessary for management to know that how well staff verbally or non-verbally communicating with each other, how they are convey information. It is also necessary to measure level of presentation, communication, writing, speaking and management or leadership skills. This all together termed as 'well developed interpersonal skills'. The possibility to measure interpersonal skills is the development of leadership skills in terms of team work and situation handling regarding staff issues. The management will be satisfy if they found this skills in 'developing' criteria because such things can not resulted 100% as there are different people with different mind and thinking work together. But leadership skill will definitely minimise the staff issue

• Staff exams: - Questions on menu on regular basis (weekly) and responses to the questions is the best way to measure that the phase in 'developing' criteria. And the observation of staff during serving food and express it to the guests will state that the above plan is 'well developed'.

• Technical skills: - Operating machinery efficiently without any hazard will give management insurance about training program on machinery. This skills need to be measure taking general factors in consideration such as cleaning, cooking, operating coffee machine as well skills required for specific job. It is ongoing process that need be upgrade as changes and development happens. This can be easily categorised on the basis of above evaluation criteria.

Kolb's learning cycle is the best example of training evaluation and Continuous Professional Development.

Kolb's learning cycle

Kolb's learning cycle may be referring as 'training cycle'. It is based on four stages of learning cycle that are:
1. Experience
2. Observation and reflection
3. Forming abstract concept and producing new implications
4. Testing it immediately and creating new concrete experience.
Therefore this Kolb's model helps in both ways to understand individual people's different learning styles, and management.
Therefore before explaining following point i.e. risk assessment related to above CPD and training plan, it is very important to know the each staff member's reaction on changes which are going to happens in the business. Kolb's model is ongoing process to minimise risk factor in ongoing business and it also help to point out exact risks involved and simultaneously solution for same.

Risk Assessment
As per businessdictionary.com an appropriate risk assessment involves identification, evaluation, and estimation of the levels of risks involved in a situation, their comparison against benchmarks or standards, and determination of an acceptable level of risk.
REF :(http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/risk-assessment.html)

A risk assessment is simply a careful examination of what, in your work, could cause harm to people, so that you can weigh up whether you have taken enough precautions or should do more to prevent harm. Workers and others have a right to be protected from harm caused by a failure to take reasonable control measures.
REF :(http://www.hse.gov.uk/risk/fivesteps.htm)
Thus with reference to above explanation of Kolb's model following are possible risks involved in proposed CPD and training plan and it also help to find possible solution to minimize risks involved.

Risks involved
Areas that may go wrong
Solution for Risk minimization
Staff co-operation
(operational risk) Flexibility of staff may cause error in cross training because every person's perception is different as they may deny adapting change in their regular work routine.
As assistant manager is person in charge he will take responsibility to make them realise the importance of cross training and how it positively help to grow in the future career.
Inappropriate training format The person who is giving training could be inefficient to speak and guide to other staff member and it may leads to misunderstanding. This creates ignorance to that person.
So this is manager's responsibility to find and select a person who is well trained, confident to speak to everyone in front of him and also have thorough knowledge about processes involved.
Progress and implementation It is very difficult to conclude that the staffs are 100% following the training programme because it should be enthusiasm in them to learn the things and implement in themselves to meet the level of achievement that the management want.
To minimise the most possible risk, regular evaluation on one to one basis in terms of observation, appraisals, and questionnaires will definitely solve it. This will help management to know about the skills that their staff is developing and also staff will remain updated, confident i.e., in other words continuous professional development.

Communication gap There are some staff members who are not interested to be part of new changes may think that it is waste of time. Managers need to implement TQM model as it includes managers and other staff members to take a part in business processes.
Managers need to make them understand that these changes are not only going to grow individual professional life but also to make quality standards in business.

Conclusion
It is clear from above report on training and CPD plan that restaurant Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's need implement it as soon as possible to keep control on the business. It is thus because end result in terms of CPD related to staff and success of organisation is depends on well prepared and highly motivated staff as staff is a term related to internal customers which stated as "Happier and professionally well trained staff, more healthier and strong business." So for positive approach to evaluate above proposal of report, restaurant director need to take immediate steps forward which will minimise the negative marking and simultaneously approach the goal they wanted to achieve.

Bibliography
Book
Frankie Todd (1987) Planning continuing professional development, New York: British library

David Megginson(1990) Continuing Professional Development 2nd Edition, Ottawa

Internet
Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's- London, http://gordonramsay.com/claridges Last updated: March 2010 and visited 3rd March 2010
Risk Assessment definition, http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/risk-assessment.html Last updated: March 2010 and 4th March 2010.
Risk management: five steps to risk assessment, http://www.hse.gov.uk/risk/fivesteps.htm Last updated 29th March 2009 and Visited 4th March 2010
Continuous Professional Development, http://www.oisc.gov.uk/servefile.aspx?docid=22. Last visited 2nd March 2010
Kolb's learning styles experiential theory and learning diagram, http://www.businessballs.com/kolblearningstyles.htm, Last updated May 2006 and Visited 18th Feb 2010.