Restaurants come bottom for training

Restaurants are worse at providing training than any other sector of the hospitality business, says the Hospitality Training Foundation (HTF).

But although restaurants were bottom of the training league, the 53% who provided training represented a significant advance on the 34% recorded in 1996.

Training for new staff is now provided by 65% of hospitality firms. The best-trained staff overall were found among food service companies such as school and hospital caterers. Next, in descending order, came pubs, hotels, and restaurants.

Scotland showed the greatest extremes. Although 80% of hotels offered training, much better than in England, Scottish pubs fared worse than elsewhere, with only half training staff, compared with three-quarters in England and Wales.

The HTF attributed this to the larger number of independent pubs in Scotland, and to the greater number of short courses offered in England and Walesby the British Institute of Innkeeping.

The HTF found training to be poorest among firms with fewer than 10 staff. But performance varied between small independents (just 44% offering training) and those in chains (70%). For pubs, the variation ranged from 60% to 78%, but the biggest division was found between independent restaurants (45%) and those in a chain (73%).

Only 61% of firms measured the effectiveness of training.

by Angela Frewin

Source: Caterer & Hotelkeeper magazine, 9 - 15 December 1999