About our in-house training

Our company has been built around quality short course training for the hospitality industry. Our trainers are highly skilled and continually update their business and management skills by working with a wide variety of customer service businesses. We are a private company and so are the greater majority of our clients, because of this we understand the pressures of commercial reality.

We prefer to train relative small groups of people — between 8 and 16 is an ideal group size (See: Preferred Training Room Set-up). This gives us the ability to devote individual attention to people who may need extra assistance, and allows us the opportunity for controlled discussion and debate. The participants in an in-house training course can all be from the one job classification, or they may come from several different levels within your business — it is common to have owners, managers, supervisors and senior staff all in the one class. There is an advantage to training this way — it fosters communication and teamwork within your business.

From experience with many training situations, we’ve found that in-house training works best if you tell us what you want to achieve, rather than what you want us to teach. Our combined expertise as both hospitality consultants and management trainers gives us an unusual insight into what works and what doesn't. We know that training may not be the solution you are looking for, and we can often direct you to a more effective result if we posses the ‘big picture’. Given the choice, we prefer to work long term with business owners, managers and their staff, helping them to meet their goals, rather than just fulfilling the role of ‘casual trainers’.

The latest technology plays a big part in our training course presentation. We are constantly evaluating new equipment and computer software and currently base our training around the new generation of high resolution, multimedia projectors driven by the latest presentation software. This means we can quickly prepare stunning, full colour, animated presentations that are customised with your company logo and still or motion pictures from your own work environment.

This equipment is quite portable; we can go anywhere. We can carry everything we need for a professional presentation with us on a plane or by other common transport. It doesn't matter where you are — as long as you’ve got power, we can provide an impressive standard of training.

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In-House Training vs Public Training Courses

The major factor that will influence your decision to send your staff to our public training courses rather than organising in-house training will be your location. At present, we only conduct our public training courses in Melbourne and Sydney — but we are willing to conduct them in other locations if the demand is sufficient. If you would like us to conduct them elsewhere, please contact us and tell us where and what your likely demand would be and we will consider your request.

Given that you do have a choice because you are located within travelling distance of Melbourne or Sydney, the following points will help you make a decision about the right kind of training for you:

In-House Training

Advantages:

• it strongly promotes teamwork and communication between participants, especially when a number of different ‘ranks’ within your business are trained together;
• it creates a ‘critical mass’ of people who share the same vision much faster than sending people in small numbers to public training, i.e. you get much faster organisational change with in-house training;
• it can be easily customised specifically for your business, using examples and images from your own environment;
• it is cheaper (per person) than public training. This is because we do not have to pass on the cost of marketing or venue hire.

Disadvantages:

• in-house training requires a minimum of 8 people to be trained;
• participants are less likely to be open and totally honest because of ‘political’ pressures, therefore in-house training is less effective for identifying internal problems or opportunities within a business;
• it can be very difficult to get all your team together at the same time, without having to suspend your normal business activities;
• participants are far more likely to be interrupted during the training session, to deal with ‘crisis's’ that arise;
• requires one lump payment, rather than allowing training costs to be spread.

Public Training Courses

Advantages:

• public training courses mix your staff with participants from some of the most professional hospitality businesses around. Your staff get the opportunity to see how your business and their personal skills compare with rest of the industry;
• smaller numbers (minimum one) can be trained, at your convenience;
• communication is more open and honest at public courses because there is minimum ‘political’ pressure when participants come from a variety of businesses. Public training is a very effective way of identifying ways to strengthen a business;
• the cost can be spread more easily — you can train selected staff by sending them in small numbers as your budget will allow;
• participants don’t get distracted by interruptions from other staff.

Disadvantages:

• public training requires more diligent follow-up than in-house training because small numbers of people returning from public training courses do not have reinforcement of the material coming from their peers, as they would if your staff were trained in a group;
• depending where you are located, public training may have transport and accommodation costs in addition to the cost of the actual training.

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Our Training Modules (listed alphabetically by subject)

These are our standard training modules. This list will give you an idea of the scope of our training abilities. We would normally use several modules as a basis for the construction of a special purpose in-house training course, and then we would customise them to your individual requirements:

• advanced supervision;
• assertive communication;
• assigning and delegating work;
• coaching, counselling and discipline;
• communications skills;
• effective listening;
• interviewing skills;
• improving staff productivity;
• marketing and selling skills;
• motivating employees;
• objective setting and performance appraisal;
• planning and scheduling;
• problem solving;
• profit and loss accounting;
• recruitment and selection;
• reducing staff turnover;
• supervision for managers;
• supervision skills;
• supervision for chefs;
• teambuilding;
• time management;
• train-the-trainer.

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The Facilities Required for In-House Training

If you would like us to come to you and train your staff, we will need the following facilities — please see: our preferred training room layout:

• a quiet, comfortable training room;
• appropriate numbers of tables and chairs;
• a side table;
• a whiteboard, pens and an eraser;
• a white projection screen.

If you do not have a suitable room, they are available for hire in most hotels and motels for a modest fee or for a contra arrangement.

We will supply all the rest of the equipment, including a multimedia projector, colour laptop computer (to drive the projector), video player (if required), writing pads, pens, name cards, handout notes.

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How to go about organising or inquiring about In-House Training

It's simple. Contact us ( ) and we will telephone you the next business day to discuss your needs. Service is as much a part of our business as it is yours.

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