Operators must take responsibility for staff training

By Mike Deibert
Contributing editor

MONTREAL, QC— A special college degree for chefs is on Canada’s culinary menu.

Rudi Fischbacher, a professor at Humber College in Toronto and chairman of the Canadian Culinary Federation’s Canadian Culinary Institute, announced in November that he would be working for the next year to help develop an applied degree at Holland College in Charlottetown, PEI for people with the designation Certified Chef de Cuisine, of which there are more than 1,000 in Canada.

He told CLN that the first group will start taking the course in September, 2010, and it will take about two years going part-time to complete.

Fischbacher said that chefs taking the course would add business and academic knowledge to their chef skills, which would qualify them for positions such as food and beverage director, general manager of a foodservice operation or college instructor.

He also announced that the Certified Master Chef program at Humber College would start in March this year.

Master Chef is one of the world’s highest culinary credentials.

Fischbacher made the announcements at a panel discussion on professional certification that was held at the annual Tourism HR Forum of the Canadian Tourism Human Resources Council in Montreal.

A member of another panel at the conference noted that schools just can’t produce enough workers for hospitality, foodservice and other sectors of the tourism industry.

That is one reason why the Association des restaurateurs du Québec, the body representing restaurant operators in that province, has developed management training programs for its members.

François Meunier, the group’s vice-president of public and governmental affairs, told his audience that restaurant and hotel groups must realize that it is up to them to play a role in training staff, because hospitality schools can’t produce enough workers to fill all the openings in the marketplace.

Meunier said that more than 2,000 members have taken his association’s courses.

Randy Williams, president of the Tourism Association of Canada, said that companies in the tourism business spend a lot of money on marketing and neglect to spend it on their people who are actually a very important part of the marketing mix.

Wendy Swedlove, president, Canadian Tourism Human Resource Council; Randy Williams, president and CEO, Tourism Industry Association of Canada; François Meunier, vice-president of public and governmental affairs, Association des Restaurateurs du Québec (Quebec Restaurant Association); Jean Lortie, president, Fédération du Commerce inc. (Hospitality Workers Union); Lucie Charland, Executive Director, Conseil Québecois de l’industrie touristique (Quebec Tourism Council).

Destination training fee

Hotels should have a destination training fee instead of a destination marketing fee, he asserted, adding that businesses should get tax breaks and matching funds from government for training.

Meunier pointed out that Quebec companies with a payroll of $1 million or more in a calendar year must spend at least one per cent of it for training employees, including apprentices.

He commented that the current slow period for business is a good time to seize the opportunity for training.

He agreed with Williams that operations in the tourism industry have spent a lot of money on marketing and very little on human resources. He said that schools now agree that HR is an important addition to their curriculum which previously focused largely on marketing and operations.

Delta pays for chef training

When Mary Dempster was general manager of the Delta Barrington and Delta Halifax hotels in the downtown area of Nova Scotia’s capital, she convinced management of Delta Hotels & Resorts to pay for courses taken by the Halifax hotels’ cooks to obtain their Red Seal, and also give them the time off they needed to earn the government granted designation which would allow them to be recognized as journeymen chefs anywhere in Canada.

Dempster, who is now an instructor with the Department of Tourism Management and Culinary Arts at Nova Scotia Community College, took part in the panel discussion on certification.

She started her presentation with the comment, “I’ve spent 20 years looking for staff.” She said employees need to know where they can go and how to get there. She asserted that employers who help their employees receive training and professional designations will have staff who stay with them longer and are more engaged in their jobs.

She explained that the cooks who were backed by the Delta hotels for their the Red Seal training signed a contract saying they would stay with the hotels at least 18 months after receiving their designation, or else pay back part of the money that Delta paid for their training and for topping up the Employment Insurance benefits they received while away from the job learning.