August 18, 2003NATION'S RESTAURANT NEWS

Funds for training top discussion at CHART confab

By Dina Berta

BOCA RATON, FLA. While praising the benefits of employee training to the foodservice and hospitality industry, a panel of top executives admitted during a recent conference of the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers that training programs account for 2 percent or less of their company budgets.

"I'd rather reverse the equation," Michael Howe, president and chief executive of Triarc Restaurant Group, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla. based Arby's franchisee, said in response to a question about costs."You want to think about what does training bring us in terms of revenue through customer service and quality," he continued. "Training probably [generates] 55 percent to 65 percent of our revenue budget."

But pressed for a specific percentage by fellow panel member George Katakalidis, president and chief executive of San Diego based Daphne's Greek Cafe, Howe conceded that training dollars account for 1 percent to 2 percent of his company's budget.

A candid discussion by the panel members on training was one of the highlights of CHART's 66th semiannual conference held earlier this month at the Boca Raton Resort & Club here. More than 200 hotel and restaurant trainers attended the four day event, which focused on ways to make training more effective. At more than 30 years of age, CHART is one of the oldest and largest non-profit associations dedicated to training.
Sharing their insight and opinions on the importance of training during the August meeting of the Council of Hotel and Restaurant Trainers at the Boca Raton Resort and Club in Boca Raton, Fla., were, from left, Harry Bond, president of Monical's Pizza Corp. in Bradley, IN.; Michael Howe, chief executive and president of Triarc Restaurant Group in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; Walter Isenberg, chief executive and president of Sage Hospitality Resources LLC in Denver, George Katakalidis, president of Daphne's in San Diego; and Douglas Whitcomb, president of Whitsons Food Service Corp. in Huntington Station, N.Y.


Other members on the presidents' panel were Douglas Whitcomb, president of contract foodservice company Whitsons Food Service in Huntington Station, N.Y.; Walter Isenberg, president and chief executive of Denver based Sage Hospitality Resources, LLC, which owns and operates 86 hotels; and Harry Bond, president of Bradley, Ill. based Monical's Pizza Corp., which owns and operates 55 full service pizza restaurants.

CHART members quizzed the panel for advice on getting greater support for training from their company's executives.

"If the leadership of your organization is not committed to people, go look for another job," Isenberg advised. "If the leadership is not committed to people, recognition, taking care of associates, making sure, they have a great experience, that it's fun at work if that environment does not exist, I don't believe you as a trainer in your organization can change that."

To gain funding for training programs, trainers and people in human resources need to address financial issues, panel members said.

"The first thing this group should do to get someone to take notice is to talk dollars and cents," Whitcomb said. "That's a language that's universal, but not one perhaps that this group is most comfortable with. It's not a first language."

Whitcomb encouraged attendees to research what turnover and dissatisfied customers can cost a company and figure out how training can increase sales and improve profits. Bond suggested CHART members, particularly if they work for public companies, also look into company filings with the Security and Exchange Conunission and read what their chief executive wrote.

"I'll bet you a 100 bucks that somewhere in the first five or six pages of a 10K filing there's going to be a paragraph about how important people are to the organization, the growth of our people, the culture and how people make it happen," Bond said. "Copy that and build from there.'OK, you said to the SEC that wd?re committed to our people. Now what doe's that mean?' " Thanks to advances in technology, today more than ever before, foodservice executives are grasping the connection between investments and profits, Howe said.

"The CEO and the senior guys have started to understand that by investing in technology, there is an organization return," he said. "I get increased productivity out of it. Guess what? Training has been doing that for years and years and years. But we've never packaged it so that the audience would hear it."

Earlier during the conference, Teresa Siriani, president of People Report, a Dallas based human resources research firm for the industry, reported that turnover can be costly. She noted that it costs about $4,450 to replace one hourly worker and $27,300 to replace a manager.

Also during the conference, CHART awarded Bond from Monical's Pizza with its Commitment to People Award. It is given to industry executives who establish a company culture that demonstrates a belief in the value of the people.


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