Computer skills for the office, The importance of enthusiasm, Training videos - a consumer view, How to Win Friends & Influence People...

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Computer skills for the office

The lack of computer skills in many hotel and restaurant 'offices' is alarming. People thrust into admin. positions that require word-processing, spreadsheets, databases competency, and lacking even basic ability to format documents or enter a spreadsheet formula.

Microsoft has detailed lists of what it takes to become certified as one of their 'specialists' in Word, Excel and Powerpoint - see the Exam Skill Standards. The good news is that there's no shortage of training, whether it be books, courses or online.

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Teaching enthusiasm and 'faking it'...

Jess tells me that enthusiasm is more important than definitive knowledge, that many diners simply want a server to help them get excited about something.
"You've got to fake it until you make it," she says.

I take her pep talk to heart, perhaps too much so. I handle three men at M-6, one of whom asks, "Between the pulled pork platter and the pork spareribs, which would you do?"
I tell him I'd change course and head toward the pork chop.
"It's that good?" he says.
"It's amazing," I say. I've never had it, but I've seen it. It's big, and so is he.
He later tells me, "Dude, you so steered me right on that pork chop."

From a newspaper reporter's story My Week as a Waiter. Useful training material - click on the Printer-Friendly button at the top of the article.

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Training videos - a consumer view...

The perils of 'one size fits all' training:

I feel very, very old. Here I am, sitting at a table full of people who aren't even old enough to drink, saying hello to my 8th year of waitressing, and noting and drawing lines in my head between the similarities of all restaurant training videos.

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How to Win Friends & Influence People

How to Win Friends & Influence People (Dale Carnegie) is a classic leadership text published in 1937. My father read it, and it's still used for management training! But the chance of your management team getting through it's 300 pages are fairly low, so here's the 5 minute version.

Print it off and ask team members to bring it to life with examples they've seen (or negative examples) in their current or a previous job. Generates good discussion.