Employees with quality food service training are valuable and most companies focus on hiring these employees because they will help the company grow and succeed. The quality of training, as well as the attitude of the prospective employee, are both important to a company when the company decides who it will hire.
The better a
company is at finding people, the better the
organization performs, and the better the organization serves the customer's needs. Serving the customer's needs is the universal goal for all companies. Because of this flow, finding good people probably has been, and will continue to be, the number one
challenge and priority in the foodservice business. In the entire
foodservice industry, whether it be in retail, hospitality, or restaurants, those in foodservice
management will all say the same thing -- the availability of a quality trained staff and management is their main challenge. It is very difficult to find
qualified people to hire. Those with good training, ambition and skills are in high
demand and have a good chance of being
successful in the field.
If staffing is the main challenge a
foodservice company faces, a second challenge for foodservice
management is sourcing a quality product. For example, several years ago there was an outbreak of mad cow disease in Europe. The
outbreak caused significant disruptions in the supply of available protein products (all protein products, not just beef). Although mad cows initially affected the
production of beef, the impact of the outbreak also affected other proteins - this is because the
demand for the other proteins
increased suddenly. After all, people were avoiding beef. The purchasing and sourcing of fresh and safe products have always been and will continue to be a concern because the
food service
industry commits to keeping its consumers safe. A situation like this has never been an issue
domestically because the U.S. has (in general) a great distribution system. In the U.S. we are generally able to trade-off suppliers and
distribution at will, which means that we can switch from a producer with possible issues to one that is safe without much delay. It is
important to note that while quality product sourcing is not a
significant issue domestically, internationally it can be a significant
problem and it should be covered in foodservice training.
Finding qualified employees is the major challenge that foodservice management faces. Foodservice training can help an organization to ensure that all of its workers have the proper skill sets so that in challenging times the company will be able to stay profitable. In challenging economic times, the most important thing a company can do is to make sure that its workers are the best they can be.
