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Be Our Guest
State's burgeoning hospitality industry gets serious about training workers
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Business New Haven
4/28/2003
By: Anne Marie Brungard
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With Connecticut gearing up for another warm-weather season of tourism and travel, the hospitality and food service industries must also prepare for increases in business and job opportunities.
“Leisure travel to Connecticut has increased by over half a million trips, up more than ten percent over the past five years, compared to two-percent growth in national travel volume over the same period,” explains Ed Dombroskas, executive director for the state's Office of Tourism.
“Our goals are to continue to leverage this market to build repeat visits on the leisure side; and given the new product coming into the market in the next few years, we intend to increase the visibility of the state as a destination for meetings and conventions.”
Restaurants, hotels, special events venues and recreation facilities are key components in the industry cluster continuum.
So, as other industries appear to have bottomed out or are at least leveled off, food service is among those that seem to be evincing renewed vigor.
The state's Department of Labor projects that the food preparation and serving-related industries will grow by approximately 8.5 percent by the year 2010, with annual openings estimated at more than 5,700. Wages in the industry range from counter and bartending staff at around $17,240 to chefs and head cooks with salaries well in excess of $40,000 per year.
Traditional approaches have combined with new corporate, private sector and educational alliances to meet the training and employment needs of this burgeoning but ever-changing industry.
Niche Training
As the need for skilled bartenders grows, there is strong demand for those well trained in the art of mixology. On Whitney Avenue in Hamden, the Boston Bartenders School of America is one of the oldest and largest bartending schools in New England.
Boston Bartenders has lately expanded its program to maximize bar management training, which includes inventory control, profit margins, food service, product ordering and more. Fielding questions from college students to more mature adults, bartending is a career choice that is flexible and relatively easy to break into.
The short but comprehensive Boston Bartenders course is recognized in the hospitality industry to be among the most complete school for training prospective bar owners and managers in the basics of bar management.
In addition, the school offers free lifetime placement assistance, National Alcohol Awareness Certification and Wine Service Training. In an industry that relies heavily on tips, the training takes place behind actual bars, creating the feeling of on-the-job training in a pub atmosphere.
Teaming up likewise works for two tribal nations in their effort to bring more hospitality industry jobs to Connecticut. To that end the Mohegan and Mashantucket Pequot tribal nations have established a joint enterprise, with the cooperation and assistance of the Norwich Community Development Corp. and the city of Norwich. The venture involves providing laundry services to the Indian casinos' hotels and restaurants while at the same time providing more jobs and expanding the tax base in Norwich.
The two tribal nations, customers of Atlantic City Linen Supply (ACLS) of Atlantic City, N.J., will bring laundry services closer to the two tribes' major enterprises. ACLS has agreed to build an $8 million building in the Norwich Industrial Park to service the tribes and any new, additional customers. The laundry company plans to train and employ up to 60 people for various positions within the facility.
“I am thrilled that our two tribal nations have come together to help ourselves and our neighbors,” explains Chairman Kenneth M. Reels of the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation.
The recent addition of Mohegan Sun hotel rooms and restaurants has created an unprecedented demand for laundry service that began when Foxwoods Resort Casino opened. By combining their demand the tribes were able to entice Atlantic City Linen Supply to construct a new, state-of-the-art plant. This facility will meet the present foreseeable needs of both tribes and will be able to provide services to others in the hospitality industry as well.
The Norwich Community Development Corp. provided a suitable parcel of land with the necessary utilities, including natural gas through the Norwich Department of Public Utilities. At the outset the facility will be able to service the more than 3,000 hotel rooms and 50 or more restaurants owned, operated or leased by the two tribal nations. Training programs will encompass basic plant operations, equipment handling, inventory management and customer service.
Institutional Training
Helping students navigate a diverse and increasingly complex workplace is a priority for the University of New Haven's Tagliatela School of Hospitality & Tourism. “The school is dedicated to academic excellence through study, teaching and research in the fields of restaurant and tourism in the United States and around the world,” explains C.E. Vlisides, UNH's hospitality department chair.
“[Our] graduates furnish the managerial talent needed by hotels, resorts, health-care institutions, private clubs, restaurants, governmental tourism agencies, destination management organizations and corporate travel companies,” adds Vlisides.
Most employers now recognize and many require a college education as the best preparation for any individual desiring entrance into the hospitality, culinary arts and private club management or tourism sectors. Employers are demanding that individuals with a college education not only be technically skilled but be capable of managing in a workplace that is culturally diverse and technologically advanced.
UNH emphasizes the need for students to be able to translate theory into reality, creating an atmosphere where employees are motivated to provide clients with the highest levels of quality service, and communicating with a diverse workforce and a demanding clientele.
The program in hotel and restaurant management is an integral part of the Tagliatela School of Hospitality and Tourism. The department includes among its teaching staff a number of successful members of the industry who contribute their expertise in the classroom. These experts include Michael Schaffer, owner of four New Haven-area lodging operations, and David Jurcak, general manager of the Omni-New Haven Hotel at Yale.
This mix of professional expertise and real-world focus can pay dividends in the classroom for students. One aspect of the program's curriculum is the development of managerial skills, abilities and competencies essential to all hospitality managers.
The curriculum combines contemporary and realistic techniques. Students also have ample hours of field experience built into the program and the opportunity to participate in co-operative work experience programs.
Gateway Community College likewise offers a specialized curriculum with concentrations in management, accounting or hands-on culinary skills development.
GCC students are encouraged to join in a practical skills education and training program that examines the scope, components and development of the hospitality and tourism industries, while an overview is provided of specialized areas and careers relating to the management of food service, lodging, and tourism operations.
This approach combined with internships exposes the students to true-to-life work environment situations.
Food production, basic baking and pastry arts courses help students prepare full-course menus in quantity. Students experience various positions in the dining room and kitchen areas. Additional instruction covers research of recipes, preparations of food, purchase orders, requisitions and income and expense summaries for each menu. An introductory course to baking and pastry arts includes intensive, hands-on laboratory training in a quantity food environment.
Keeping in pace with the times (and a growing market segment) Gateway offers course in catering and convention services as well as concentrated coursework in the tourism field.
As Connecticut continues to position itself as a destination state, the workforce is being prepared today to manage buffets, banquets and receptions more effectively. Students experience artistic production and participate in meaningful community service projects.
Customized Training
Empower New Haven is taking steps to open up the job market to Empowerment Zone residents who may not otherwise have commensurate employment opportunities.
Empower New Haven is a non-profit organization that was set up to manage millions in federal Empowerment Zone grants targeted to census tracts in a half-dozen poor neighborhoods.
Many inner-city businesses consider the skill levels of area residents to be substandard at best, and some are unwilling to take many risks when hiring candidates with little employment experience or few job skills.
So Empower New Haven is partnering with a number of local companies to develop training programs that meet the clients specific needs.
“This program is so important,” explains Leigh Roberts, ENH's customized training coordinator. “It allows individuals to gain valuable work skills in a real business environment.”
An individual with a criminal record or poor work skills is severely limited in the current job market. “[Empower New Haven] can subsidize some of the on-the-job training and sometimes the entire training costs, so that potential employers are more willing to take chances and invest in a workforce that they have trained,” adds Roberts.
Atticus Bakery used training funds to move nine employees through a program that improved their skill levels. Newly installed equipment required specialized training upon completion of each phase of the training, which also included par-baking methods, cake decorating and English as a second language.
In some instances employees earned up to 30-percent increases in salaries. According to Roberts, “The program has had good success helping Empowerment Zone residents to move towards self-sufficiency, gaining valuable job skills and becoming valuable employees.”
Training and education has evolved to meet the growing needs of a hospitality industry that, like many others, has been impacted by technological changes. Training providers are teaming up to give eager students the best education that incorporates practical, technical and experiential methods. BNH
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