Posts Tagged ‘service’

Service With A Smile And A Degree

If you wanted to go and get a job in the hospitality industry tomorrow, there’d be very little stopping you. You can of course choose to do a degree or similar in hospitality, or management training or even food hygiene, but none of these are an absolute pre-requisite to being hired. Traditionally, as an industry, working in hospitality is seen as a more informal career, with on-the-job training providing the skillset required.

However, all of this is starting to change. Employers are starting to want more from their would-be employees – more bang for their buck, if you will – and qualifications of some description are becoming more sought after. In fact, interest in a job in the industry has apparently increased this year alone, with the average number of applicants per post being 21 compared to 16 in 2009. This can only mean that candidates will have to have a point of difference in order to get the role and employers are starting to specifically request technical and leadership qualifications as a priority. Read full post

First Impressions

According to some little-known but tacitly-agreed law, the British don’t see service (ie waiting on) as a career in itself. It’s long been acknowledged – and we’ve said it here too – that practically every other country in the world serves better than we do because it is seen as a valued job, rather than a drop-out pastime for disaffected youth.

So it is incredibly heartening to hear that thousands applied to take part in Michel Roux Jr’s new BBC2 series Service. He’s chosen eight 17-24 year-olds from diverse backgrounds to be trained in the arts of front of house in establishments ranging from high-street chains to Le Gavroche, the two winners going on to be trained as professional maitre d’ and sommelier. And these young people, ranging from graduates to teen single mothers, all see the value and longevity in a career in front of house. It makes you proud – and even optimistic – that these young people, many of whom have never even set foot in a restaurant and frankly didn’t know the difference between a starter and a main course, chose this profession to turn their life around. Read full post

The Tipping Point

Tipping in restaurants has always been something of a controversial issue. We Brits haven’t quite got the hang of it: the Americans take it as read, openly and generously tipping to make up the wages of the waiting staff; the French are undoubtedly more suave about the whole affair; we, on the other hand, never seem to get it right. How much to tip? To pay the 12.5% service charge and leave a cash tip? To tip even when service has been ineffably awful? It’s a boggy quagmire that can sink a successful evening.

To set the record straight, since October 2009 it is illegal to use tips to make up the minimum wage which most waiting staff are on. The practice was used in the industry to make up the cost of everything from the flowers adorning the reception to the laundry for the linen tablecloths – swallowed up by the enormous overheads of running a restaurant, tip money rarely made it into staff pockets. There’s talk of getting rid of that standard 12.5% on the bill but given we’re such a parsimonious lot, will we have to be forced to tip in other ways? Read full post

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