An Overview of Training and Development Practices in Food and Beverage Outlets

Introduction

In order to achieve long term sustainability, effective and efficient people need to be equipped through proper training and development. Employee training and development has been recognized as a significant determinant of both employee and organizational performance (Kyriakidou & Marondas, 2010; Lucas, 2004; Chand & Katou, 2007; Chand & Ambardar, 2010). Trained employees are more likely to take pride in organisational achievements; believe in the goals; committed to their organisations and values of the organisation and, therefore, exhibit higher levels of performance. Moreover, the implementation of various training programs fosters learning and improves the overall competence of organizational members, and it is believed that training implementation leads to higher organizational performance (Jones & Latreille, 2008; Chand & Ambardar, 2010). Hence, the food and beverage organization has to endorse the training and development of its workforce to broaden their knowledge and skills, re-orient their culture and values, and encourage individuals. To enhance the significance and importance of training and development practices, food and beverage sector should practise a better match between their training and development needs and its implementation. Many researchers have pointed out that hospitality organisations that use innovative training and development practices are likely to report better financial performance than their competitors that do not practice training practices. Thus, the role of training and development has broadened beyond program design. Presently, human resource experts and trainers are increasingly being asked to create systems to motivate employees to learn, create knowledge and share that knowledge with other employees in the hotel company. Training and development practices have a profound impact not only in the efficiency of employees but also direct impact on the organisational productivities and long term profitability especially in food and beverage industry.

India continues to receive a greater contribution from both the Food & Beverage (F&B) and the Banquets & Conferences department. The Banquets & Conferences segment also recorded a year-on-year increase of 17.4% in PAR revenue in 2012-13 (`2,26,793) over that in 2011-12, while Food & Beverage recorded an increase of 4.2% in the PAR revenue (`5,41,494) for the same period. The growth of the industry at large can be interpreted and thus the requirement of employees will increase for this sector. Hence, will require highly trained and committed employees, delivering high service quality levels to the consumers, is of paramount importance, whereby the employees are often seen as an integral part of the service experience (Kyriakidou & Maroudas, 2010; Chand, 2010; Vinten, 2000). Moreover, training has a positive effect on productivity and makes it important for firms to invest in training (Percival, Cozzarin & Formaneck, 2013).

The purpose of this research is to determine the current training and development experiences and the emerging best practices in food and beverage industry. Specifically, this paper aims to identify the significant training and development practices used in these food and beverage outlets. The remainder of the paper is organised as follows. The next section briefly examines the review of literature and hypothesis development in the context of training and development practices in food and beverage outlets. This is followed by details of empirical design. The survey findings are then summarised, followed by a discussion of their implications. The last section sets out the conclusions and further research.