FoodFund International, the first F&B company in the Middle East to offer training courses accredited by internationally-respected training provider City & Guilds, will expand its offerings in 2012 to include leadership training and culinary arts courses.
It also hopes to be able to offer training for staff outside of its in-house restaurants in the future.
In 2011, FoodFund, which operates The Meat Company, Ribs and Rumps and Tribes in the Middle East and the UK, ran the City & Guilds customer service course for employees. This year the firm will offer a culinary arts course and also a course in leadership training certified by the affiliated Institute of Leadership & Management (ILM). The courses will start in February.
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HR manager Jan Harrison said now that they have the administration set up, courses will be easier to put on in the future.
“We’ve had a great response to our first City & Guilds course from our staff, and a lot of interest in the ones we’re running in 2012,” Harrison said. “The first customer service course was taken by 30 students.
“We’ve had people from all areas of the company sign up to the upcoming culinary arts course, even people from head office.
“There’s a lot of interest in the courses because the City & Guilds qualification is recognised worldwide, and also because a lot of people who work in the industry, no matter in what position, have a keen interest in food and want to learn skills they can even try at home.
“At the moment we are building up our course knowledge and are offering the courses to in-house staff, but eventually we want to offer the training to external staff too,” Harrison went on to explain.
“We wish we could offer more courses but at the moment we don’t have the administration set up for it.
“At the moment the company pays for the registration of courses, and we provide the equipment, but the individual does have to pay the cost.
“The courses are very reasonable though – between AED 100-150 (US $27-41). Although in future we do hope to be able to subsidise students, or at least offer the certificates as awards or incentives.”
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