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Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Why hotel management students fear from training- industrial training phobia

Hello everyone!
Fears, doubt's, confusion








"Industrial training" the very much shamed term which brings a lot of horror to the graduates of Hospitality Management is actually nothing but a general introduction to the future working environment. Do you think it is really a big issue of concern? Let's find out.

Training is an important and almost mandatory step towards graduating yourself for the degree in hospitality, but industrial training has become a horror for most of the Hotel Management graduates which is quite weird to my conscience.
So many people(seniors and failure in the field) around you have already told you a lot of negative things about the industrial training processes which you have almost conceded as reality also. Is Training fearful? What do they do to you while you train yourself? How do they(the irritated staff) treat you when you are at the initial learning phase?
Industrial training has become a nightmare for every hospitality graduate though the facts are way too different to what people are being threatened of.

Coming to what you really wants to know, an Industrial training is just performed to familiarize you with the environment you are about to be working in. It is just the introduction with tools, procedures and type of humans you will work later on, and more of it doesn't concern with training you for the job. If you learned well it's your dedication. At most, they(the staff) try to engage you in physical activites like clearance of lipped crockeries and filling arrival and departure register.

Well, in my opinion, I would ask everyone, even a non wanna be hotelier to join the hotel industrial training. It is the best platform for developing interpersonal skills and solving ego hassles. There is nothing to fear, its just a phase(a tough one indeed), but it will leave many memories with you which will thrill you throughout life.

Coming to the procedure, in early times the industrial training was scheduled in the fifth semester but with introduction to new courses in hotel management the industrial training is now decided on second semester or third semester in some selected institutions. The candidates are shortlisted through interviews basically telephonic and video conferencing and a confirmation letter is allotted by the college which enlists all the necessary declarations needed to appear in a property as a trainee. The training is carried out in all four major departments one by one and the standard duration for being in a dept is equally divided with total duration of the training. You can also train yourself in miscellaneous departments like sales, marketing and human resource on requests.








Fears
Vocal abuses
• Low esteem
• Long working hours
• Double shifts
• Night shifts
• Very less stipend
• Exploitation
• No share on external income(tips) 
• The banquet horror

I have drawn out some majors points and we will work on them one by one.


Vocal Abuses
  You might have heard a heaps of time that the hotel staff, in particular kitchen employees, abuse each other and on purposely slang trainees, but this is not totally correct. They might do but it's the personal space, if you are comfortable on taking  abuses then only. Yes! The staff talks rudely but it has a certain limit which is digestible, and as long you work with them and build strong personal relationships they gradually begin treating you like the rest staff.








 Low esteem:
 According to me a student doesn't expect too much of respect from anybody. This point is very correct up to much extent. Hospitality personnel's are ment to respect guests(customers) not to receive respect , at least in the initial phase of career. So this fact proves to be very much accurate.









Double shifts, night shifts and  long working hours:
 I have merged the next three points in one. Hotels always have a shift problem and trainees are never pardon with it. Since the shifts are designed equally for trainees and staff, a trainee has to be with the operations as long as a employee has to. Generally hotel shifts are eight to ten hours long but sometimes there comes a phenomenon called "double shift", which is precisely the direct addition with the shift hours, ex 8+8= 16. However, trainees are kept unaffected with this term but sometimes when the staff count is very low for a shift the trainees also have to perform double shift.
Now coming to night shift, as now you know a trainee is trained in all major departments and has to work with the staff timing, night shifts shouldn't be something left undiscussed. Night shifts are very common in Front office and Housekeeping dept and for the rest two departments it is like an unheard phrase. In particular with FO dept shift changes almost after every two or three days, and if you are a night owl these workless hours are very entertaining.




Less stipend:
 How much money is offered during the training period? Well, it's nothing if compared to the average standard daily expenses. I just can say it can recompense the cost of monthly internet plans and cigarettes. However, meals are for free and in a fewer hotels accommodation is also provided. The stipend ranges from fifteen hundred rupees to twenty five hundred rupees monthly.







Exploitation:

 Doing stuff other than the routine duties like, comforting the senior with a glass of water or standing at the welcome door purposelessly doesn't really counts under exploitation, for a trainee it really doesn't. It is an intentional practice to strengthen your patience and to nurture your behavior towards the future problems(guests). Though in any point of training if you feel like being exploited you avail a silent feature in the training agreement which allows you to complain the human resource department about the same.














No share in external income:

Frankly, brand hotels don't allow you to perform tasks like of the staff. In highly renounced hotels trainees are always kept behind the screen. The so much image concerned hotel can never digest a trainee's interaction with guests, that's where low graded hotel comes in light which allow you to do tasks similar to the lower staff  and you get to learn and earn. So with the hotel low in branding you definitely have enough exposure towards earning tips.






The banquet horror:
Lucky if you haven't been through banquets through out your training. It's very rare that a training manager gets convinced to escape you from the banquets. During training under service dept every trainee is taken as a reserve waiter for banquet. Why? Because banquet held events like wedding parties and retirement receptions which needs a mass of staff and which doesn't really ask for too much service expertise as the person count is generally too high and service level is somewhat negotiable. In banquets the shift are very uncertain which depends on the mood of the guests, like if they want to gulp some more drinks the staff has to be there for them. In fact, hotel needs to hire seasonal staff and waiters on daily basis from outer sources. Hotels deadly need trainees to perform their daily tasks, in fact most of the hotels are dependent on trainees for doing many vital operations. So basically trainees are employees at a very very nominal salaries which they term as 'stipend'.

If any crucial point has been skipped please let us know in the comments.


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