Anticipating a Life long learning.


100 years ago a person was learning a profession and what they learned was solid knowledge for a life time. In the good old time things changed very slowly.

Today if you go to a hotel school and once you start working in a hotel you just have gained the knowledge required to start in the business. You have achieved the minimum knowledge required to work in a hotel. The senior hotel employees will have to be your teachers, your coaches, your quality control inspectors.
Today you cannot just seat on your backside and watch on TV how others can make a career.
Please think about it. Are you looking for a job or do you want to make a career? What is the difference any way? In both cases we just need to work. Today you are 18 or 20 and have you given some thought what you want to do once you are 30 years old. You want to start a family, do you think with a waiter’s salary you will have sufficient income to raise children and maintain the wife? What about if some of your family members will go to University? Can you offer them such an education? Do you want to work until your retirement or just be terminated at the age of 40 since the hotel does not want to have old waiters? Do you think because you managed to get a job that you are very lucky and now you do not need to improve and you are happy with what you are. Do you hope that one of these days you will be promoted to become a supervisor. It is just a matter of time. You just have to wait your turn. You better think again since you are most probably on the wrong track. The world has changed, and it is still changing. The way we do business and also our culture is changing. Today you have to realize you have to make a career whether you like it or not. You have to keep on improving otherwise you will not be in demand tomorrow. Today we have to plan our future. We no longer can live as it comes day by day. It is predicted that in this century there will be a thousand time more changes in technology than in the last century. How can you cope with all this?
Smart people save money and invest it into a business. They want to become independent. Owners of the hotel have invested their life savings into the hotel with the hope that they will be able to have a good income and a stable future.

Smart employees also have a long term view of what they want to become. They realize to go up the leader and get also a better income requires knowledge and skill. To get these skills and knowledge they understand that it will cost money. Owners cannot afford to pay for your future education. For them it is easier to just hire people who have the right education and experience. Just experience alone is not sufficient to go up the leader. For every level up requires also more education. It requires more specific knowledge. First you must work hard and once the management recognizes you for the hard work they might promote you to become a supervisor. Being a supervisor is very much different than just a line worker. Now you need already some leadership qualities. It requires also more organization skill. These knowledge and skills you can only get by studying in a Hotel School. Also you have to be good in English. Now who is going to pay for your studies? Is it the owners of the hotel? This is no longer in their interests. If a hotel needs supervisors or special trained workers the hotel just hire some one who has all these knowledge.
In the past hotels have sponsored associates for training because by this time the hotels could not get highly trained people. These people did not exist. But today they can hire qualified people.
This is the reason why they start to look outside the “box” and hire people from other hotels. So you can see the world has changed. There is another challenge waiting for you. Young people today have a better education than what their parents had. They are very fast learner. If you do not improve they might take your job.
To be able to survive in the corporate jungle you must keep on improving and you cannot stand still. We are technology driven. Trends are changing. So if you want to earn a living in our business you have to invest into your future. The time of sponsorship have gone and will not return. Today it is “up or out”.

What does it take to become a supervisor?
First you must have good knowledge about your present job and you have to be a reliable good worker.
Before you can be promoted you must have the basic knowledge as a supervisor. You must be able to lead a small team. You must be able to train your workers. You must be able to motivate your team.
Beside you must be able to make some basic calculations of how to determine sales price or how many workers are required to do a certain job.
I am pleased to inform you that we have now build the infrastructure to provide these courses. We also have managed to provide these courses at affordable cost. This will enable you to participate in these courses.
Once you are a supervisor you have to plan to become an assistant department head and then a department head. This again will need some more knowledge. Because as a Department Head you must be very good leadership skills. You have to become a good organizer and you have to understand Profit and Loss statement. You have to know what cause of action to take to influence cost and profit. So you will have to attend more courses.
As a department head you have to attend more courses so that eventually you can enter the General Manager’s school.
It is with great pleasure to inform you that we have now all these courses available in our Career Development Institute. This means anybody who wants to make a career can do so, provided he is continuous learning and then qualifies for a better job.
How can you save for these courses.
You can pay into your savings account every month Rp. 50.000 to 100.000 and you can finance your courses.
You can also earn points by being a promoter of CDI and bring some participants to the courses. If you bring 4 paying participants you will get one course free. If you can get more students you will get an other course free.
The prices of these courses will be announced shortly. If you can get more than 12 participants for one course then the course can be conducted right at your hotel. These courses are not only for Choice Hotels employees but anybody can participate. Also people working in other hotels.
We would like to hear your opinion. What do you think about this program. Please write to Karl Waelti, who will be glad to answer your questions.
Please watch out for more news shortly.

These report has also being published on
My Blogspot.
http://southeast150.blogspot.com

May I suggest this report will be discussed during department head meetings and department heads must motivate their staff to join this program.
Suggestions and Comments are appreciated.