If You Think Hospitality is Impossible to Teach You’re Wrong. Sorry, Danny Meyer.

Danny Meyer's wrong. Yes, really. I'm a Meyer fan; he's the godfather of Hospitality. But there's one idea from the book that struck me as wrong. "Hospitality is almost impossible to teach". It's a sentiment that resonates throughout the industry. But this "you've either got it, or you haven't" attitude makes people avoid training on Hospitality altogether, and it's killing our industry. 

Meyer talks about the balance between Service and Hospitality being 49% service 51% Hospitality. Service is the practical skills and knowledge we need to do the job; think wine knowledge, food knowledge, the ability to be able to open a bottle of wine or be able to use the POS system. Whereas Hospitality is about how you make people feel - it's the emotional response to the experience. Yes, Service is easier to teach because the skills have a clear desired outcome; it's either right or wrong. Hospitality is far more nuanced and artistic and open to interpretation. But that doesn't mean we can't train it. 

If we're not training teams in Hospitality, then we're not training them on 51% of their job. If we're not training teams properly for their work, we're setting them up for failure. I can't think of any successful industry where teams are only trained for half their job. Imagine a pilot who's trained to take off but not to land. If we carry on on this path, that's where the industry is heading. 

Here are the facts in 2018 46% of Hospitality staff had struggled with their mental health. In another survey, 81% of chefs had reported mental health struggles. According to The Office of National Statistics, Hospitality is still the lowest-paid sector in the UK, and it's still bottom of the list for desirable careers. When we realise we're not providing the appropriate training, the numbers aren't so shocking. 

If we spent time training teams properly, I think these numbers would turn around. By having the right skills to do the job stress levels drop, job satisfaction increases and just by being invested in teams feel a greater a sense of value and worth. Obviously, there are some bigger issues here too, but training is something any business can do at the moment while teams are on furlough. 

Hospitality is not impossible to teach, we know, we've trained thousands of people both here in the UK and in New York, but we need to break it down into simple, trainable fundamentals. 

I'll be explaining more about Hop's Fundamentals of Hospitality on Friday but for now, the first fundamental is Self-Awareness. Think about this, if you want your teams to provide great Hospitality to your guests, you first need to provide great Hospitality to your teams. That means having great Self-Awareness. You need to be aware of how your behaviour makes your team feel. The way you make the team feel will directly reflect how they make your guest feels. 

Try this, at the end of each day review the conversations you've had with your team. Have you been aware of how you've made them feel or have you been caught up in your own stresses and had no awareness of the impact your behaviours have had on those around you? The goal is to be constantly aware of the impact you're having with your team. What can you do right now to provide some exceptionally Hospitality to your brilliant employees?