6 skills of a Food and Beverage Manager

For those outside Hotels it may be hard to see how several years as a Food and Beverage Manager prepares you for almost anything else in life; but it is clear that the skills and attributes needed to be a good F. & B. Manager are universal and prepare one for a wide range of other roles.

This is in no way exhaustive and is in no particular order.

Servant heart Food and Beverage Managers are servants. If you did not know how to serve others before starting work, you would need to learn it soon. Having the personal strength to slip between disengagement and serving customers is a key skill. As an F.&B. Manager, you learn to serve with all your heart, mind and body for comparatively little financial benefit.

Discipline An amazing amount of self-discipline is required to consistently deliver top quality service in a Hotel serving clients Food and Beverage; it takes discipline to always be punctual, to pursue and complete tasks in a role as physically (and mentally) demanding as serving Hotel guests.

Confidence Who is truly able to serve unless they have something to be proud about? As an F. & B. Manager, you need to be confident of who you are and be able to separate who you are from society’s vision of you. If you allow yourself to be defined by what society thinks of you, you are internally defeated and the quality of your work will suffer.

Discretion As an F. & B. Manager, you need discretion. We do work needing personal judgement to know when we should stick to the plan or when to set it aside. If you are someone who can only follow shift plans, contrary to what most people may think, you cannot be a good F. & B. Manager. You need discretion to be a good custodian of people’s Food, Drink, Service and other physical and information assets. In F. & B., you will learn Discretion if you did not have it to begin with.

Trust Maybe the biggest quality in F. & B. Manager? Who wants to give anyone access to their space, their lives, their information, their assets and service if they cannot be trusted? Intuitively it all comes down to trust-worthiness and not your age or experience. If I do not think you will care for my service, to be honest you cannot be my F. & B. Manager.

Humility Serving people humbles you - for many reasons. Such Humility is an attitude that I think all humans need, only with humility can we consistently improve. Only humble people can grow. Only humble people can learn. Only humble people can create new things.

As an F. & B. Manager, you need to take pride in the work you do and know that even if others do not appreciate you much for it, it is worthwhile.

The World of Hospitality can only be made better by those who have the willingness to extend beyond themselves and serve – from my experience the life of F. & B. Managers. I take my hat off to you all.

For lots of people, if you are working as an F. & B. Manager, you are at the bottom of the chain. I know otherwise…Respect.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Stephen Sawyers brings 20-years of Hotels and Hospitality Management to his electronic writing.

These blogs and vlogs are intended for hotel workers, supervisors and managers who are (or want to become) actively engaged in learning and development around the world.

Through his book writing, Stephen attempts to help those without the time or often the money to attend College by providing them with Learning.

Watching these vlogs and reading these blogs will assist hospitality students and workers in the Global Hospitality Industry to train and develop using Social Media.