Hands on and Ready to Go!

I was recently lucky enough to visit ROC Mondriaan College and 'Invitez' in The Hague. As Head of Learning at Amaris Hospitality visits like this always pay dividends as I can share our learning and development story with students and educators. It is an amazing opportunity to see students in their learning environment, view their skills and talk with them about their expectations of the industry. You are getting a view of the future workforce, their needs and expectations two or more years early!

'Invitez' is a School of Hospitality, but it is also a thriving, living hotel, food and beverage environment for students to study and 'work' in for real. With bedrooms, 3 restaurants and a bar the pace is buzzing from breakfast to the late hours, especially the bar on this occasion with visiting industry professionals!

For me 'employability' is always key with students and miles of text have been written in the subject. Our industry values the underpinning academic knowledge offered by credible education programmes, but just as valuable when it comes down to it in the work place are the technical skills and those skills like Rapport, Conversation, Relationships and EI often called 'soft skills' that make a 'hard' difference to a businesses success.

As an enthusiastic supporter of Internships our aim is always to give 'live' and 'hands on' experiences to develop these soft skills and the opportunity to apply learning from college or university.

An education environment that creates a thriving 'hands on' space for students to learn, make mistakes, have successes and build confidence long before entering the workplace is just as important as internship as part of an education programme. When developing hospitality management programmes at all levels we can't get away from the fact that in the end our provision of true 'hospitality' will only be provided by a passionate, knowledgeable, skilled and confident team member. The sooner an employee is at this level the sooner the guest and the individual 'feels' the amazing intangible spirit of hospitality the winners in our industry are known for.