Case Study 2010-Now: ‘Manage Yourself, Lead Others’ Program

Case Study 2010-Now:
‘Manage Yourself, Lead Others’ Program

Client

Established Hong Kong restaurant group with seven busy venues serving different cuisines to diverse customer target markets.

Challenge

Create a Management Training program to involve all – Supervisors to Managers

The management teams of the restaurants are a stable, happy crew of around 45 people, managing 200 staff. Almost all are staff who have worked their way from junior to senior levels without any formal training. The directors were eager for their management workforce to grasp and apply appropriate core management competencies in an enjoyable and practical way.

Solution

Three levels of experiential training

Design a three tiered training program that includes workshop-style experiential sessions for supervisors, project-based learning and manager-mentoring for assistant managers and intimate discussion forums for managers.

Process

Review – Design – Deliver – Review

Along with discussions with directors, a short term Mystery Shopping program was designed and conducted to review the work of the management team in their restaurants. It examined cohesiveness, identified development needs and assessed management work flow efficiency. The results enabled us to identify training required and develop performance measurement tools, as well as obtain a fly-on-the-wall look at the natural working styles of managers.

Training commenced in 2010, and continues on a monthly basis today, with supervisors learning principles of leadership, managers being coached in effective mentor skills, assistant managers leading practical, workplace-applicable projects under the guidance of their managers, and sees the whole group getting together once a month for a lively and dynamic discussion workshop where operational topics and problems are debated and usually resolved through peer advice.

Results

Reduced turnover – Manager retention – Company unity

The restaurants sight a vast improvement in company unity. There is far greater sharing of staff resources, internal promotions and cross-training between venues. Staff turnover amongst the management team has dropped by 20%, and is at an extremely low level when benchmarked against other Hong Kong restaurant groups. Feedback from the management team is always positive. They find the content well structured, informative and practical. Learning Curve has designed a flexible training program to allow for sessions to be developed and delivered quickly to react to current operational problems if necessary.