New training video in production

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A new training video commissioned by the La Ronge Motor Hotel is not intended solely for teaching the basics of serving food and beverages in a restaurant, said hotel manager Clarence Neault. It is also intended to show these front-line service workers how they deserve to be treated-with respect.

This project, like an earlier one aimed at hotel housekeeping staff, was prompted into production by Neault's outrage at the condescending attitudes of other service worker training videos. The one that angered him the most had housekeepers "depicted as people who daydream at the foot of the bed . . . about, I hate to say it, candelabra (lit) romantic dinners," he said.

"This is what motivated us to produce videos applicable to real-life job skills . . . (treating hotel workers) just like welders and plumbers," Neault said. "You don't see welders falling asleep (on-screen) halfway through their training videos."

The housekeeping video has already found a ready market in the hospitality industry, and Neault is certain that the second one-and any more to come-will follow in its footsteps.

"There's a gap," he said. "There's so many manager-oriented resources and videos, and so many occupational health and safety skill set videos, but a big gap in front-line (service worker) training."

Neault's willingness to tackle that gap is something Diane Cohoon is eager to encourage. As manager of training for the Saskatchewan Tourism Education Council (STEC), which has helped market the motor hotel's first video, Cohoon has seen how eagerly the industry has responded to the concept of a high quality, visually oriented teaching tool for their front-line staff. Plus, as a journeyman food and beverage server herself (as well as technical expert for the current video production), she knows why the industry has reacted this way: people learn from watching others do it.

"The ability to let people see how a task should be done has exceptional value," Cohoon said, not only for the trainee, but also for the employer and the tourism industry as a whole.

"In terms of tourism, if you can't put people to bed well, and you can't feed them well, how do you build an industry? Those are the first, basic needs of every person who comes here. . . . If you're going to develop exemplary skills (to meet those needs), you need very good training tools."

It is in the making of such tools that video director Jack Walton's skills come to the fore. While the first video was produced by a team from the University of Saskatchewan, Neault has placed this latest project in the hands of Walton and his team from Missinipi Broadcasting's video and TV unit, Y'utthe Askiy Productions.

Walton's task is to create a video of approximately 10 to 15 minutes in length that takes a new trainee through all the steps of serving a hotel breakfast-from personal hygiene and table prep, to customer service and the proper handling of food, drinks, utensils and dishes- from beginning to end.

"It's not about being artistic, it's about being very functional (in the presentation) so that the information's clear and concise for the new trainee," Walton said. "It has to be transportable, so that any restaurant anywhere could use it as a very basic training tool."