Ready to work! How to combine theory, practice and employment in the hospitality industry
How to combine seemingly incompatible things — theory, practice and employment? How to prepare specialists who will not need to be retrained immediately after graduation? And how to raise the prestige of the profession thanks to this? Vladislav Kiselev, General Director of the International Center for Creative Hospitality, will discuss this in the article.
People with a graduation certificate are not always ready to start working effectively immediately. Many employers face the fact that graduates have to be retrained immediately. It certainly didn't start now. Remember Arkady Raikin? "Forget induce and deduce — let's produce!". This miniature is almost 50 years old, but little has changed in terms of combining theory and practice. Educational programs, according to business representatives, are often far from reality, and yesterday's students, loaded with a large amount of knowledge, do not have practical experience in how to apply it.
Who is to blame?
There are many reasons for this. One of the main reasons is that the domestic education system has always tried to kill two birds with one stone — to train people who could later do both academic research and go to work in production. Often such a combination is simply impossible. In fact, even with the same name of the study fields, these are completely different fields of activity.
Besides, the world has changed dramatically today. In addition to the traditional skills in a certain specialty, success can be achieved only with a large amount of additional knowledge and skills. This includes psychology, computer literacy, presentation skills, and much more.
What to do?
We at the International Center for Creative Hospitality believe t hat t he m ost e ffective w ay t oday i s a c ombination of theory and practice, when in addition to obtaining basic knowledge, the graduate has a certain set of practical competencies.
The International Center for Creative Hospitality, established on the basis of the International Institute of Informatics, Management, Economics and Law in Moscow, brought together the most famous and successful experts who have experience in international and Russian hotel chains, leading tour operators, event management agencies, concierge companies. The main directions of the Center's work are the training of personnel for the tourism industry and their further employment.
We have developed and are successfully implementing a program of unique courses in tourism and hospitality. The learning process is aimed at obtaining practical skills in the hotel and tourism business, and at helping in acquiring professional and creative abilities of students.
At the same time, we work both with "classical" students who are just deciding what to do in life, and with current employees of hotels, restaurants, travel agencies and other companies working in the hospitality sector.
Who is to blame?
There are many reasons for this. One of the main reasons is that the domestic education system has always tried to kill two birds with one stone — to train people who could later do both academic research and go to work in production. Often such a combination is simply impossible. In fact, even with the same name of the study fields, these are completely different fields of activity.
Besides, the world has changed dramatically today. In addition to the traditional skills in a certain specialty, success can be achieved only with a large amount of additional knowledge and skills. This includes psychology, computer literacy, presentation skills, and much more.
What to do?
We at the International Center for Creative Hospitality believe t hat t he m ost e ffective w ay t oday i s a c ombination of theory and practice, when in addition to obtaining basic knowledge, the graduate has a certain set of practical competencies.
The International Center for Creative Hospitality, established on the basis of the International Institute of Informatics, Management, Economics and Law in Moscow, brought together the most famous and successful experts who have experience in international and Russian hotel chains, leading tour operators, event management agencies, concierge companies. The main directions of the Center's work are the training of personnel for the tourism industry and their further employment.
We have developed and are successfully implementing a program of unique courses in tourism and hospitality. The learning process is aimed at obtaining practical skills in the hotel and tourism business, and at helping in acquiring professional and creative abilities of students.
At the same time, we work both with "classical" students who are just deciding what to do in life, and with current employees of hotels, restaurants, travel agencies and other companies working in the hospitality sector.
The prospects
With the exception of a small proportion of those for whom education is an end in itself, most perceive a diploma as a ticket to a better life, opening up new opportunities for them. Our task is to help both graduates and the industry. Therefore, we consider employment to be one of the most important areas of our work. And the more targeted the training is, the more effective the graduate will be able to work from the very first day.
With the exception of a small proportion of those for whom education is an end in itself, most perceive a diploma as a ticket to a better life, opening up new opportunities for them. Our task is to help both graduates and the industry. Therefore, we consider employment to be one of the most important areas of our work. And the more targeted the training is, the more effective the graduate will be able to work from the very first day.
For large companies, we prepare individual training programs based on internal standards, train current or future employees in corporate culture, company history, and traditions. We believe it is extremely important that everyone within one enterprise is in a single information field, so that employees could understand the ideology and values of the brand correctly and convey this information to customers.
Hotel standards for everyone!
Recently, we have been observing an interesting trend: more and more companies that are not directly connected with the hospitality industry are turning to the International Center for Creative Hospitality with a request to help introduce standards of hotel service. And this is no coincidence.
In tourism, there are quite strict, decades-old, and sometimes centuries-old standards of work. All successful chains and individual hotels adhere to them. After all, the main thing that is required of employees is to always be one step ahead of a client, anticipate their expectations, be inconspicuous and at the same time as useful as possible.
Hotel standards for everyone!
Recently, we have been observing an interesting trend: more and more companies that are not directly connected with the hospitality industry are turning to the International Center for Creative Hospitality with a request to help introduce standards of hotel service. And this is no coincidence.
In tourism, there are quite strict, decades-old, and sometimes centuries-old standards of work. All successful chains and individual hotels adhere to them. After all, the main thing that is required of employees is to always be one step ahead of a client, anticipate their expectations, be inconspicuous and at the same time as useful as possible.
The standards applied in the hotel business are universal for any field of activity related to customer service. At the same time, in the hospitality industry they are honed to perfection, and are the standard of customer service.
For example, a network of clinics contacted us. A significant part of potential customers never found out how well they could be cured, because they were filtered out at the stage of initial application, that is, service. Currently, we are conducting an audit of internal processes in the company, on the basis of which corporate standards will be prepared and an individual curriculum will be written. Only after that we will start training employees. Moreover, in the future we will conduct an ongoing audit and adjust what graduates will not immediately be good at. In other words, we take responsibility for training effective employees not only during the transfer of theoretical knowledge to them, but also in the future, during their practical work. It seems to me that the future lies precisely with such a combination and an individual approach to training specialists, taking into account the requests of the employer.
In addition
Our Center was one of the first to enter the European education market during the global crisis by signing an agreement with the Open European Academy of Economics and Politics in Prague. We are pleased that now we can offer students programs with diplomas that do not require either translation or confirmation on the territory of EU countries.
We are looking for new niches, and we are preparing educational programs in the not quite standard segments. For example, these are pensioners and people with disabilities. This is a huge army of people who are ready to work, but do not understand how. We implement these programs together with employers, as a result of which a potential graduate (provided, of course, that they study well) is confident in employment in advance.
On the other hand, we try to respond promptly to the challenges of the time, such as issues of sustainable development or rapidly gaining momentum industrial tourism. We are launching joint programs with Universal University and a number of other leading educational centers, trying to complement each other's capabilities, and not compete with each other. We are actively working with the Education Export Center, not only offering our services in the markets of other countries, but also teaching service standards to representatives of universities.
In addition
Our Center was one of the first to enter the European education market during the global crisis by signing an agreement with the Open European Academy of Economics and Politics in Prague. We are pleased that now we can offer students programs with diplomas that do not require either translation or confirmation on the territory of EU countries.
We are looking for new niches, and we are preparing educational programs in the not quite standard segments. For example, these are pensioners and people with disabilities. This is a huge army of people who are ready to work, but do not understand how. We implement these programs together with employers, as a result of which a potential graduate (provided, of course, that they study well) is confident in employment in advance.
On the other hand, we try to respond promptly to the challenges of the time, such as issues of sustainable development or rapidly gaining momentum industrial tourism. We are launching joint programs with Universal University and a number of other leading educational centers, trying to complement each other's capabilities, and not compete with each other. We are actively working with the Education Export Center, not only offering our services in the markets of other countries, but also teaching service standards to representatives of universities.
At the same time, the International Center for Creative Hospitality has recently become a significant platform where professionals discuss problems and prospects for the development of the tourism industry. We managed to gather all interested parties: representatives of government authorities, both Russian and foreign, business, public organizations, consolidate the best experts from leading universities. The major events regularly held here allow us to state that we have managed to form a serious expert community capable of solving any tasks.
Vladislav Kiselev
General Director of the International Center for Creative Hospitality. Expert in the field of public relations. Journalist. Political strategist.
Graduated from the Department of Journalism of Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Moscow School of Political Studies. Worked in the State Duma and the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, the Moscow City Duma, the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and Industry, federal and Moscow media, and a number of large Russian companies. The actual state counselor of the city of Moscow of the 3rd class. Laureate of the Moscow City Award in the field of journalism. Member of the Moscow Union of Journalists
General Director of the International Center for Creative Hospitality. Expert in the field of public relations. Journalist. Political strategist.
Graduated from the Department of Journalism of Lomonosov Moscow State University and the Moscow School of Political Studies. Worked in the State Duma and the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation, the Moscow City Duma, the Moscow Chamber of Commerce and Industry, federal and Moscow media, and a number of large Russian companies. The actual state counselor of the city of Moscow of the 3rd class. Laureate of the Moscow City Award in the field of journalism. Member of the Moscow Union of Journalists