The Willows Golf & Country Club 

 

In recent years, there has been a growing labour shortage in the tourism sector's food and beverage services industry.  Even more troubling is a skills shortage among staff in workplaces across the province due to recruitment and retention challenges, time constraints, and long work hours.

 

Dawn Wreford, Food and Beverage Manager at The Willows Golf & Country Club, partly attributes a skills shortage in her workplace to a lack of understanding among staff about the certification process and its value.

 

"Not everyone sees the value in certification when they are already doing the job without it," Wreford explained.

 

In response, Wreford said The Willows Golf & Country Club has created training manuals for each area of the organization participating in the Transforming the Tourism Workforce project.  The manuals created are based on the occupational standard for each profession to allow staff to "see the parallels between their job and the national standard.

 

"There have been some great 'aha' moments and eye openers because of the standards," Wreford said, adding that she is measuring the learning outcomes of participants through performance evaluations and customer satisfaction surveys.

 

With 90-100 summer employees and 50-70 winter employees in the Food and Beverage Department alone, Wreford said she hopes the initiatives being taken to encourage participation will benefit both employer and employees.

 

"[The Willows Golf & Country Club] would like to become an Employer of Choice and would like employees to feel one hundred per cent comfortable that they have all the required knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform their duties," Wreford said.