Sofitel Hotels began repositioning itself in 2007 as an all-luxury brand. As Sofitel Luxury Hotels, France-based Accor Hospitality sought to create a standard of French elegance and high quality throughout its worldwide operations. In a chain that prides itself on the singularity of each of its properties and the sense of place instilled by that uniqueness, F&B necessarily had to become a distinctive element, so VP of F&B Operations for the Americas Jean-Marc Jalbert initiated a training program at Sofitel Miami to bring the distinct F&B styles across the brand into a coherent, codified philosophy.

Jalbert began organizing the program in 2008 by tapping into his greatest resource: highly experienced managers. He looked at property performance and isolated “pockets of excellence” where individual hotels surpassed others in certain departments or service areas.

“Although Sofitel Miami would be piloting the program, we wanted to make sure all properties were involved with the process,” says Jalbert. Sofitel Corporate Training Specialist Jeff Vinson, who is involved in the ongoing implementation of the program, points out the importance of discovering those best practices. “We pulled F&B directors from every property—‘You two do room service, you two cover what it’s like to be a server, you two focus on bartending,’” Vinson says. “Because we didn’t have a corporate training program, some hotels had great room service training and another hotel may have been great at something else based on who the manager was during that period of time. So we asked, ‘What are the best tools being used?’ ‘How can we share those across properties?’”

From those service strengths, managers created training procedures that the group reviewed and adopted. Their brainstorming produced 11 modules designed to lead employees to a complete understanding of their property’s F&B operations, followed by formal certification as fully trained service professionals. The modules provide highly detailed explanations of everything from the Sofitel service philosophy to food safety to the minutiae of setting a table. Along with site-specific information, upselling tips, and service “rituals,” the training includes soft skills such as courtesy, reading a table, and engaging a group. The training method is heavy on demonstration, role-playing, and strong trainer-trainee communication, as well as immersing trainees in F&B functions other than their own.

Jalbert stresses that the best way to train— or to manage—someone is to give him or her a good example to follow. Trainers explain a concept or procedure, then demonstrate it in action, and eventually shadow the employee to see how he or she implements it. In-depth instruction from trainers has proven to be a major factor toward improving employee confi- dence and job satisfaction.

Staff members, who must pass tests before they can go solo, feel they have acquired the tools they need to perform their jobs properly and therefore feel less work stress, Jalbert reports. Noting the effectiveness of the training and the simplicity of showing someone how to do something, Vinson says, “Whether you’re training somebody how to change oil in a car or how to open a bottle of wine, the skills of training are really the same.”

Jalbert chose to roll out the five-day F&B certification training program in Miami because of the extraordinary commitment of the staff there, starting with General Manager Balendra Nagesvaran, Executive Chef Pierre Sudre, and F&B Director Gregory Polino. The plan was not only to initiate the program but also to tweak it where necessary, and Jalbert counted on Nagesvaran’s enthusiasm and the Miami management team’s “100 percent buy-in” to the process.

With its proximity to a busy airport, Sofitel Miami was maintaining above 80 percent occupancy despite economic trends, and the constant flow of pan-cultural guests made it a particularly challenging venue to classify for F&B purposes. There, Jalbert believed, he could construct a training program to satisfy the Sofitel definition of luxury and high-quality service that, he says, would be adequate and appropriate for instruction anywhere in the hemisphere.

As the plan for the program came together, Jalbert assembled his own instruments to analyze its impact, taking four measurements to plot the results of training. Sofitel already had an ongoing relationship with Medallia to compile data from guest satisfaction surveys. Also, Mercantile Systems secret shoppers were scheduled to evaluate employees regularly after training was completed. Further, Sofitel Miami has created an in-house system that feeds off Medallia data and POS data to track employees’ shifts down to individual checks and grade their performance (see page 16). Lastly, Sofitel uses a system called the Company Life Individual Participation survey (CLIP) to gauge employee satisfaction. Combined, these data give him a clear picture of the program’s success.

In guest and employee satisfaction, 2009 results showed a marked improvement across the board over 2008, Jalbert says. The rise in Medallia scores for F&B helped to put Sofitel Miami’s overall ratings in a category that suggests the potential for significant brand loyalty (better than 70 percent of guests’ ratings are 9 or 10 out of 10). Increased revenues have contributed to the hotel maintaining a 66 percent profit retention rate, even in a challenging economic climate. Nagesvaran is perhaps most encouraged by the 20 percent reduction in turnover among his employees, allowing him to retain experienced staff and cut training costs.

Dollar amounts for ROI are hard to track for such F&B training programs. Nevertheless, Jalbert sees improvement of F&B standards through intense training as a necessity—even in stormy financial times—to maintain Sofitel’s new luxury image, and he is certain the dividends are there. “Training has paid for itself...we never even thought about slowing down or canceling,” he says.

Vinson agrees: “Often, my life in F&B has been this circle in how companies operate. And it’s the mantra, ‘We don’t have time, we don’t have time...’ Clearly, the results speak for themselves. But we get caught up in the moment in F&B with putting out fires instead of trying to do preventative maintenance.”

So, as preventative maintenance, Sofitel’s training is ongoing. Jalbert has implemented a daily “luxury forum” to update and train staff as they prepare for their shifts as well as regular evaluations to detect weak areas and needs for further training. Based on the merits of its success, the program initiated at Sofitel Miami will be expanded to all Sofitel properties in North and South America.

Denny Lewis is a six-year HOTEL F&B veteran and professional writer based in Arlington, Massachussetts.

Taking Medallia Scores Further
Wanting to do more with Medallia survey scores, Sofitel Miami created a proprietary software program that tracks the detailed performance of each employee. In the chart below, F&B employees were measured and ranked during a shift. Explains GM Balendra Nagesvaran, “Each employee during the shift is measured against their colleagues and agreed-upon performance goals. The green box identifies the employee who scored highest, and red indicates the lowest score. The two areas that we looked at specifically in this chart were attentiveness in front of the guest and speed and efficiency. As you can see with Jesus, his survey ratings are below average.

“Now that we have the data, we can sit down with the employee and discuss it. We see the specific shifts when there were problems, so we can identify what was really going on. We take a look at the checks. What did the guest order? Did it have to do with the team in the kitchen? Did the employee have other guests at the same time? Once we figure out what caused the problem, we can figure out the corrective action. In this case, Jesus’ mother passed away, and he was obviously not performing at his best. It helps us to be there for the employees, and we emphasize an open-door policy. If employees have an issue or problem in their private lives, they know they can speak with us anytime. If they have no one to talk to, it’s going to be seen in their performance. So giving them the opportunity to speak with us along with human resources makes them stronger, and we can get them back on track.”

Sofitel’s Company Life Individual Participation (CLIP)
One of the proprietary tools used by Sofitel’s Human Resources department is the Company Life Individual Participation (CLIP). According to Balendra Nagesvaran, Sofitel Miami’s General Manager, “CLIP measures how an employee perceives their optimal work environment in nine different categories. We ‘CLIP’ departments at least twice a year, before and after a certain point. For example, the CLIP below shows two different measurement periods. The solid blue line shows the original measurement on attitudes such as Pride in Belonging, Service Quality, Team Leadership, etc. The second CLIP was done close to rollout of the Sofitel Miami certification program and represents an average of five F&B outlets with approximately 50 employees participating. The results are correlated to the first measurement, with a graph resembling a spider web. The more symmetrical the web, the better the results. And what we noticed in these CLIP results particularly was that there were improvements across every area (new results are represented by the outer dotted line). Training went from a 3.3 to a 4.0, for instance, which was a substantial increase.

“After the quantitative measurement, management asked for informal feedback. The comments were very encouraging, such as, ‘You haven’t cut back on my development,’ ‘There’s growth for me in this company,’ ‘I love the fact that we are studying the wine,’ ‘We are having more one-on-one time with management,’ and ‘We’re being mentored through this program.’ There were a lot of really good comments that came out of these debrief sessions.”

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