The National Restaurant Association’s ServSuccess program has teamed with the American Hotel & Lodging Foundation (AHLEI) to offer five career-advancing training classes for free through the end of April.
The free courses consist of the ServSuccess Restaurant Professional and Restaurant Supervisor learning suites and the AHLEI Supervisory Skill Builders and Hospitality Manager Leadership and Certified Hotel Administrator review courses.
“ServSuccess and AHLEI want to help these dedicated professionals position themselves for career opportunities that will become available when our industry is able to open its doors and host guests again,” Sherman Brown, the NRA’s executive vice president of training and certification, said. “By making these career-focused training courses available without charge in this very difficult moment, we are reinforcing not only our support for our talented workforce, but our belief that they—and the industry—can come back strong and resilient.”
According to Brown, the programs provide the skills and knowledge the industry has identified as essential for career restaurant employees. Each of these suites contain five courses, and are designed to be completed virtually. Those who complete any of the five suites will be prepared to take the corresponding proctored exam to complete certification. All have some aspect of food safety as part of the program. The food safety measures covered in the courses include how to identify symptoms to avoid working when sick, proper sanitizing, how to handle food packaging, and ways to ensure proper delivery to consumers.
The Restaurant Professional Learning Suite takes about four hours to complete and covers everything from front-of-the-house service and communication to back-of-the-house pre-production and production. The Restaurant Supervisor Learning Suite takes approximately five hours to complete and covers safety and regulations as well as leadership and communication in managing daily operations.
The AHLEI Supervisory Skill Builders course covers essential skills to help supervisors contribute to the success of a hospitality establishment; the AHLEI Hospitality Manager Leadership class show how to lead a team; and the CHA Review covers the necessary knowledge essential to overseeing all functional areas of a hospitality establishment as a general manager or operations executive.
Additionally, to support restaurant workers on the front line, the organization has made three free training resources available: ServSafe Delivery, ServSafe Takeout, and ServSafe Food Handler.
“As restaurants are forced to change how they do business, we want to ensure safe customer experiences by extending best practices for safe food handling to takeout and delivery,” Brown said. “These new modules were developed to provide guidance for restaurant staff preparing the food, as well as delivery people who will deliver the packages from the restaurant to the customer.”
ServSafe Delivery highlights food safety measures for delivery people who are out in public, including guidance on safe package handling, good hygiene and sanitation for delivery transportation, transporting packaged food, and safe customer contact.
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