Member Blog

Thought leadership from the brightest minds in hospitality training. Subscribe to our Training Flash E-Newsletter to get the latest articles right in your inbox.

Jumpstart 2019 NOW!

To help create your goals for 2019, I believe the best place to start is CHART’s guiding principles. So, grab a piece of paper, your phone, wherever you prefer to write down your notes and begin your journey to achieving your 2019 resolutions and goals!

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CHART Talks: 5 Ways to Increase Executive Presence

Executive presence is a top development area for leaders and emerging leaders. It is the “wow” factor. Although some may be born with executive presence, the good news is that it is very learnable, and we can all get better at it. Learn five strategies to improve your personal brand and ability to command a room with this brief blast of brilliance CHART Talks video.

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CHART Talks: Motivation to Learn, Inspiration to Grow

How do you deliver the guest experience with winning performance all the time? In this brief blast of brilliance seven-minute video, Dr. Mike describes how to work with your team members to give feedback to constantly move toward this goal.

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'Tis the Season: 10 Steps to Keep People Healthy During the Holidays

As we turn the page on the calendar and begin preparing for the most magical time of the year when everyone around you suddenly starts…to get sick. Yes, that’s right – it’s going to be cold and flu season before you know it. How can we, as a community of hospitality trainers, help to prevent the spread of these ailments in our hotels and restaurants?

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My Life-Changing Capstone Experience (or How Patrick Got a Big Promotion)

Two years ago, as Director of Recruiting and Training for Ivar’s Restaurants, I applied to join the Executive Track Competency Capstone session that would be taking place on the Saturday of the CHART conference in Charleston. Once the session got underway, my thinking began to radically change for three reasons.

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Creating a Culture of Development Experiences

A familiar scenario often occurs within organizations. Our team members, with a “check the box” mentality, believe that the path to a promotion is a matter of completing certain subscribed training tasks and programs. In doing so, mission accomplished…or is it?

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10 Tips for Hiring the Right Candidate

Ever been fooled by a great interview, only to find out later that he or she wasn't a great fit? Here's what we recommend to ensure you hire the right person the first time.

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Team Building for Ever-Changing Teams

Most people who have worked in the hospitality industry know the importance of strong teamwork in their operations. When a team doesn’t work well together during a shift, it seems like everything starts to increase: lines, wait times, stress levels, and tempers. If allowed to continue from day to day, a hotel or restaurant with poor teamwork can soon expect everything to start to decrease: guest satisfaction, return visits, employee tenure, and profits.

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3 Tips to Retain Younger Employees Through E-Learning

Engaging workers in their twenties and thirties to stay with your company can be a challenge, but it may not be as difficult as you think. The current generation of workers comprises 35% of the labor force in the United States and they’re steadily moving up through the ranks into management positions. They job-hop at least 20 times in search of job fulfillment, mobility and work-life balance, resulting in lower management retention.

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Chicago Cubs' David Ross Teaches Us Three Ways to be a Better Teammate

David Ross had a problem. His hands. He didn’t know what to do with them. Hoisted on the shoulders of his jubilant teammates who were carrying him off the field like a Roman conqueror, the aging, perennial back-up catcher, fumbled and flailed, ear-to-ear grin not withstanding. The Cubs had just won the World Series in a spectacular Game Seven, and as he and his teammates swarmed each other in an impromptu post-World Series victory melee, the simple fact was he did not know what to do with his hands while riding those shoulders.

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Finding Your Balance

At the conclusion of our 96th Hospitality Training Conference in Boca Raton, with the new board of directors in place and a full agenda of projects on our plate, my first official act as CHART president was to ... take a vacation. My family and I boarded a plane at the Fort Lauderdale airport and soon landed in Key West, where we spent 5 wonderfully peaceful days enjoying each other's company.

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5 Ways to Better Prepare for a Disaster

Even though it was more than 17 years ago, I remember almost everything about the morning of February 28, 2001. It was Ash Wednesday, a big sales day for seafood restaurants, and I was working as the manager-in-charge of our quick-service location in Everett, Washington. I remember my team on that day consisted of Barbara, a 15-year Ivar’s veteran, and Jordan, who had only been with the company for a few months, and we all worked very hard to prepare for the many guests we were expecting.

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