WHITE SPOT HITS THE TOP SPOT
By Septembre Anderson
Monday, September 28, 2009
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White Spot Red Seal Certified Chefs - The Few and Proud |
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From its humble beginnings as a lunch counter on wheels to now one of North America’s oldest and most well-established restaurant chains, White Spot has always found success through hard work and dedication.
So it should come as no surprise that the British Columbia-based chain was recently recognized for its staff training and development efforts. In May, White Spot won the Top in Trades award in the innovator category for its pilot apprenticeship program.
“It was a really nice acknowledgement of a lot of hard work and a certain amount of risk we took to rollout something so new in the industry,” says James Kennedy, White Spot’s corporate training chef.
Developed with the support of the Industry Training Association and go2, White Spot introduced its groundbreaking Red Seal chef certification program last fall.
However, this initiative was not the chain’s first foray into the world of in-house training.
“About three years ago White Spot decided it was time to start upgrading skill sets in the kitchen,” explains Kennedy, a certified chef de cuisine.
This led to the creation of a skills upgrading program, introduced in 2006. Although a huge success, White Spot executives realized there was a substantial gap between its entry level cooks and Red Seal certified chefs.
So, in September 2008, White Spot launched the first indentured apprenticeship program of its kind to be offered by a restaurant.
Developed out of a desire to upgrade the skill level of kitchen staff to meet the increasing complexity of the chain’s menu as well as the skill level of its certified Red Seal chefs, the program follows B.C.’s apprenticeship curriculum and is modelled on the logical progression of a person in the kitchen. Topics covered include communication, cold kitchen skills, plate presentation, butchery and managerial skills, among others.
White Spot president, Warren Erhart, says the benefits of having the program in-house are numerous. Chief among them is its flexibility, which allows employees to develop their skills and pursue certification without disrupting their regular work schedule and earnings.
“That’s one of (its) great successes,” he says.
The province’s traditional post-secondary apprenticeship system requires a cook to leave the workplace for a month. Although their wages are subsidized by employment insurance (EI), participants only receive a percentage of their wages and they must wait a specified period before benefits begin to be paid.
At White Spot, however, a day of apprenticeship training is considered a day worked, with employees paid accordingly.
“We basically offer a similar type of training (as colleges or culinary schools) but on a schedule that works well for both our business and the individual,” says Erhart. “During the summertime, for instance, when our schedules are very busy, we can curtail the program to start again in September.”
Erhart adds the training program helps attract and retain the best culinary people in the industry.
“We’ve lost some good people in the past (because they) wanted to get their Red Seal certification (and) we weren’t offering it,” he says. “Now we have people taking jobs (or staying) with us because we have this unique type of apprenticeship program.”
Among those is Garett Weston, 23, a White Spot kitchen manager and graduate of the skills upgrading program.
“When (the company) said it was starting this program I was one of the first people to jump up and say ‘I’m in’,” says Weston who is one of 40 Red Seal certified chefs currently working at White Spot.
With 20 cooks set to write the Red Seal exam, 21 registered in level three, 10 in level two and 12 in level one of the program, White Spot’s commitment to excellence through education is readily apparent.
“We’re only as good as our people,” says Erhart. “They’re the ones helping make our business successful, (so) we’ve got to keep developing them and giving them opportunities.”
