Over the past year the RI Hospitality Education Foundation has continued to grow and create new programs and opportunities to meet the critical needs of our workforce in an effort to help them succeed and continue career growth within the hospitality industry.  Our skills gap study, funded by a 2008 grant from the Governor’s Workforce Board, remains an important tool in developing our programs.

Our partnerships with community-based organizations have been a key to our success in helping adults in the community get the training they need to find good-paying jobs. By forming partnerships and providing training programs with the Newport Skills Alliance, Dorcas Place, the RI Community Food Bank, The Providence Skills Center and netWORKri, the RIHEF further demonstrates its commitment to the tenets of the Culture of Community.

 Additionally, the Education Foundation was able to launch a new training program in 2010; Lasting Impressions: The Core of Communications. This program is a follow up course to First Impressions: Exceptional Customer Service and focuses deeper into the area of customer service, focusing on different communication strategies and offering tips to communicate effectively with others regardless of differences in gender, age, background, or communication style. This and our other programs have been a great success and we hope to further expand our offerings in 2011 and beyond. 

The RI Hospitality Education Foundation also provides training for thousands of industry personnel each year in nationally recognized certification courses such as ServSafe® Food Safety and ServSafe® Alcohol. These courses are not only a State requirement in many instances; they also provide the information backbone for incumbent workers to better do their jobs.