During her 24-year career in the hospitality and food and beverage sectors, Charlayne Jones has done everything from hosting dignitaries to cleaning toilets. In 2000, she formed her own Nanaimo, BC-based company, ForeFront Training Services, which provides tourism training programs for various Vancouver Island clients. She is a certified F&B Server, acts as one of the emerit program evaluators and is currently participating in the Tourism Trainer certification update. So, given her considerable experience, it might seem unlikely that she would feel the need to obtain emerit Tourism Trainer certification herself.
But that’s exactly what Jones, 46, will be seeking this fall. “emerit is the only certification in Canada that validates what I do,” she says. “Even though I’ve been a teacher for 10 years, it’ll give me a stamp of approval and most likely boost my business opportunities.”
The emerit Tourism Trainer program is being marketed as a way to achieve elite status in the industry. It builds on one’s existing skills and enables the certified person to create the most effective methods for learning and retention in any given teaching situation. Communication, planning, delivery, evaluation and administration are some of the modules that can be studied, with the overall goal of increasing employee productivity and confidence. A certified trainer's business can become a training destination of choice for all tourism organizations.
Not long after Jones, then aged 13, landed a job washing dishes at a restaurant in her hometown Qualicum Beach, she set her mind on pursuing a career in the food and beverage and hospitality sectors. “Unfortunately, too many people in these sectors have the attitude that they’ll stick it out until they can find a real job,” she says. “That mindset is partly due to the low pay and long hours, but another factor is that their work historically lacked unified standards and codes of conduct. That’s why I view emerit as an indispensible educational tool.”
Jones watched emerit evolve from the conception stage to a comprehensive program while she was an instructor for McMillan College in the late 1990s. “It’s difficult to impress newcomers about how revolutionary emerit was,” she says. “Prior to its inception, instructors like me would take as much as we could from American Hotel & Lodging Association books because there was no Canadian counterpart, and we tried to make the data relevant to Canadian laws and expectations. But with emerit, finally we had home-grown educational material, plus we could be certified according to Canadian standards. And because the programs were developed by people across the country, emerit was truly a national program that respected provincial values.”
It doesn’t take much prodding for Jones to regale listeners with tales of her adventures, such as her stint as food and beverage director for the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton, Alta., just in time for that region’s 100-year flood. “We saw yachts floating in parking lots,” she recalls. But colourful anecdotes aside, her motivation as an educator matches the intent of emerit inasmuch as she appreciates the challenges that newcomers face. “Hospitality is a rewarding but extremely demanding trade, and the more young people learn how to avoid pitfalls and handle problems, the more likely they’ll be to make it a career instead of just a job,” she reasons.
As for Jones’ imminent status as an emerit Tourism Trainer and the influence it might have on others, she says, “Who knows? It might inspire my colleagues and those I instruct to take a closer look at emerit and perhaps even enrol in some of the certification courses. It would be great if my certification inspires others.”
