There are 143,000 businesses in the food service sector (leisure, late night, hotel, pubs, cafes and bars, street food etc.) The industry employs 1.8 million people and delivers £40.4bn to the UK economy. Many team leaders, supervisors and managers in the sector have no specific management qualifications and little access to CPD. They also have very little time and no appropriate space in their workplace to study. Research from the ONS shows that small improvements in a company’s management can result in significant productivity increases.
Be the Business will build a tool that supports the development of skills amongst business owners, managers and supervisors. Guided Reflection will prompt the learner to think about a real-life issue that they will have encountered, encourage them to respond verbally, then use natural language processing – including analysing tone and sentiment – to direct them to resources or share with a community to gain peer support and advice. By creating a tool to help managers/supervisors to access training in an on demand and engaging way, they can drive improvements through their businesses, build empowered teams and begin to engage in long term planning - which they may previously have discounted or struggled to engage with. Over the period an individual uses the tool, the desired outcome is an increased level of confidence in their decision making and an improved understanding of key management practices relevant to their role.