#039 - Hospitality Meets Mike Worley - The Training & Development Leader

In the first of 2 episodes today, we delve into the world of training & development with Mike Worley, Operations Director at HIT Training (www.hittraining.co.uk)Mike has spent a fair few years in Training and Development and it's clear through our conversation that he's as passionate and energised as he's ever been.As always, we get through lots including The Kitchen, Restaurant, being gifted some tips, training, being given a chance, making your own luck, communication, life skills, educating schools and of course Mike's wonderful journey.Mike's conversation style is very anecdotal. It's a cracker.Enjoy!Show TranscriptionSUMMARY KEYWORDSpeople, hospitality, industry, organisation, apprenticeship, trainers, role, chef, job, hotel, sector, restaurant, staff, years, skills, pub, programmeSPEAKERSPhil Street, Mike WorleyPhil Street 00:01Welcome to hospitality meets with me Phil street where we take a light hearted look into the stories and individuals that make up the wonderful world of hospitality. Today's guest is Mike Worley, Operations Director for HIT training in the UK. Coming up on today's show... Mike gets aggressive towards Phil...Mike Worley 00:21Who do you think you are trying to tell us what to do type of thingPhil Street 00:24Phil strikes back with a line of his own... That's down to you, you need to take a look at yourself in the mirror. And Mike tells of a time of High Jinx in the kitchen...Mike Worley 00:32And he got the head and the four trotters just underneath the lid looking upPhil Street  00:37All that and so much more as Mike talks us through His story and journey to date, as well as talking about the world of training and all that can add to the business. Don't forget we release a new episode every Wednesday. So we'd love for you to hit that subscribe button on your favourite podcast app and give us a like and share it across your favourite social channels. Enjoy. Hello, and welcome to the next edition of hospitality meets with me Phil Street. Today we're joined again by someone from the world of trading. Having had a chat with one of his colleagues, Simon Lewis earlier, I'm delighted to be joined by Operations Director for HIT training. Mike Worley. Mike, welcome to the show.Mike Worley 01:11Thank you. Thanks for having me.Phil Street 01:13How are you doing?Mike Worley 01:14Yeah, very well. Thank you. Yeah, the weather is sunny, and it's warm. And it's a beautiful Wednesday.Phil Street 01:20Fabulous. Which part of the world are you in?Mike Worley 01:22So I'm live just outside of Bristol perfectly. It used to be for the before COVID was great for their commuter links, down the M four and five and into London. And I got here. I moved here by accident and been stuck here for the last 20 plus yearsPhil Street 01:39Really?Mike Worley 01:40But maybe we'll have a conversation about that in a little bit.Phil Street 01:43Yeah, absolutely. So just give us a very quick snapshot of what you do and what you cover in your current role.Mike Worley 01:50Certainly, yeah. So I'm the Operations Director for HIT training limited. We are an independent training provider delivering apprenticeships and commercial and some adult education budget training to the predominant hospitality sector. We also work in the care sector and early year sector. My role is everything learner centric. So I'm overall responsible for about 450 trainers, nationwide, 30 odd managers, and also the quality and the curriculum function within hit. So that involves making sure that the programmes we deliver are robust, and something that adds value to somebody's life, and also keeps us compliant if we are claiming any government funds. So yeah, I'm pretty much home based with offices all over, like all over England, which is where we cover and have probably one of the best jobs in the in the company because I get to talk to hundreds of hundreds of people every week.Phil Street 02:52Right? Yeah, actually, I mean, you don't really cover off much then in your job.Mike Worley 02:57No, I mean, it's quite quite a quite quiet day really day in the life of it's, you know, it's it's every day is a is a school day, as they say, and never, never the same day twice. So I don't I don't have to deal with groundhog which is brilliant.Phil Street 03:11Yeah. Great stuff. Okay. So well take us all the way back to the beginning of your, your journey. How did you get end up in hospitality in the first place?Mike Worley 03:22It started all at school, really, I was probably I think it was the I think the only male doing food and nutrition and Home Economics at school. And that came back because my mum was a really, really great cook. And Dad was more into engineering and oil and stuff. And I didn't that didn't appeal to me at all. I went after school decided I would want to want to be a chef. So I went to catering college for a couple of years. And about six weeks into the course, I realised that working in the kitchen is really hot. And I thought maybe I'll go into Hotel Management instead. because that meant I could stand and talk to people and not actually have to work so hard.Phil Street 04:00That was the "you can't stand the heat"...Mike Worley 04:02It really was you can't stand the heat and the noise and it was just incredible. And that was just a colleague's that was when it was, you know, if you're lucky, you got 30 covers to do for lunch. And there was about 20 of you in the kitchen trying to make bread rolls so quickly realised that probably maybe I should be outside and talking to the customer and being that face of the organisation what my dream so part of the programme was a work experience, six weeks work experience, which I naively thought I just walk in anywhere and somebody will give me a job for six weeks. That didn't happen. So I've actually found a hotel, and it used to be owned using years ago by Graham met the use of the Bernie in restaurants within the hotel. And I basically went to the manager and said, Look, I need a job for six weeks. I'll work with you for free as long as you show me all different departments. I've got to do it for my course. So he said, why not course? Yeah, I mean, put me in the kitchen for a couple of weeks when I said I didn't want to work in the kitchen, but that is a department. And actually, I really, really enjoyed it because it's completely different than being in a college environment. And that was a real experience. And then, one day, he gave me a little bow tie and said, come and work in the restaurant. I know you're not getting paid. So I'll put you on some shifts in the busy ones on the Friday night and Saturdays and Sundays, Alicia might earn a bit of tips. And I realised why the tips you can earn if you're nice, and you thought it was ridiculous. I was 17 at the time. Yeah. And my my biggest learning from that was a Saturday night I walked through the door, he gave me a little black waistcoat and said restaurant managers phoned in sick. So you're going to run the restaurant tonight. And I went, you have an alarm for what you know, I'm 17 years old, and Petra absolutely petrified 150 cover restaurant. And I was you know, stuck like a rabbit in the headlights. I remember a waitress she looked after she was responsible for the waitresses called Gina. And she took me to one side and she just said to me it will be absolutely fine. We'll make sure that the debt tonight is a brilliant night and blow me half nine I'm stood there at my little lectern, whole restaurants full and there was my that was my my first real inclination of you know, get the right people to do the job and they can make you look good. It was absolutely brilliant. And at the end of the night, she they had a whip round all the waitresses, they knew I didn't get paid, and gave me some of their tips because they knew that, you know, I wasn't getting any money. And that set me on my whole journey of the hospitality sector.Phil Street 06:51That's really cool that you I mean, that shows you right when you've got the right I suppose team environment that you're everybody's got everybody's back. In the end, if you've got if the right people are in the right places, then then sparks fly and good things happen.Mike Worley 07:07Absolutely. And I've kept that with me all the way through through my journey really in hospitality into the role that I'm in now. That work experience. I got a job there after I finished college. And then I move rained and worked in hotels, up into the Liverpool and up into the world back into the New Forest. I moved into some sort of private privately owned hotels, a lot of weddings and conferences, master of ceremonies, which was great, because you know you got you got the good bit of seeing the bride and groom in and being part of their day, which I absolutely loved. And then the private hotel is working in the gentlemen decide to sell it. And it was a good old 16th century pub and really...