Jamaica’s pre-eminent quick service restaurant Island Grill has strengthened its quality services by collaborating with HEART Trust/NTA to certify its team members in the area of Customer Service. On Sunday, September 28, the company held a graduation ceremony at the Stella Maris Pastoral Centre in honour of 104 of its employees who successfully completed the NVQJ Customer Service Level 1 Certification, out of the 240 who participated in the pilot programme that began in January 2007 with eight restaurants in the Kingston metropolis. Island Grill, originally called ‘Chicken Supreme’ in 1991 and later renamed ‘Island Grill’ in 1998, is the first quick service restaurant to have collaborated with HEART NCTVET.

Training and development is an essential part of the company’s team-building strategy and therefore CEO Thalia Lyn saw this certification as a necessary tool to allow employees the ability to enhance its internal customer base that would reciprocate to its external customers. She said that she was proud of her employees and felt like a “mother attending the graduation of 104 of her children”.

Donald Foster, executive director of HEART Trust/NTA, congratulated the graduates on their achievements. He emphasised the importance of the certification, as it would allow the graduates the ability to not only enhance the local service industry but also have the opportunity to open international doors as the certificate is recognised globally. “The NVQ is a very powerful certification that can take you anywhere in the world and can open many employment doors to you.”

Guest speaker, Minister of Education Andrew Holness congratulated Island Grill on seeing the importance of educating their employees. “Island Grill sees the importance of training as adding value to their business, and education of your workforce will not only add value to your business but also to human life.” Holness also emphasised the importance of the Customer Service Certification and was pleased that it also included Information Technology. “Jamaica does not have enough qualified persons in the labour force in the service industry and investors are worried that after spending two to three years developing their investments they will not have an adequate service force that would allow sustainability. He continued, “We have lost our natural friendliness as a people and expectations of the service labour force has increased globally and Jamaicans must remain competitive as other countries, for example Cuba and the Dominican Republic have been increasing their customer service quality.”

Also in attendance were Grace McLean, senior programmes director, HEART Trust/NTA; Paulette Dunn-Smith, senior director NCTVET; Kevin Mullings, national programmes director, HEART Trust/NTA; and Albert Bailey, general manager, Island Grill.

“The recent certification has been a tremendous morale booster for members of the Island Grill team, as this may have been the only graduation that many of them have participated in,” said Sahran Walters, marketing manager of Island Grill. She continued, “This was also the first time that some of the graduates were able to learn how to successfully communicate using a computer.” She hoped that many of the graduates would continue their education and move on to Level 2 certification and hopefully to Level 5, the equivalent of a Bachelor’s degree. Because of the overwhelming success, over the next year, the company will extend the programme to include Island Grill locations nationwide.

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