Training for a good start

Amongst the sectors that are hiring the most in spite of the crisis, the hotel industry has been faring well for several years. Growing needs in staff has triggered off an ever increasing number of training establishments catering for hotel industry positions. In Alsace for example, the Centre Européen de Formation et de Promotion Professionnelle par Alternance pour l’Industrie Hôtelière (CEFPPA) is taking in more and more apprentices in initial training, and trainees in continuing education courses. Open for twenty years now, this establishment was born from the desire of local professionals to endow their department with a training tool aimed at young people from 16 to 25 years old. Previously, the Bas-Rhin region only had access to a CFA (Apprentice Training Centre) attached to a hotel industry-oriented vocational high school.
In 1989, the manager of the CFA decided to cede activity to a new structure: the CEFPPA. Managed by the CCI of Strasbourg and the Bas-Rhin, the professional union of hotel industry-catering workers in the Bas-Rhin, and the Éducation Nationale, the Centre opened in 1990. Franck Sellier, comin from mass retailing, took charge of general management. “At that time, the centre only offered initial training. Then, from 1992 onwards, I initiated a second activity: continuing education, targeting company employees.”  Today, the CEFPPA has over 1,300 trainees in continuing education courses, with some 800 apprentices in initial training.
Presided, for the last ten years or so, by Roger Sengel, President of the Union of industry-catering workers in the Bas-Rhin and the Tourism Commission of the CCI of Strasbourg and the Bas-Rhin, and with an annual operational budget of around 3.8 million euros, the establishment employs 50 permanent employees and about one hundred other trainers. In the face of its expanding success, the CEFPPA has finalised a dossier to extend its buildings – from 2,500 to almost 4,500 m2 – set to be completed in 2013. “We are building our success on high-end positioning: we work with the Meilleurs Ouvriers de France (MOF), reputed chefs from major establishments and high-level consultants, for example,” underlines Franck Sellier.
Training courses on offer cover domains as wide-ranging as management, cooking, patisserie, accommodation, restaurants, human resources, company life, catering as well as R&D workshops and even workshops on trends. The CEFPPA also organises training activities with partners in a number of French regions (including hotel industry-oriented vocational high schools and CFAs) and abroad (Germany, United States, Luxembourg, Poland, Czech Republic, Russia, Ukraine…). Since 1999, the establishment has also offered a management programme in hotel industry and catering for professionals wishing to acquire the essentials in steering a business. Offered in partnership with the École de Management de Strasbourg (EMS), this programme comprises of 23 days of training spread out over one year. Made up of seminars on management, marketing, human resources and legislation, the programme is capped by an end-of-study dissertation.
Acclaimed by numerous business leaders, the CEFPPA management programme benefits from a triple certification: the Certificat de Qualification Professionnelle (CQP), the Brevet d’Aptitude delivered by the Conférence des Grandes Écoles (BADGE), and the Certificat de Management en Hôtellerie-Restauration (CMH). Finally, the CEFPPA is widely recognised by the Comité Français des Olympiades des Métiers (COFOM, aka Worldskills France) which has selected it four times to represent it at the Worldskills competitions. Held every two years, these international competitions bring together some forty countries and touch upon over thirty professions. Represented last year at the Calgary Worldskills in Canada, the CEFPPA hopes to send a few more of its young hopefuls to the 2011 edition in London and the 2013 one in Leipzig.

More information on www.cefppa.eu