LEARNING & DEVELOPMENT
At Valor Hospitality, we’ ve adapted our approach, ensuring that individuals have a personalised e-learning journey for their job role and every Hotelitarian has access to a variety of other tools. Some have digital training, or face-to-face, while others are offered qualifications, or in-house development, to ensure they receive the support they truly need throughout their career, both as an individual and in their job role. The two go hand in hand glove for me.
When can you tell that an organisation is relying too heavily on formal training? In the hospitality industry, it becomes clear when businesses don’ t have a learning culture. The gap between‘ training’ and‘ culture’ is often the difference between average service and a genuinely memorable guest experience.
We don’ t want our team members to feel constrained; we want them to feel confident and empowered to make the right decisions for the benefit of our guests and deliver them in their own authentic way.
This confidence is gained through experience and continuous learning, and ensuring leaders are inspiring and embracing this approach too.
There are certainly benefits to formalised training, and our Hotelitarians have access to a wide range of training opportunities. But, people must also be
encouraged to learn and innovate through their peers and own experiences too.
Which learning approaches have you moved away from? Learning has to reflect real-life experience – to the point, concise and relevant to the individual. It became clear that a more time-efficient approach to training was essential to team engagement, so several individuals undertook specialist training in preparation for delivering engaging digital content. Allowing team members to access training via a device gives them more flexibility to balance development and the delivery of a high-quality guest experience.
We have also said goodbye to annual performance reviews and introduced regular‘ Valor check-ins’. Waiting for a learning and development conversation once a year can leave challenges unnoticed and development stalled. With a more structured ongoing feedback and coaching process, our team can access support when they want or need it.
86 April 2026