Best practice in skills development: The Fladgate Partnership in Portugal – The World of Wine

The Fladgate Partnership | The World of Wine – “A cultural district with a WOW factor” (Subsector – Food & Beverage). The Fladgate Partnership is a holding company that has businesses in Port Wine, tourism and distribution. In Portugal, it also has distribution companies that supply its products and those of others to hotels, restaurants, retailers and consumers. The World of Wine project is a major initiative in tourism, located in the historic area of Vila Nova de Gaia with a complex of seven museums/experiences, 14 food and beverage outlets (Restaurants, Bars and Cafés), a wine school and shops. In September 2023, Fladgate Still & Sparkling Wines was created, after the purchase of IdealDrinks by The Fladgate Partnership adding further expertise, knowledge and over three centuries of heritage through this new challenge. The Group currently has around 1,150 employees, spread across different facilities in Vila Nova de Gaia, Porto, Lisbon and the Douro. It is the Group’s policy to respect the environment.

Background information

The original company of the group is Taylor’s Port was founded in 1692. However, in 2001 it acquired Croft Port, which was founded in 1588 and celebrated its 430th anniversary in 2018. With its other brand (Fonseca Port) The Fladgate Partnership is a leading player in producing special category Port, which it sells in over 105 countries. It has been a pioneer in Port and, more recently, in tourism. The creation of The Yeatman Hotel, which opened in 2010, was arguably the catalyst that started the tourist boom in the city of Porto. It also owns the Vintage House Hotel, in Pinhão. The Fladgate Partnership Group wants to convey a global image of a careful and responsible organization, with constant attention to cost reduction and in search of a positive and cooperative working relationship. It is the Group’s policy to respect the environment, therefore is everyone’s responsibility to rationalize the available resources. The aim is to provide the client with a final product of superior quality while respecting the group’s values and culture.

Key principles

The key principles of the group are competitiveness, rigor and quality, guiding and reinforcing the culture of the company, only achieved with the collaboration of all employees. When it comes to company values, they are:
• Pride – in the global quality of the company and their products.
• Organization – led with professionalism and rigor.
• Teamwork.
• Respect – for the clients and within the team.
• Boosting and Enhancing – individual and group capabilities.

They value their historic legacy and innovation, as well as diversity of products. Their human capital is considered strategic for achieving their goals. When it comes to human resources new approaches are being implemented, like for instance, hiring abroad. In this sense, we can mention a pilot-project in Cape Verde (extended recently to São Tomé and Principe) with students from the hotel and tourism school, hiring there and providing all the needed help for the immigration process, may it be cultural integration, legal processes or accommodation facilitation.

Examples and case studies

The best practice that will be highlighted is a partnership between public and private sector – in this case, between IEFP (the national public employment service) and the company being addressed. The group faces the same challenges with job profiles that need to be redefined and the lack of human resources, affecting the whole sector. Taking this into consideration two different assumptions have been made: the need to bring new people to the sector while accepting that they are training people who are passing through. Nevertheless, it is important to ensure they have all the training needed for the job as soon as possible and aligned with the group values as much as possible.

This pilot project (implemented for the first time in 2020) consists in a tailormade training in partnership with IEFP Gaia (the local branch of the public employment service). Since IEFP mission is to promote the creation and quality of employment and combat unemployment by implementing active employment policies, including vocational training they were available to create this specific training to the new employees in the group.

The process starts with the company identifying the employees they need – this may include a process of recruitment conducted internally and/or identifying unemployed with the help of the IEFP. Afterwards, they will create a group of new employees, who will need to be trained/skilled in order to be able to provide the excellent service they aim to provide (most of them won’t have the basic skills/previous training to be able to provide the needed service standards). When the group is created, both institutions work together in order to define the topics that the training will address, may it be soft or hard skills (usually, the training programme will include both). The programme has the duration of one month, starting with three days in the classroom and then alternating between the classroom and the workstation.

The most important aspect is that the design of the training topics is tailormade for the specific group. Also, the trainers are both internal and external, which seems to bring the best outcome: the external ones won’t impact the normal functioning of the organization (which seems to be a downfall of the process) and the in-house training providers are more aligned with the core values and organization culture and will be able to continue training them, even after the end of the initial period, accompanying their development. One of the highlights is that this partnership allows the company to provide training to their employees that is supported financially by the public institution.

Potential pitfalls and challenges

This best practice is based on bringing new profiles into tourism and hospitality to whom initial training is offered, and the company states that, internally, there is some resistance to this change that has been created by the market itself, since there are no available and trained human resources. Some old employees are more resistant to embrace people with different profiles and sometimes with less professional training. One of the challenges is to convince the middle-management that this is the new reality. Also, it is important that they see themselves as part of the training team, providing continuous feedback and training.

Also, this programme demands internal trainers and not everyone is talented and skilled to be an internal trainer, having as well the availability to do it. Finding the right trainer with the needed skills is a challenge as well. However, the human resources director identifies the biggest challenge: reconciling training with operations (restaurant downtimes are used for training), since the F&B operation is very demanding. To overcome this challenge, the company decided to conduct the training before people report to their respective workplaces/managers.

Benefits and outcomes

The main benefits of creating a continuous training culture in the organization have been identified internally:
• The employees feel more valued and more prepared to their role, making them feel more confident and therefore, engaged;
• Higher level of service- level of service improves with training;
• Employees feel accompanied and involved, which gives them safety;
• Internal trainers are a way of reinforcing brand values;
• Managers are also involved in the process, assuring better results in the recruitment and onboarding processes;
• Employer branding – the exit interviews, show most of the employees valued the training provided, becoming ambassadors for the group.

Measuring success

The success of the best practice can be assessed by the retention rate that increased in 2023. Also, the exit interviews, as mentioned before, highlight the importance of the training that was given from the beginning. This may also take advantage of the rapid career progression and internal mobility (vacancies available and visible to all).

Responsibility and accountability

The responsibility for implementing and monitoring the results of the best practice is on the Training Coordinator assisted by Human Resources Director and in-house trainers at front of house. All of this needs to be supported by leaders and top management.

References and external resources

Website: The Fladgate Partnership
Project: WOW