Many Montreal restaurateurs need help to adequately serve customers in French, according to the Association of Business Development Companies of Montreal (ASDCM). The organization will offer them free training next week directly in their business and via a mobile application.
At the restaurant Hong Mère, in Verdun, practically all the employees are of Chinese origin.
“It takes almost three languages to be a waiter in a Chinese restaurant,” explains owner Yu Long Shuang. Several cooks do not speak French, so the server must be able to communicate with them in Mandarin. Customers want to be served in French or English and there are also unilingual Chinese customers. »
With the labor shortage, it is difficult to find employees who directly correspond to these criteria. Most of Mr. Shuang’s employees, international students or newcomers, take French lessons, but are not fluent in it.
“I would like them to better understand the needs of customers compared to words specific to catering, such as lactose or shellfish,” says the businessman.
It is for this reason that Mr. Shuang intends to participate in the DIALOGUE support programFRlaunched Thursday by the ASDCM.
Developed in collaboration with the Cégep du Vieux Montréal and with the financial support of the Quebec government, it is designed specifically to meet the francization needs of restaurateurs. It will initially be offered to merchants on boulevard Saint-Laurent, the Latin Quarter, rue Saint-Denis, promenade Wellington, Côte-des-Neiges, Plaza Saint-Hubert, Griffintown, Petite -Bourgogne and Saint-Henri. In these sectors, approximately 5% of restaurateurs would need support in francization, according to the ASDCM.
“In view of the scarcity of labor and the return of foreign students to Montreal, perhaps the need for language support will be more and more important”, adds the director general of the ASDCM, Billy Walsh. .
Through an application, restaurateurs have free access to 80 interactive capsules. Depending on the merchants’ wishes, trainers will also go directly to their place of work, as part of a 100-hour package, divisible into one-hour or 30-minute increments.
“It’s not a class where you sit down and pass on information. We are in action. We support the merchant’s operations linguistically,” argued Mr. Walsh, emphasizing that learning French can be beneficial for restaurateurs.
Mr. Walsh estimates the cost of the program at approximately $600,000, including the development of the application.
The organization announced a second program on Thursday, named IMAGEFR, offering support to comply with French posting rules. For these two projects, the ASDC wishes to recruit around sixty participating businesses.
ASDC also hopes to obtain funding for a second part of DIALOGUEFRwhich would be intended for other types of businesses.