The Licensed Vintners Association is now enrolling for the next intake of their highly successful LVA Diploma in Bar and Food Management. The course is aimed at publicans and pub management and covers a wide range of topics specifically geared towards professional public personnel.

A limited number of places are available on the course, with 70 participants from LVA member pubs taking part in the course annually – 35 on the junior stream and 35 on the senior stream.  It is anticipated that the Diploma will be fully booked in a matter of weeks with last year’s course being heavily oversubscribed.

The next course will begin in September, running over two terms of ten weeks. The first will run from early September to mid November and the second term lasts from mid January 2020 to the beginning of April.

The syllabus has been specifically built around the needs of modern pubs, covering topics such as Human Resource Management, Occupational Health and Safety, Operations Management, Customer Care and Communication, Food and Beverage Management, Hospitality Law and Insurance, Performance Management and Fraud Prevention.

“This Diploma was initially set up to fill a gap in the industry,” said Gillian Knight, Course Director. “However such has been the level of interest we have received, it seems clear that the Dublin trade has been crying out for a qualification of this nature. We are receiving enquiries from all levels of the industry – from senior publicans to recently appointed middle management. All can see the benefits of pursuing this Diploma.

“The content has been very specifically and deliberately chosen to address the most pressing and ongoing issues of interest to Dublin pubs. So that means covering everything from human resource issues like recruitment and also handling staff grievances to more commercial aspects like upselling and tracking your key performance indicators.

“We know that the responsibilities involved in Dublin pub management have grown exponentially in recent years and this course ensures that participants are kept abreast of all the latest developments, allowing them to follow the best practice throughout the industry.

“Our graduates can see the obvious benefits, as they have all the information they need at their fingertips. That helps them avoid paying for expensive outside consultants when they have particular issues to handle and ultimately run better businesses,” Ms. Knight concluded.

Further information on the course is available at www.lva.ie/diploma