News Letter

Bryce Taylor
Wasilla, Alaska
Spanish
Leadership Engagement

Whittier Fudge Training

Recently my family and I made the decision to invest in a small fudge and souvenir shop in Whittier Alaska. This summer I was asked to play a key role as shop manager. I have been responsible for ordering, repairs, scheduling, sales, etc.… As a store we generally have four to six employees, including new employees. In the past years we have simply trained employees on a need to basis. This caused a lot of confusion between employees. This year I decided to try something new.

For my edge project I developed and implemented a Whittier Fudge training program, with an emphasis in assisting foreign customers. The project was broken up into four phases. Phase one consisted of welcoming the employees and introducing them to the shop and Whittier. This included town history, shop inventory, procedures and answering any questions. Phase two was training the employees on daily shop responsibilities, which included sales, inventory, fudge making and shop goals. Phase three focused on customer service. The employees were formally trained how to assist customers, with an emphasis on foreign clients. Phase 4 was a one-on-one training. This is where I worked an entire shift with each individual employee.

As I thought about what to do for my EDGE project I really wanted to apply what I had learned from my Spanish classes to a real world experience. I have learn much about culture and interacting with people from different cultures through my study of Spanish. After I was asked to manage the fudge shop this summer I decided this would be a great opportunity to apply what I have learned in a small tourist business setting. I noticed that many of our employees are younger student or simply unfamiliar with assisting people from other countries. They would often get frustrated with the guest because they couldn’t understand the guest or because the guests personal space boundary was a lot closer than they were used to. I decided that this would be a perfect opportunity to train our employees on store protocols and teach them about different cultures.
The project went fairly smoothly. The biggest challenge I faced during the project was scheduling the best time for the training. Scheduling the training was a little more complicated, Whittier is a secluded town where the only way in and out is a 2.6 mile one way tunnel. It proved difficult to get everyone to attend the training. There was one person who wasn’t able to attend so they received a special training session.

I believe that my project has benefitted many people. After the training the shop employees were able to learn more about how to run a small business and interact with people of different cultures more effectively. The things that were taught at the training will be able to assist all of our young employees as they pursue future careers, especially in the tourism industry. The training also assisted the guests that visit our shop. With better training the employees were able to better guide and assist our guests.
During this process I was able to learn many different aspects of operating a small business. I was able to learn the importance of properly training employees to run a store and the benefit of understanding cultures. Also due to the training the shop was able to be more productive, our sales have been up from the past years. I am very happy with the experiences I have gained through participating in this project.

“Today was an enlightening experience, I was able to teach others about different cultures and was able to learn about new things about culture from others.”
“Fudge is life!”