Job Creation Platform for the Youth from Remote Villages - Hoshina
The Platform
Hoshina is a springboard for young people from suburban areas with their own dreams of the future. In September of 2012 (the year of its opening), Hoshina collaborated with ACF to open placements for back kitchen staff, flour craft, and reception (amongst others) for one full year of professional training. Many young workers in Hoshina were from disadvantaged backgrounds. However, they share a common sense of responsibility, a desire to provide and care for their families, and the opportunity of employment in a friendly, working environment is of considerable help to each individual family.
Richard Yen, Owner of Hoshina, drove over four hundred kilometers down to the south and to visit each family, earning their trust through sincere and transparent communications with parents: he explained that a benign environment would strengthen the self-confidence of these young people who had ventured far from home, and keep them safe from labor exploitation and other unscrupulous practices. Hospitality work fostered under these circumstances would exhibit authenticity, would which in turn benefit business. Furthermore, it is not Yen's wish for the young workers of Hoshina to stay there permanently: he hopes that they will return to their hometowns where they will be able to put the skills they have learned to good use.
The Story
Che-Wei Lin and Yi-Zu Lai, both are the two trainees of the training program. Che-Wei is Amis extraction, from Cheng Gong County, Taitung. He was a member of the Bixilian Paw Paw Drum Orchestra. Che-Wei joined the ACF office in Taitung to study administration management after graduating from Cheng Gong Vocational School.
Although formerly a substitute teacher at Cheng Gong Elementary School, Yi-Zu had always been interested in cooking; she met renowned sushi chef Ming-Tong Chang when she worked at a fishmonger’s (Jia Bin Chenggong Sailfish) in Chenggong Township. At the time, Master Chang was there as consultant chef for another ACF project.
After 3 months training in Hoshina, Yi-Zu has said that the program gave her the opportunity to broaden her horizons: the environment has been very welcoming, mitigating her fear of being so far from home, prompting her to give her best effort towards working with her workmates to meet performance targets. Inspired by the significant contributions towards her hometown (even from those unfamiliar to her), she promised herself that she would complete the training program to do justice to the commonality that binds her and her workmates: the selfless dedication to help the people of her hometown.
About Hoshina
What kind of service elicits exclamations of pleasant surprise, of joy; the WOW factor? The relationship between the host and the served is at the core of customer service: this is the WOW Service Ethos. Taking customer-centric service to the next level, the WOW Service is more accurately described as “human-centric”, transcending the barrier between the payee and the payer.
The WOW Service Ethos was conceptualized by Owner, Richard Yen, currently a consultant for ACF. Yen was previously also the General Manager of Astor Ritz Hotel Management School and the OURS Service Management Consulting Co., Ltd: during this time, he travelled extensively to deliver seminars on the concept of WOW Service. Although these talks did much to educate business owners and employees, the positive impact did not translate to more tangible benefits to employees. Consequently, he decided to establish a platform to implement his concept through practical application: as the plough to the farmer, so this scheme would be to Yen.
History of Hoshina
Richard Yen is no cook; but he certainly knows and appreciates good food. When his advisors were asked about starting a restaurant full of its own distinctive character, they prescribed studying the operations of small food shops. It was on one of these visits that he met Master Shi-Chang Yang, the only overseas disciple of Nukanobu Kazuhiro, a Japanese noodle master of great fame and reputation. As a successor to the Zen traditions of his teacher, Master Yang maintains a strict meditation routine in the morning before starting the day’s work, a common purification ritual for masters of various arts: in the master’s mind, his work is much art as it is craft. Struck by this level of artisanship, Yen extended Master Yang an invitation to enter in a joint venture with him.
The beginning was less than smooth. The story goes that Yen refused let a broken leg – an injury sustained from an accident - affect his frequent visits to Master Yang, even if meant going on crutches. Profoundly moved by his persistence and determination, Master Yang subsequently accepted the invitation. This was the beginning of the Hoshina restaurant chain.
During the first month of Hoshina’s opening, Yen participated in the same routine kitchen work as the rest of his colleagues: there is no place for hierarchy on the noodle shop floor, and working on the front line allows for direct and immediate access to customer response, in addition to hands-on coordination of manpower. A live, physical manifestation of the WOW Service was realized, attenuating not only the payee/payer delineation between merchant and customer, but also that between enterprise owners and their employees: a family, in which everybody contributes to the upkeep of the homestead.
Hoshina is a springboard for young people from suburban areas with their own dreams of the future. In September of 2012 (the year of its opening), Hoshina collaborated with ACF to open placements for back kitchen staff, flour craft, and reception (amongst others) for one full year of professional training. Many young workers in Hoshina were from disadvantaged backgrounds. However, they share a common sense of responsibility, a desire to provide and care for their families, and the opportunity of employment in a friendly, working environment is of considerable help to each individual family.
Richard Yen, Owner of Hoshina, drove over four hundred kilometers down to the south and to visit each family, earning their trust through sincere and transparent communications with parents: he explained that a benign environment would strengthen the self-confidence of these young people who had ventured far from home, and keep them safe from labor exploitation and other unscrupulous practices. Hospitality work fostered under these circumstances would exhibit authenticity, would which in turn benefit business. Furthermore, it is not Yen's wish for the young workers of Hoshina to stay there permanently: he hopes that they will return to their hometowns where they will be able to put the skills they have learned to good use.
The Story
Che-Wei Lin and Yi-Zu Lai, both are the two trainees of the training program. Che-Wei is Amis extraction, from Cheng Gong County, Taitung. He was a member of the Bixilian Paw Paw Drum Orchestra. Che-Wei joined the ACF office in Taitung to study administration management after graduating from Cheng Gong Vocational School.
Although formerly a substitute teacher at Cheng Gong Elementary School, Yi-Zu had always been interested in cooking; she met renowned sushi chef Ming-Tong Chang when she worked at a fishmonger’s (Jia Bin Chenggong Sailfish) in Chenggong Township. At the time, Master Chang was there as consultant chef for another ACF project.
After 3 months training in Hoshina, Yi-Zu has said that the program gave her the opportunity to broaden her horizons: the environment has been very welcoming, mitigating her fear of being so far from home, prompting her to give her best effort towards working with her workmates to meet performance targets. Inspired by the significant contributions towards her hometown (even from those unfamiliar to her), she promised herself that she would complete the training program to do justice to the commonality that binds her and her workmates: the selfless dedication to help the people of her hometown.
About Hoshina
What kind of service elicits exclamations of pleasant surprise, of joy; the WOW factor? The relationship between the host and the served is at the core of customer service: this is the WOW Service Ethos. Taking customer-centric service to the next level, the WOW Service is more accurately described as “human-centric”, transcending the barrier between the payee and the payer.
The WOW Service Ethos was conceptualized by Owner, Richard Yen, currently a consultant for ACF. Yen was previously also the General Manager of Astor Ritz Hotel Management School and the OURS Service Management Consulting Co., Ltd: during this time, he travelled extensively to deliver seminars on the concept of WOW Service. Although these talks did much to educate business owners and employees, the positive impact did not translate to more tangible benefits to employees. Consequently, he decided to establish a platform to implement his concept through practical application: as the plough to the farmer, so this scheme would be to Yen.
History of Hoshina
Richard Yen is no cook; but he certainly knows and appreciates good food. When his advisors were asked about starting a restaurant full of its own distinctive character, they prescribed studying the operations of small food shops. It was on one of these visits that he met Master Shi-Chang Yang, the only overseas disciple of Nukanobu Kazuhiro, a Japanese noodle master of great fame and reputation. As a successor to the Zen traditions of his teacher, Master Yang maintains a strict meditation routine in the morning before starting the day’s work, a common purification ritual for masters of various arts: in the master’s mind, his work is much art as it is craft. Struck by this level of artisanship, Yen extended Master Yang an invitation to enter in a joint venture with him.
The beginning was less than smooth. The story goes that Yen refused let a broken leg – an injury sustained from an accident - affect his frequent visits to Master Yang, even if meant going on crutches. Profoundly moved by his persistence and determination, Master Yang subsequently accepted the invitation. This was the beginning of the Hoshina restaurant chain.
During the first month of Hoshina’s opening, Yen participated in the same routine kitchen work as the rest of his colleagues: there is no place for hierarchy on the noodle shop floor, and working on the front line allows for direct and immediate access to customer response, in addition to hands-on coordination of manpower. A live, physical manifestation of the WOW Service was realized, attenuating not only the payee/payer delineation between merchant and customer, but also that between enterprise owners and their employees: a family, in which everybody contributes to the upkeep of the homestead.
