These training sessions cover topics from sanitation to filling out paperwork properly to managing your time both in and out of work to how to deal with a variety of situations that can occur in a dining hall including fire alarms, food fights, and dealing with problem employees. Base level students training is determined and documented through the individual peer training programs in each dining hall. New employees are given an orientation to the dining hall, are introduced to all the upper management, and are given a rules and regulations guide to dining services. They are also chemical trained to handle the various cleaning chemicals they will come into contact with and are told what their first shift will be like and who they should report to. The Department of Dining services holds many social events to promote a sense of family and community among it's more than six hundred student employees.
Socials are usually free of charge and open to any DDS student employee in any location.
Many of the full-time employees attend these events as well. Our department continually tries to give its thanks for a job well done. We use merit certificates for free food to any of the cash-ops on campus, each dining hall elects one or two employees of the month and rewards them with ten dollars on their meal plan, and we hold a employee of the year banquet in April for the employees of the year from each dining unit. The Department of Dining Services at the University of Connecticut treats all of its employees with professionalism and respect. We take our employees needs into account and try to make their time with our department as enjoyable as possible.