William Burke
Originally from Clonmel, William is no stranger to the benefits of on-the-job training. He left school after his Junior Cert and began working as a carpenter, a role he held for ten years. During the recession, he transitioned into hospitality, eventually rising to General Manager. Despite not having a formal college degree, William credits upskilling courses—like Lean Six Sigma—as key to his success, particularly in an ever-changing area such as hospitality. The flexibility of part-time learning has been really important for balancing professional and personal commitments. As he puts it, “
These courses are key for me to upskill while I’m working, rather than trying to go back to education full time.”
DkIT’s Lean Six Sigma course has been designed to cater for busy professionals such as William. In addition to managing two busy hotels, he was getting ready to welcome a new son just before the course commenced. The timing was far from ideal and he was nervous that it would impact his ability to fully commit to the course, but he chose to go ahead. He had previously completed the Yellow Belt and had a keen interest in progressing to the next stage. Luckily, despite his other commitments, he found the course was very flexible, the support from the tutor was fantastic and the time commitment is “really achievable”.
The course takes place over 12 weeks, one evening per week for 3 hours and in William’s view,
“No matter your circumstances and where you are professionally, putting aside those couple of hours every week is well worth it.”
Armed with his new-found knowledge and back in the work environment, William engaged with fellow managers and various teams, to help identify wasteful processes—from electricity usage to staffing—and introduced changes that improved efficiency and reduced costs.
“It’s a case of, diving in to see is everything in the right place, and having a look at everything we do and asking how do we make this as lean as possible? How do we make it so that this is sustainable going forward?”
He would encourage any employer to support their staff to apply, or indeed give it a go themselves:
“Sometimes when we’re in it we don’t see it and we have to step outside to have a look back in to really see are there wasteful operations or where we could be more productive.”