Revamp Restaurant Training: Blended Learning Boosts Performance
Are you fed up with old-school training methods in your restaurant? Want to boost your restaurant's performance and deliver top-notch customer service even in this tight labor market? It’s time to give blended training a shot! Combining online and in-person training can help you lead your team more effectively, ensure excellent service, and measure performance like a pro.
One of the best things about online and blended training is the opportunity to level up. With the right tools and support, you can pinpoint areas that need improvement and cook up a plan to fix them. Research shows that businesses investing in quality training can save up to 25% more and enjoy tastier results.
In this blog post, we'll explore how restaurants can tackle training challenges and whip up a skilled, customer-focused staff.
Traditional Training: Falling Short of Delicious
Traditional training methods like all-staff sessions and on-the-job training don't always hit the spot in a restaurant. They can eat up time and resources while leaving the diverse learning needs of your staff hungry. Scaling these methods can be tough, making it tricky to maintain consistent quality across multiple locations.
Moreover, in the fast-paced world of restaurants, providing ongoing training and support isn't a piece of cake. Staff turnover can be high, and squeezing in time to train new employees can be quite a challenge. And let's not forget keeping the current staff updated on new rules, policies, menu items, and more!
Efficient and Effective Training: The Center of the Plate
One mouthwatering aspect of blended online and in-person training is that it can get employees excited about learning. Fun, interactive, and media-rich experiences can boost motivation and help them retain crucial skills and knowledge.
By using the latest tools and technologies, you can serve up effective training tailored to your restaurant's needs. Since everyone learns differently—some by seeing or hearing, others by doing—these tools accommodate various learning styles and paces, making them perfect for a bustling restaurant.
Feedback, Competition, and Recognition: The Secret Sauce
Innovative online training often focuses on feedback, competition, and recognition. By adding these ingredients to your training program, you can make learning more enjoyable and effective for your employees. This can lead to a more skilled, motivated, and efficient team.
Feedback: Regular, constructive feedback is crucial for employee growth. Online training platforms often allow real-time feedback, making it easy for managers to address concerns or areas needing improvement. When employees receive feedback, they can better understand their strengths and weaknesses and continue honing their skills.
Competition: A little friendly competition can push employees to excel in training and on the job. Online training platforms can offer features like leaderboards and performance tracking, letting employees see how they measure up against their peers. This fun competition can encourage them to work harder and perform better.
Recognition: Praising and rewarding employees for their achievements can boost spirits and motivation. Online training platforms often let you spotlight employee accomplishments with leaderboards, certificates, or other forms of recognition. Celebrating success and recognizing hard work creates an environment where people want to work and can even help your staff spread the word organically. Nothing aids recruiting like positive word of mouth from your staff!
By focusing on feedback, competition, and recognition, you can make learning more enjoyable and effective for your employees. This can result in happier customers, higher sales, and a successful business.
Getting Started with Online Training
Ready to start using online and blended training in your restaurant? Follow these steps:
Pick the perfect platforms: Choosing the right platform can be tough. It’s important to select a product designed with more than just online tools, and content, but also supports and even incorporates shoulder-to-shoulder training, shadowing, or verifications. Giving the restaurant the ability to enhance their current training, like wrapping a filet in bacon.
Mix online and hands-on training: Use a blended learning approach that combines online training with traditional on-the-job training. This lets employees learn essential skills and procedures at their own pace while also gaining practical, hands-on experience in the restaurant.
Cook up clear and easy-to-understand training materials: Create engaging, simple, and up-to-date training materials that cover all aspects of your restaurant's operations. This could include customer service skills, food preparation, safety and sanitation guidelines, menu knowledge, and more.
Don't skimp on safety and quality rules: One of the most important parts of restaurant training is making sure employees know and follow safety and quality standards. Your online training should have detailed information on these topics, as well as any regulations that apply to your business.
Measuring Performance
Using online and blended training also makes measuring and improving staff performance a breeze. Here's how:
Serve online tests to measure progress: Online quizzes can help you assess how well employees understand the training and pinpoint areas where they need more help. This ensures that all employees have the skills and knowledge they need to provide fantastic customer service.
Choose a tool that tracks manager verifications: In addition to online tests, it's important to have a system that lets managers check employee skills in a hands-on setting. Training is ongoing, so verifying the team is “ready” isn’t a one-time thing. You have to have the system to make it easy for managers to do it on-the-fly.
Keep an eye on employee engagement and progress: Use the data from your online training platform to monitor employee engagement, progress, and performance. This information can help you spot trends, fix potential problems, and make data-driven decisions to enhance your training program.
Conduct regular performance appraisals: Use insights from online training to conduct regular performance appraisals and give targeted feedback to employees. This helps them keep sharpening their skills and contributes to the overall success of your restaurant.
Conclusion
Using online and blended training methods can have a massive impact on your ability to provide outstanding customer service. It creates a more skilled, motivated, and efficient team. By choosing the right platform, crafting engaging training, and employing systems to measure and track, you can make sure your employees are ready to excel. When your employees excel, your business succeeds!
As the restaurant industry continues to evolve, it's crucial for owners, operators, and managers to stay ahead by using innovative training methods. By embracing learning solutions like ExpandShare, you can break free from the limitations of traditional training methods and give your restaurant a competitive edge.
By switching to a blended training model, you'll not only improve your employees' skills and knowledge, but also foster a culture of continuous learning and growth. This can lead to a more engaged, satisfied, and loyal team, which in turn translates to better customer experiences, increased sales, and a thriving business.
Don't let the opportunity to revamp your restaurant's training approach and deliver a top-notch customer service slip away. Who knows where the labor market will go and so focus on investing in the people you have and the outcomes will be great. They’ll stay longer, they’ll become a recruiting machine, and they’ll wow your customers! Start exploring online and blended training options today and watch your restaurant flourish.
ExpandShare is cloud based mobile app focused on improving training and operations in restaurants every day, on every shift, in every location. To learn more about how ExpandShare can revamp the training in your restaurants, click here.
