Restaurant Training – Restaurant Employee Training

Restaurant Employee Training is an investment, not an expense. Many restaurants and other businesses place a budget dollar amount on their training. Then, when these restaurants use up their training budgeted dollars they place their new hires in positions as solo employees.

Unfortunately, this practice has proven to be disastrous for many businesses. By doing so, they place the restaurant in jeopardy because employees get frustrated or do sub-par work. When employees are not really ready to work on their own, then customer service and food safety decline. As a result, it impacts the bottom line. However, great training pays for itself in increased sales and satisfied customers.

Great restaurant training can happen in many ways.

Restaurant Training Return on Investment (ROI)

Return on Investment (ROI) is a performance measure. ROI is used to evaluate the value and efficiency of an investment. Restaurant training promotes high return on Investment.

In so many cases restaurants have a restaurant training program, however, the managers or training personnel don’t follow the restaurant training procedures. This can have a very negative impact on your business. Hence, there needs to be accountability for quality training of your employees.

Who monitors the training personnel during the training process? Who monitors the managers to make sure they are following through on monitoring training quality?  In larger businesses, upper management maintain a system to assure that the training is done correctly and consistently. The same systems can be used in smaller businesses or an independently-owned restaurant. Ultimately, this can be achieved by using a training checklist and having follow-up training throughout an employee’s career. Basically, the owner or general manager will periodically review the standards with management and the training personnel to ensure that quality training is maintained.

Furthermore, Workplace Wizards can help train owners, district managers, general managers, management staff and all levels of restaurant staff. We have years of experience in training restaurant employees through creative training techniques that work.

Shadowing Employees

New hires should shadow the trainer for several hours during the slowest peak times, normally breakfast or lunch. Never train during heavy peak times especially, during the weekends. For, example, the new server should on the first day of training shadow the trainer. The server will see what is expected by shadowing the trainer throughout the shift.

Once the trainer is confident that the new hire understands the process, then the trainer can shadow the new hire correcting them as they go. Never let a new hire wait on a table by themselves during this particular process. Servers with experience and servers with no experience need to go through the same process. You need to validate that these servers know how to serve the customer per your standards and not theirs. Every restaurant has a base for serving, although each restaurant differs in style, policies, and procedures.

You need to make absolutely sure that each server whether they have experience or don’t have experience understand what you expect from them otherwise the consistency will be off and believe me the guest and your bottom line will be affected.

Questions and Answers

During the training process, the trainer should be asking plenty of questions to ensure that the new hire has retained the information by memory. If the new hire does not know the answer or hesitates to answer the question correctly, do not give up. Instead, the trainer should periodically ask that same question until the new hire actually answers the question correctly from memory.  This is a very important step in the training process. Likewise, never let a server or any employee proceed to the next step without mastering the previous step.

Show, Do and Review

Show the new hire on how to correctly perform the task.
Then, let the new hire Do the task correctly.
Review with the new hire the task to ensure the information was retained by memory.  

Role-Playing

Choose a time during off-peak times to train. Use this process to train a group of employees. Sit the entire group away from other guests or use a training room. Choose several new hires and to role-play as a guest.

The trainers role-play as the restaurant server and demonstrate to new hires role-playing as customers. All new hires actually watch the trainer as an excellent model for correct table approach and service to the customers throughout the entire process. Then, each new hire rotates role-playing as the customer and the server until the trainer feels confident in the new hire’s ability to follow the process. Consequently, every new hire understands and demonstrates and remembers correct procedures.

We spent many years in the corporate restaurant field with proficient training programs. These programs work only if you have passion and commitment to the success of your business. These training techniques can be applied to independently-owned businesses or existing multi-unit restaurants.

Consequently, many restaurant failures directly relate to inferior training or no training. In some cases, managers hire employees on-the-fly because the slot needs to be filled quickly. Common sense even tells you this is not an effective way to operate your business. This practice negatively impacts your bottom line.

Workplace Wizards guides you in setting up a quality restaurant employee training program specifically targeting your restaurant training needs. This low-cost investment in training changes the outcome of your business so that your training investment leads to higher customer satisfaction and better food quality. Don’t wait until it’s too late. Contact us today for your free consultation.

Workplace Wizards offer excellent restaurant training for the management team and the staff members.

Management Restaurant Training Online/On-site

• Being a proficient and productive manager
• Hiring top performers
• Creating a training program for every position in your restaurant or bar
• How to incorporate effective training techniques in your training program
• Labor and food cost awareness
• Food and drink inventory procedures
• Pinpointing and correcting inventory shrinkage
• Reducing or preventing customer complaints
• Prevention and reduction of employee-related issues
• Communication (employee/customer)
• Customer service
• Position training
• Customer recovery
• Much more…

Restaurant Employee Training Online/On-site

• Cook Position
• Prep Position
• Dishwasher Position
• Server Position
• Greeter Position
• Bartender Position
• Bar-back Position

Workplace Wizards restaurant employee training consultants travels anywhere in the United States, Canada, and various other countries. Even better, our rates are very competitive. Contact us by filling out the contact form, email or by phone.

Workplace Wizards Restaurant Consulting

Email: Workplacewizards@gmail.com
Toll-Free Phone: (800) 753-0657
Local Phone: (717) 774-3698