Why Poor Training Practices Hurts Your Restaurant & How to Change It!

We want you to know about a landmark study involving over 30,000 employees, conducted by Leadership IQ. It shows that failing to give your employees ongoing opportunities to keep learning is a major demotivator and has a profoundly negative effect on workplace attitudes and behavior.

Here are a few of the survey’s key findings – and actions steps you can take:

• 52% of people claimed to never, rarely or just occasionally learn something new at work.
• Of those that NEVER learned anything new, only 5% said they give their best effort at work.
• Of those that RARELY learned anything new, only 8% said they give their best at work.
• The 35% of people who said they were ALWAYS learning something new at work were 10 TIMES more likely to do their best than those who never or rarely learned anything new at work.

The opportunity to learn new things at work clearly affects most employees’ productivity and the quality of their work. And, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, if your best people don’t continue to learn and grow, they get bored and eventually quit.

Conclusion: If you’re not giving your people the opportunity to learn new things at work, it’s negatively affecting your culture, your employee experience, your guest experience, AND your BOTTOM LINE!

If you think training is expensive, try ignorance and stagnation.
- Peter Drucker

So how can a restaurant, that does essentially the same tasks and activities day after day, provide new learning opportunities for their managers and staff? Here are a few practices from our members who pride themselves on having a “learning culture” in their restaurants –

1. Encourage and reward continuous learning. One RO member requires every new employee to read Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard. After that, managers and employees are rewarded for reading selected books. They also get to share something they learned during a pre-shift huddle.
2. Cross-train extensively. Great restaurants are adamant about moving people to positions around the restaurant, even exposing back of house folks to dining room duties and vice versa.
3. Educational pre-shift meetings. Besides the specials and the plan for the day, managers also expose their team to a topic that’s relevant and new to deepen their understanding in a particular area of the restaurant. THEY ALSO GET STAFF INVOLVED IN DOING SOME OF THE TRAINING (see #1, #4 and #5).
4. Attend workshops and food shows. Managers and key staff get outside the four walls and then report back what they learned and recommend new practices for their restaurant to consider.
5. Managers and staff members get to shop the competition. They report on the experience and look for new ideas to get better.
6. Feedback and coaching. Managers are trained and encouraged to be intentional about developing their team members through mentorship, coaching, and continuous learning. One operation pays their GM a significant bonus whenever an employee becomes certified as a manager.

Demonstrating a commitment to your managers’ and team members’ personal and professional growth can help you create a positive, productive working environment, reduce turnover and attract even more high-quality people to your team.

Now there’s another easy way to provide engaging learning opportunities for your managers and staff. Our Learning System and Team Sharing resources offer a very cost effective way for independent restaurants to keep their managers and team members learning and growing.

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Have a profitable week!

The RestaurantOwner.com Team