Getting buy-in on a restaurant training program is crucial. First, you as the manager need to completely understand the training program’s objectives. That’s the easy part. Even more critical is to have your management staff and front-line employees understand why the training is important to the restaurant, and more importantly, why it’s important to them.
Remember, your team has the greatest influence over restaurant guest loyalty. It’s your job to make sure they both have the tools and the desire to make that happen. The higher your expectations of your staff, the more you’ll have to train them. The responsibility of a successful training program lies solely with you.
Design an Effective Restaurant Training Program
An effective restaurant training program not only helps you acquire and maintain more customers, it helps you acquire and maintain better restaurant employees. And employees should be treated as your internal customers. Service is a level playing field. You may not be able to match your competition’s advertising budget, but you sure as heck can train your staff as well or better than theirs.
While a good of portion a restaurant training session’s success lies in planning beforehand, even the best training program will fail if its implementation falls flat. Avoid these reasons restaurant training fails by following the accompanying solutions:
- Not giving trainees an opportunity to practice. Test the new skills with role-playing.
- Not explaining the “why” along with the “how.” Show trainees how tasks fit into the big picture.
- Being too theoretical. Hands-on is always better.
- Conducting passive training sessions. Shoot for dialogue over monologue.
- Restaurant training in uncomfortable surroundings, both physical and psychological. Don’t position your trainees facing the windows, for example.
- The ”why are we here?” syndrome. Don’t keep the audience in the dark about where the session is heading.
- Making the audience feel incompetent. “Let me show you a better way.”
Restaurant Service and Sales Training
The Service & Sales Excellence Waitstaff Training Series is based on Service That Sells!, a restaurant training philosophy developed by restaurant owners for restaurant owners. Click here to learn more.
