Get A Good Start On Training Your Employees
Your Restaurant Training Your Employees
Training The Troops
Employee training can be divided into the following: Induction or Orientation Training, Job Instruction, and Refresher Training.
Induction training acquaints the employee with the restaurant, the other employees, the supervisor, and the restaurant's goal - food service at a profit. It comes in the first interview between manager and employee when pay periods, overtime work, uniforms, and similar matters are explained.
Tell the new employees what the job entails. Tell them the worst along with the best. If the cook is hard to get along with, let this be known to the new waitress -"When the cook gets tired, he may blow his top. But don't let this upset you." If the new assistant cook is responsible for keeping the preparation area clean, tell him, "The floor around the broiler and deep fat fryer is mopped at least twice a day, or more often if needed. You also empty the garbage can when three-fourths full." When such sad parts of a job are not told the new employee, he resents their being added later. Be sure to explain to new waitresses that side work is very much a part of the job. Maybe they also make the salads and help with vegetable preparation. If cooks are entirely responsible for keeping their own stations clean, that too should be part of the hiring information. Refresher training is that training given to old employees to keep them abreast of new developments, and upgrade their skills. The daily line-up of waitresses or counter girls is an example of refresher training. The day's menu is explained and current problems discussed. Refresher training can be a part of weekly employee meetings. Every restaurant that is not stagnant holds regular refresher training sessions in one form or another, sometimes by skilled groups - waitress meetings are an example - sometimes in small groups. How to Make a Job Breakdown System applied to training is a job breakdown. Set down in writing the steps and points to be stressed. Then you won't forget some points and can move efficiently in presenting the job to the employee Most restaurant work is taught by demonstration and telling. Setting a table, bussing dishes, working a cash register can be taught by demonstration. But system is needed. What is important is the way the task is broken into easily learned parts and presented step by step. No matter how simple the job may seem to you or the experienced worker, it is probably far from simple to the learner. Consider making a cheese sandwich. Slap a piece of pre-cut cheese on some bread and you have it. Far from it! The bread must be buttered. The sandwich must be sliced by sliding the cutting edge across the sandwich rather than chopping through. Finally, presentation of the sandwich on the plate - showmanship and artistry are part of the job. Training with Pictures "A picture is worth a thousand words." Yes, and when it comes to training restaurant employees, a picture can save a great deal of the manager's time and energy. A job breakdown in pictures as shown here also helps the manager remember all parts of the instruction. Photographic sequences taken of restaurant tasks are simple to set up. They cost little. If the job changes, more pictures can be taken inexpensively. A job breakdown in pictures can be shown to new employees or used as a refresher for suggesting improved ways of doing the job. Why not work up a series for every job in the restaurant? Somebody in your family or restaurant may be an amateur photographer who could easily photograph the various jobs. Blow up the pictures to 8 by 10 inches, put them in plastic and insert them in a loose-leaf notebook binder. Then you've got yourself a real training aid, something you can pull down from the shelf over your desk and use in explaining the job to the new employee. Later you should tell and actually demonstrate the job. Let the employee take the book of pictures and study it. Discuss and change it if he has better ideas. That's training. Training Films Films and film strips can be excellent aids in training if they apply to jobs in your restaurant and if they are well presented. For films to be effective they must be introduced and discussed. A few restaurant chains make their own training films. Most of the training films available are made by food or equipment vendors and naturally are aimed at increasing the use of their products. Teach more than the Job Development of people is a key to productivity and high morale. Teach something more than the job. Restaurant employees who know more about the restaurant than just how to wash glasses, take in cash, or take an order probably are more productive than those who know only their job. We have no results of scientific studies on this point in the restaurant field. How best to evaluate the effectiveness of food worker training programs has not been established. But railroad section laborers who were taught "more" by their bosses produced more than those who were told only how to tamp crossties and level rails. The same results are likely to be found in kitchens, behind counters and in restaurant dining rooms. To Summarize 1. Become training-minded yourself.
2. Know how to do each job in the restaurant yourself.
3. When hiring, tell the new employee just what the job involves - both pleasant and unpleasant duties.
4. Break the job down and present it to the learner step by step.
5. Set goals for the learner - goals that he can reach today.
6. Give plenty of praise. Get him interested - enthusiastic if possible. Show how, then let the learner show you.
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