A Guide to Training New Restaurant Staff
Training your restaurant staff is vital if you want your restaurant to become successful. They are at the forefront of your customer’s dining experience. So, effective training can go a long way in making your restaurant unique and keeping your customers happy.
Training your staff is undoubtedly a time-consuming investment—one which some restaurant owners prefer to avoid. They only hire experienced staff so that the waiters can begin work on the very first day. While that may seem like a good idea, it’s where you can run into trouble. Every restaurant has its unique style, dining experience, and theme, and all staff members need to be aware of that. By training your team, you can inform them about the nuances of your restaurant’s culture and the experience you want to create for your customers. In short, training new restaurant staff can help make your restaurant stand out from the rest. If you’re ready to begin making a training plan, here’s what you must do.
How to Train New Restaurant Staff Effectively
There’s a lot to keep in mind when training the staff at your restaurant. Incorporate the following practices into your training plan, and ensure that it’s best suited for your restaurant.
Here’s a complete guide on what you need to do.
Hold an Orientation Session
The first thing you should do is hold an orientation for your new staff on their first day. Go in with a checklist of details you need to tell your new team members, i.e., waiters, hostess, sous chef, or whatever.
Explain Your Restaurant Goals, Philosophy, and History to Your Staff
Don’t focus on tasks only. Explain what your business’s goals are (both long and short term), your restaurant philosophy, it’s history, and the facilities and resources they have at their disposal. You want them to feel like a part of a team that’s dedicated to providing people with great food. This is more than just a job.
Keep the Session Fun and Interactive
Try to keep the session fun and interactive, encouraging your new staff to ask as many questions as possible. This way, your team members can feel like they have a place in your business, and their interactions can help them get to know each other better.
Observe and Guide Your Team
Observe and guide your team while your restaurant staff members are still new. One orientation session is not enough to teach them about how you want to run your restaurant. You have to guide them with meaningful advice. You must also provide explanations for why you want a specific thing done a certain way. This way, they’ll have more clarity on what they’re doing at their jobs.
Ensure the Staff Practices What They Learn
Try to keep the session fun and interactive, encouraging your new staff to ask as many questions as possible. This way, your team members can feel like they have a place in your business, and their interactions can help them get to know each other better.
Be Careful Not to Micromanage
An essential aspect of restaurant management is to avoid micromanaging your team. Your new staff’s supervisors have to find the right balance between guiding and controlling their supervisees. Micromanaging your team won’t allow them to grow, it can instill doubt in their ability, and it can make them unhappy at their job.
Train Your Team to Use Available Technology
Technology has made its place in almost every industry, including the restaurant industry too. Restaurants use tech to take orders, manage teams, create exciting dishes, clean utensils, and so much more. Training new restaurant staff to use tech can help increase productivity and interactivity with customers.
Incorporate Upskilling into the Training Process
Upskilling is a process in which you teach your staff new skills that they can use to move up the professional ladder. Incorporating upskilling in the restaurant training process for new employees can help motivate them to put more effort into their job. It’s best to incentivise the process by providing them with a salary increase or a bonus for choosing to upskill. Upskill training can also guarantee staff members who can cover for each other if there’s ever a need for that. This way, your restaurant won’t experience any notable hiccups in productivity during that period.
Incorporate Team-Building Exercises into the Training Process
A vital tip for restaurant management is to remember that all of your staff are a part of one unit. Therefore, each employee must work well with each other. A great way to develop that trust in each other’s competence and ability is to have timely team-building training exercises. These exercises don’t have to be work-related—your only goal is to create a stronger bond between each staff member.
Try to Keep Your Team Building Exercises Fun
Unlike what the name suggests, your team-building exercises should not feel like work. You can host fun social activities like parties, competitions, retreats, and so on. These exercises can help your team to get to know each other outside of work and possibly get closer to each other as colleagues.
Keep Training Your Team
An integral part of restaurant training is to do it consistently with new and experienced staff members. You must keep upgrading your plan and inform your team about the changes. Staying proactive ensures that your team knows your restaurant’s goals and the progress it has made in achieving said goals.
If you want to know more about restaurant management, then check out our website’s blog section. It includes many restaurant trade secrets, and we have experienced restaurant consultants to provide you with professional assistance.
If you want to know more about restaurant management, then check out our website’s blog section. It includes many restaurant trade secrets, and we have experienced restaurant consultants to provide you with professional assistance.