8 Tips on How to Write a Restaurant Staff Training Guide for better Restaurant Management

Every restaurant must have a training guide used to educate and guide employees on various operations. It ensures that the restaurant operates systematically and puts everyone on the same page. That said, a training manual can only be effective if it is well-written and succinct. It should provide the employees with an understanding of the business without overcomplicating things. A constructive manual can help improve employee performance and morale, which, in turn, can improve restaurant management and increase business.

A restaurant manager must stay on top of all activities that occur in the restaurant to ensure that the food business runs smoothly. Therefore, it’s vital that you, as a manager, must use all tools at your disposal. A restaurant employee training manual is one of those tools. It provides your employees with necessary information on the business and the operations they will be responsible for handling. A training manual helps maintain consistency in the quality of the services and products, avoids mismanagement, and sets a specific type of work culture in place. Therefore, to ensure your restaurant’s training manual is effective, this article will provide you essential tips on writing one for maximising restaurant management.

Writing a restaurant training manual is not as challenging as it may seem. You have to include vital information without making it too dense. 

Here are some tips on how to write a restaurant staff training guide for better management.

1. Make a Note of All the Operations at the Restaurant

Your training guide should include instructional information on all operations at the restaurant. Therefore, you must make a knot of all fronts of the house and back of the house operations. This way, every employee will have something to take away from the document. Here is a list of some front of the house operations that you should provide training material for:

At the same time, you should provide training material for some back of the house operations, including:

These are only some of the operations in your restaurant. If there are more integral ones, add them to the training guide.

2. Divide All of the Information for Better Accessibility

You should divide the information in the training manual into sections, chapters, and other subsections. You can use the specific types of operations, job descriptions, and duties to determine how to divide the material. Including divisions can help employees search for information even when they’re in a rush. As a result, they won’t allow any hiccups in their duties, keeping the workflow smooth and restaurant management at its best.

3. Include a Table of Contents and a Summary at the End of Each Chapter

You must remember that your training guide is for both new employees and seasoned ones who may need some guidance. That is why it is essential to include a table of contents to reduce the amount of time your employees spend reading. Simultaneously, a summary section with bulleted points at the end of each chapter can help communicate information faster to your staff.

4. Keep It Short

An important part of how to write a restaurant staff training guide is to keep the document as brief as possible. Write down all of the necessary information first, and then edit out the extraneous material. An overly long training guide will discourage employees from reading through it. Moreover, a succinct guide can help employees find the information they’re looking for faster because they won’t have to sift through a lot of information.

5. Explain Job Duties Using Real-World Examples

A quick way to ensure your staff comprehends the training material is to explain job duties and other work using real-world examples. This way, the material will be more to your staff, and it will allow them to understand which solutions work better in certain situations.

6. Address the Reader

It’s best to avoid writing in the third person. Instead, address the reader directly by saying, “you.” Doing so will also help eliminate any confusion about whether a specific employee will solely be responsible for a specific task.

7. Mention What You Expect from Your Staff

When learning how to write a restaurant staff training guide, you must note that the document should go beyond providing instructions. It should also mention what the company expects from specific positions in the restaurant. That can help each employee see their worth and their role in a much larger system.

8. Call the Document Something Other than “Training Guide”

If you truly want your training guide to be a valuable resource for restaurant management, you should try to avoid calling it just that. Instead, call it something else, perhaps with your restaurant’s name in it. It can help make the manuscript feel less daunting to employees that way. You can also try to fit in a bit of humour in some areas to make it more digestible to your team.