Training to Decrease Turnover and Increase Satisfaction

restaurant manager staff team communications training
Restaurant manager staff team communications training
  • McKee Foodservice
  • DAVO Sales Tax
  • Atosa USA
  • Red Gold Sacramento
  • Simplot Frozen Avocado
  • AyrKing Mixstir
  • BelGioioso Burrata
  • RAK Porcelain
  • Texas Pete
  • RATIONAL USA
  • Imperial Dade
  • T&S Brass Eversteel Pre-Rinse Units
  • Inline Plastics Safe-T-Chef
  • Day & Nite
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Most employees who leave their jobs in the first 90 days of employment do so because they don’t know what their job is, how to do it, how well it should be done or by when.

They also likely have a manager who doesn’t know either, which leads to a vicious cycle of ignorance, confusion and dissatisfaction.

How do you stop this situation? You create a proper training system for every new employee and every employee who changes jobs.

To start, you need a job description for every position. The job description is the critical piece to a great training system.

  • McKee Foodservice
  • Texas Pete
  • Red Gold Sacramento
  • Imperial Dade
  • RATIONAL USA
  • BelGioioso Burrata
  • Simplot Frozen Avocado
  • RAK Porcelain
  • Day & Nite
  • AyrKing Mixstir
  • Inline Plastics Safe-T-Chef
  • T&S Brass Eversteel Pre-Rinse Units
  • DAVO Sales Tax
  • Atosa USA

When you start creating a job description, you need to take the time to understand what the responsibilities of the position are and what qualifications a person needs for that position.

This is how you accurately explain what the job is, how to do it, how well it should be done and by when it should be done.

What the job is:

Let’s say the job description is for a server. The job of a server is a bunch of processes, such as taking food and beverage orders, delivering the order, closing out a ticket.

How to do the job:

For a new server to do each process well and to your satisfaction, you must explain the steps to doing it well.

For example, taking food and beverage orders after accurately listing and explaining the specials, suggesting items and upselling when appropriate.

Now, you’ll have a whole list of those processes of what a server is expected to do in a day-to-day process.

How well it should be done and by when:

Next, you’re going to define the performance standards for each process. And this is incredibly important because the job performance standards are the core of your job description.

Once you have a great job description, you’ll have the foundation of a great training program.

The new training program is the list of all the steps for each one of those processes for each new hire and what they need to learn to do that job.

For example, for a server, let’s go back to “what the job is,” which was taking food and beverage orders after accurately listing and explaining the specials, suggesting items and upselling when appropriate.

Here’s what you might list out as your steps, assuming there are four steps for taking the food and beverage order:

  1. First, greet guests, list and explain specials, make recommendations and upsell.
  2. Second, write the order.
  3. Third is enter/submit the order.
  4. And maybe the fourth step is the expectation of what happens from there, such as marking tables and so on.

The performance standards measure how well each of those steps in the process are executed.

No one should ever have to assume how you want the job done or what process to follow. You don’t know where people are coming from and what kind of training they’ve had in the past. Their standards could be way below yours, and you need to make your expectations very clear.

Once you’ve documented all the processes, the next step is to break them up into lessons so you can teach all the steps that need to happen in as many days as you want your training program to be. It may take two weeks.

It may take three days. It should be as long as you need to test them through the processes. This ensures each person is going to learn what needs to be done.

But to make that happen, you’ve got to make sure you train the trainer. Each manager needs to understand each of the positions and their processes to properly train a new employee.

I don’t care if they’re the best server in the world or best cook in the world, the managers must understand what the job is, how to do it, how well it should be done and by when.

This gives you consistency in management, which puts you on a path to becoming an employer of choice.

When your managers know the job standards, and they’re all making sure people are doing the job the same way every single time, you have a positive work environment, which reduces turnover.

When you have a great training program in place, not only will your employees stay longer because they like where they work, productivity increases because when you keep people longer, you get better efficiencies.

Toxic workplace culture is what’s killing our industry right now. We’ve had too many years of people abusing line employees and not treating them like people and understanding their importance to the business.

A great training program creates a safe workplace where expectations are clear. This leads to lower turnover, consistency in food preparation and service and a stronger bottom line. It’s up to you to make it possible.

  • RAK Porcelain
  • Texas Pete
  • T&S Brass Eversteel Pre-Rinse Units
  • McKee Foodservice
  • AyrKing Mixstir
  • Red Gold Sacramento
  • Atosa USA
  • Simplot Frozen Avocado
  • RATIONAL USA
  • DAVO Sales Tax
  • Imperial Dade
  • Inline Plastics Safe-T-Chef
  • Day & Nite
  • BelGioioso Burrata
David Scott Peters
David Scott Peters is a restaurant coach and speaker who teaches restaurant operators how to cut costs and increase profits with his trademark Restaurant Prosperity Formula. Known as THE expert in the restaurant industry, he uses a no-BS style to teach and motivate restaurant owners to take control of their businesses and finally realize their full potential. Thousands of restaurants have used his formula to transform their businesses. To learn more about David Scott Peters and his formula, visit David Scott Peters' website.

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