The restaurant industry has provided steady employment to the citizens of the USA. The most employment was generated in 2016 when restaurants hired 14.7 million Americans. The number decreased in the years of the pandemic but is again on the rise since 2021.
Is your restaurant hiring new staff too?
Hiring employees for your restaurant is itself a challenge. However, your woes do not end there. You have to onboard and train your restaurant employees to provide excellent service.
Unfortunately, traditional training methods may not be suitable for the modern workforce. This is exactly where restaurant training videos can come in handy to help achieve optimum learning outcomes.
Let’s explore more on the topic.
How Do You Train Restaurant Staff
Managers or entrepreneurs may wonder how to train their restaurant employees. Worry not, as we have the right steps to follow for an effective training program.
Develop a Training Plan
Training cannot succeed without a proper plan. So, think carefully about the skills and learning outcomes you want your staff to achieve. You can:
- Establish the hard and soft skills you want to teach
- Set up metrics to measure the progress of your training
- Develop different training programs for different roles
- Seek guidance from current employees to refine your plan
Create Restaurant Training Videos
Traditional training relies on lectures or presentations to train restaurant staff. So, why should you use training videos instead?
Your staff is 75% more likely to watch videos than to attend lectures or read an eBook. Additionally, videos can improve information retention and allow your employees to get past “The Forgetting Curve.” It states that humans forget 75% of new information within six days if they cannot apply it in real life.
So, videos can help your staff achieve better learning outcomes. Other benefits include:
- Reduction in training costs
- Higher engagement rates
- Access training from anywhere and anytime
- Videos are better for teaching complex steps or real-life interactions
You can use a tool like Bites to create short training videos from your smartphone. It is also possible to deliver videos to your employees through messaging apps. You may also edit your videos and create playlists to improve learning outcomes.
Create videos for each topic that you want to teach. You may want to include important areas of restaurant service and shoot food safety training videos. Some of you may also want to record food service training videos to improve your customer experience.
Track the Progress of Your Training
It is crucial to track the progress of your training and refine your program accordingly. A tool like Bites makes it easier to track learner progress through analytics.
You should also evaluate learning outcomes with tests and quizzes. Bites lets you do the same and test whether your employees picked up the needed skills.
The above steps will help you train your restaurant employees. You can also rely on the best practices for restaurant staff training to make your program more effective.
Update Your Training Frequently
The restaurant industry has undergone a significant change due to the digital transformation of businesses. Your training program may not be relevant after a few months or years.
Therefore, re-evaluate your training from time to time and make necessary changes for the best results. For example, you may need to train your staff to handle digital payments as customers shift to newer payment methods.
Why Is Training Important for Restaurants?
Training is important not just for the restaurant but for any industry. Your workforce must be highly skilled and committed to serving your clients and improving your reputation. Below are a few reasons that might encourage you to train your restaurant employees:
Mastery of Skills
70% of employees say they don’t have the mastery of the skills required to work productively, as per Harvard Business Review. So, they may know how to make pineapple juice but not how to prepare it properly before juicing.
Training videos go a long way to help your restaurant employees develop and master the skills they need at work. You can expect a boost in productivity and provide amazing service to guests.
Better Employee Performance
Trained staff performs better than untrained staff. There is no way to deny this fact. Even research shows training helps employees in industries like hospitality perform better.
You can create a team of committed employees who are eager to help you achieve your business objectives.
Earn More Revenues
As per EHL insights, customer satisfaction increases by 5% to 7% when your employees perform better. That means your guests always come to you for their meals and excellent service.
As a result, you may earn 5% more revenue just by training your staff, shows EHL data. In these times, even a 5% increase can make a lot of difference as restaurants come out of the effects of the pandemic.
Improve Employee Retention
As per EHL research, 46% of employees agree their organization’s training can influence their decision to stay. Additionally, 65% of companies with a good training program encounter 65% less employee turnover.
Therefore, you can expect more returns from your investment when you invest in restaurant training videos.
Read more about employee retention >>
Better Employee Satisfaction
Proper training allows employees to perform their duties efficiently and effectively. They gain more confidence and can engage guests better.
The whole process leads to better job satisfaction and employee satisfaction.
Additional perks of training restaurant staff include:
- Development of employee career
- A better team spirit between the employees
- Highly motivated workers
- Better talent acquisition prospects
- Ensure the safety of guests
- Build a great company culture
You can also look forward to innovative ideas from your employees when they are properly trained.
Restaurant Training Videos: Examples and Ideas
We have been talking about training videos to create a skilled workforce. You might wonder what type of videos you may use to train your employees. So, here are a few examples:
How to Carry Eight Wine Glasses
A senior server shares his awesome technique of how to hold 8 wine glasses using just two hands for new hires to work faster and more efficiently.
How to Prepare a Pineapple for Juicing
Even a boring task like juicing can become fun with entertaining video training– see how it’s done: how to prep a pineapple for juicing
How to Prepare the Most Popular Cocktails
How to train bartenders (and increase revenues from drinks)? Turn the traditional, printed cocktail training manual into a series of mobile micro-courses. With a help of a well-trained bartender, a mobile phone and a mobile training app (like bites) this can be easy done: make themost popular cocktails.
How to Convert Traditional Restaurant Training Manuals into Video Content
Managers traditionally relied on a restaurant training manual to train employees. However, you have seen videos work much better to achieve your learning outcomes.
So, how do you convert your traditional manuals into video content?
Assess Your Restaurant Training Manual and Materials
Not every part of your training will be a perfect fit for video content. Some parts may still be left for traditional mediums like texts or PDFs, like a dress code.
So, evaluate your existing materials and figure out the content you want to turn into videos. For example, videos are ideal for teaching how to make a recipe if you are training a chef.
Write Your Script
Some training videos may have voice-overs or narration. You should write a script for these restaurant training videos before you start shooting.
Writing a script ensures you:
- Cover all the important topics
- Don’t appear confused or forget what to say
- Stick to your plans
- Stay within the timeframe you decided for the video
Choose a Video Training Platform
A video training platform ensures you can manage your training efficiently. Moreover, a tool like Bites allows you to capture videos and steps using your mobile’s camera easily.
You can record as many videos as you want and add your narration. The solution also lets you add text or mouse movements in case you are showing around any software.
Best of all, Bites comes with an editor to make your videos perfect.
Record and Edit Your Training Video
Shoot your training video and edit it as per your preference. You can also shoot as many videos as you want and create a playlist, like the cocktail example shown above.
If you’re using Bites, you can also add your voice-over and explain concepts. You can also mimic real-life scenarios by creating videos on how to treat guests.
Create Slides for Existing Content
You may not be able to convert every restaurant training manual into video content. In that case, you may create video slides to make learning more engaging. You may even capture your screen from presentations and include them in your training videos.
Incorporate Evaluations
Your training manual may have questions workers need to answer to show they achieved the learning outcome. Bites allow you to create interactive quizzes so that you can evaluate the progress of your learners.
Share Your Video with Your Employees
The last step is to share the training videos with your employees. Bites users can do that using popular messaging apps like WhatsApp or Messenger. The same applies to playlists, which show up on your employees’ mobiles.
Do’s and Don’ts for Creating training Videos for Restaurant Staff Training
You can take a few steps to ensure you create the best restaurant training videos. Let’s take a look at the things you should do first:
- Include decision-making scenarios in your videos. They allow employees to test the skills they learned in real life.
- Take advantage of best practices like microlearning. It makes information easy to digest and improves retention rates.
- Make videos as interactive as possible. You can add texts, animations, and more to make learning interesting.
- Get to know your target audience. Your videos and narration will differ based on the demographics of the workers you are dealing with.
- Shoot your videos in good lighting. You don’t want your workers to miss a step while making a cocktail.
- Show your face once in a while in your videos. It improves interactivity and adds a human touch to the training videos.
- Make sure your narration is clearly audible. You can use a mic to record your narration separately.
Now, let’s go over the things you should never do:
- Don’t worry about your shooting equipment. It is enough to use your smartphone to record videos when you use a tool like Bites.
- Never cram your videos with too many topics. Focus on one topic at a time to help employees achieve learning objectives better.
- Don’t spend too much time or effort making your videos perfec The goal here is to train your employees and not to win the Oscar award.
- You don’t need a professional team to shoot restaurant training videos. Just your phone and a tool like Bites are enough to train your teams.
- Don’t rely on emails to send training videos to your workers. Use channels like messaging apps or social media where they spend their time.
Final Thoughts
Videos are an ideal choice for training your restaurant employees. They help retain information longer and improve learning outcomes.
You should also train your staff to improve employee satisfaction and your revenues. A tool like Bites enables you to record training videos using your phone and share them with your employees.
You can also test their knowledge and get analytics to improve your training program. Try Bites today for free to check out all the amazing features.
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