The restaurant industry is one of the most profitable businesses in the world. The global market of full-service restaurants amounted to $1.2 trillion in 2020. Moreover, the market value will climb to $1.7 trillion by 2027.
While is seems very tempting to open your own restaurant or franchise, to grab a share of profits remember that the restaurant industry is also highly competitive due to its potential. Among other things, businesses have to ensure they provide the best experience to customers to generate revenues.
Therefore, employee training is a top priority for the hospitality sector. All leading brands have established training programs for restaurant employees to gain a competitive advantage. You can read about a few examples of how business improved their level of training and revenues using innovative training here.
In this blog, we will explore how you can train your bartenders and staff with videos to improve learning outcomes. Additionally, we will take a look at some of the vital aspects of training restaurant workers.
Restaurant Bartending 101: The Business Case for Employee Training
As noted earlier, The restaurant sector is highly competitive. As a result, you have to offer a perfect service that has no room for errors.
Bartenders, waiteres and kitchen staff have to be skilled in many aspects to provide recommendable service to clients.
Specifficaly, bartending involves a bit of visual aesthetics, especially if you have a bar counter or serve cocktails. An expert bartender will be able to impress clients with not only their cocktails but also their moves.
So, bar staff training is an important duty for any business in the restaurant industry.
Learning the Foundation Skills for Bartenders
Bartenders should pick up quite a few essential skills to serve at the counter or make excellent drinks. Below are the key skill sets you should train your bartenders in before they start their job:
Drink Knowledge
The main job of a bartender is to make cocktails and drinks. Therefore, they should have a thorough knowledge of various alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks.
In addition, they should be aware of how these drinks mix with each other to create cocktails.
Bartenders with a degree may come with basic drinks knowledge. However, you should still train your bar staff on the drinks you serve at your counter.
Customer Service
Restaurants come under the hospitality sector that is meant to charm customers. Businesses in hospitality thrive on pampering their customers and fulfilling their every wish.
As a result, customer service has a direct impact on the reputation and profits of a restaurant. You are bound to lose customers if your service is inferior or your staff can’t behave appropriately with clients.
Therefore, you also need to train your bartenders to provide superb customer service. They should be able to represent your values and boost your positive image further.
Organization
Bartenders need to be highly organized in all aspects of their role. For example, they have to handle countless drinks and items at the counter.
At the same time, they have to deal with impatient customers waiting at the end of the counter for their cocktails.
Moreover, bartenders should coordinate with the rest of the hotel staff, like waiters, to ensure good customer service.
Managing so many things can turn difficult if you don’t have the right training programs for restaurant employees.
Time Management
Timely service is very important for any business in the restaurant industry. Your customers are more likely to walk out of your doors if you keep them waiting for their food or drinks.
The situation at the bar counter is more hectic for the bartenders. Customers may be standing all around them and asking for their drinks.
On top of that, bartenders have to perform other tasks in between their roles, like training juniors.
Therefore, time management is a basic skill for bartenders. You can help them learn how to manage time efficiently by making it a part of your training program.
How Videos Can Make Restaurant Training Engaging, Better, and More Fun
Traditional training methods don’t work for restaurants. You cannot expect your employees to learn efficiently from lectures, text, or pictures.
The restaurant industry is a highly hands-on industry. Therefore, you need visual ways to train your staff to improve knowledge retention and learning outcomes.
As a result, video training can be a great way to train your restaurant employees. You can create videos to teach basic skills to your bartenders and take advantage of the latest training trends.
For example, you can use videos to provide classic cocktail training to bartenders. You can use a video training platform like Bites to create and deliver learning right to your employees’ phones.
For example, managers can use the basic cocktail training playlist to impart basic drink knowledge. The playlist contains videos on how to make margaritas, mojitos, gin tonics, and more.
In order to make it easier for restaurant owners or bar managers to experience video training you can register on Bites and share playlists with your restaurant staff instantly. Most importantly, your employees don’t need to download any app or software.
You can send the videos through messaging apps your workers use for convenience for both parties.
In the same way, restaurants may use videos to train staff on different aspects, like how to handle customers. Bites allows you to create videos easily with your smartphone and contains an in-built editor to make your videos more appealing.
You can add voiceovers, display text on your videos, rearrange your scenes, and more.
How Video Training Contributes to Your Restaurant
Video learning can be a game-changer for your restaurant. You can create a team of highly trained employees who are adept at their job. In addition, you can ensure your staff can apply the knowledge in real life and provide excellent service.
Below are a few ways video training helps boost your image and profits:
Videos Engage Learners Better
Research shows videos can engage students more than traditional training methods. They are better at explaining concepts or steps, like customer satisfaction or making cocktails.
Engaged learners are more likely to achieve the learning outcomes of the training program. In addition, they can take advantage of active learning to boost knowledge retention.
Videos Let You Leverage Trends like Microlearning
The education industry is going through a massive transformation. New trends are emerging that are helping educators and enterprises to improve their learning programs.
One of the recent educational trends is video training, a new-age medium to works great with microlearning. For example, you can implement microlearning easily through video training. It allows learners to digest information easily and remember it for a long time. It’s also accessible at any time, and from everywhere, just in case one needs to refresh it’s memory.
Additionally, they can learn at their pace and not let training disrupt their regular duties. All you need to do is to shoot short videos using Bites and create a playlist for your employees.
Videos Allow You to Cut Costs and Save Time
You don’t need any special equipment or heavy investment to develop or implement video learning. Additionally, you don’t have to spend on additional training platforms or learning management systems (LMS) if you use Bites.
It is possible to make your training videos using only your smartphone. Your employees can also access these videos and playlists on their phones through messaging apps.
Therefore, you save a significant part of your restaurant training budget. Additionally, you can save precious hours and effort that you would have put into making your training successful.
Impart Restaurant Training Anywhere, Anytime
Your bartenders or employees don’t need to be physically present in the restaurant to learn if you rely on video training.
They can be at their homes or even traveling without missing out on what you have to teach.
Moreover, your employees can access the training videos any time they want from their mobiles. There is no need to have any fixed timing or schedule to learn.
Videos Make Learning Fun
Videos are simply great for making learning fun. You can get creative and incorporate different elements in your videos to awe and delight your learners.
In addition, you can record yourself and maybe tell a few jokes to provide comic relief in your videos.
As for restaurants, they can share real incidents or stories in their videos. It is suitable for teaching concepts like customer service in a fun way.
Final Thoughts
Bartenders should be properly trained to perform their job efficiently. The list of things to learn includes knowledge of drinks, how to handle customers, and managing time.
You can use videos to make your restaurant training more effective and fun. Videos allow you to impart active learning and leverage trends like microlearning.
Additionally, you can create and implement your training program quickly while ensuring improved learning outcomes.
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