The Covid-19 pandemic dramatically changed the entire management outlook of the foodservice industry. Although the foodservice industry experiences continuous transformation, this pandemic compelled to introduce new horizons in the foodservice industry, especially the restaurant sector. A latest detailed review study indicates that post-pandemic increased multiple uses of technologies and artificial intelligence for various operations like online orders, take-out, employee training etc.
The latest trends in foodservice, especially in the restaurant sector, are transitioning to digital ordering, leveraging innovative restaurant technologies to improve operational efficiency and optimizing business flows. Furthermore, top priorities are top-quality menu design and how to enhance skills by efficient and consistent restaurant training, and their retention as valuable assets.
Why Employee Training is so Vital in Foodservice Industry
According to smallbizgenius, a restaurant employee’s average job tenure was only one month and 26 days in 2021. Moreover, an average restaurant employee replacement cost was $5,864, and 14% of the total cost was associated with employee training. This cost can be avoided by using reproducible digital training. Bites offer completely digital training solutions with a fun and excellent learning framework for your restaurant training.
One of the key reasons to leave the workplace is the lack of proper and consistent training facilities. However, 94% of workers prefer to stay at their workplace if they have continuous professional development and training opportunities. According to TDn2K & CHART, 33% of companies reported an increase in their staff training budget in 2019.
Researchers from Kyonggi University, South Korea, proved that employee training significantly and positively affects employee satisfaction and self-efficacy. In this study, 396 restaurant workers evaluated the theme of food safety training, job skills training, and training consistency. Moreover, employee satisfaction through consistent training also reduces employee turnover intention.
Kent State University, United States, conducted a semi-structured questions-based research study to evaluate the training needs of older workers in the foodservice industry. A pool of 55 employees showed great interest in continuous training, especially in using technology.
Critical Challenges of Employee Management in the Foodservice industry
- Low Workforce
According to The National Restaurant Association, total restaurants and foodservice industry expect 14.9M jobs in 2022. This figure will rise to almost 16.5M in 2030. However, a low workforce is the main challenge. Staff recruitment and retention is the main challenge of approximately 50% of employers in the quick-service, fast-casual and full-service sections in 2022. Similarly, 7 out of 10 employers believe they don’t have enough workforce to meet the current service demand.
- The Great Resignation/ High Turnover
The latest statistics by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that the U.S food service industry is facing a 2.9% great resignation with 4.4 million workers. TDn2K & CHART found that one of the key actions of restaurants with low turnover was giving value to restaurant training by thorough practice in 2019. These enterprises typically provided more on-the-job training to new hourly employees.
A supportive and growing work environment with unique and engaging restaurant training opportunities is indispensable to minimizing the restaurant industry’s great resignation issue. Bites is the only platform that addresses the real and specific training needs to enhance your employee’s pace and passion in the workplace.
Key Innovative Trends in Foodservice Training
- Employee Engagement in Training
Engaged and motivated employees are at the heart of top restaurant experiences. Investment in employee engagement can give restaurant chains a competitive advantage in today’s market. However, 1 out of 10 U.S. workers is not engaged in the restaurant workforce. Deloitte presents an irresistible model for employee engagement with 5 key elements that emphasize creating a positive work environment with consistent growth opportunities and continuous investment in employee training and welfare. According to Josh Bersin’s engagement research, young employees’ satisfaction (age under 25) directly relates to employee training, professional growth, and career advancement.
- Young Staff Training (Generation Z/ Millennial)
Generation Z or Millennial people are technically savvy and prefer to use technology to complete tasks efficiently. Use this to your advantage by offering digital training platforms that allow employees to learn at their own pace, assess their learning progress, and receive tailored development plans based on their individual training requirements. In 2022, 87% of millennials strongly believe consistent training and development are vital in the restaurant industry.
Generation Z needs more engaging and exciting content, shorter lessons, and availability of the content in their preferred language. It is evident from the CHART report that 67% of the hospitality sector offer training materials in employee preferred languages (other than English).
- Use of Digital Approach for Restaurant Training
It is well recognized that digital technologies have significantly improved the restaurant business. 95% of restaurant owners believe digital technology has revolutionized the restaurant sector. These days LMS, mobile learning, and microlearning are popular digital training approaches. TDn2K & CHART reported that 86% of hospitality and restaurant companies used e-learning solutions for their staff training in 2019. Mobile learning is vital in foodservice training as it’s pretty flexible, easily accessible and designed explicitly for mobile devices.
Microlearning
In the last two years, updated food safety protocols and best practices due to Covid-19 are one of the main concerns of the foodservice industry. The employees receive compliance training based on FDA, EFSA, or USDA regulations. However, 79% of employees cannot recall the compliance-related information in a few months.
Another research claims that people forget 90% of the content they learn in “once-and-done” learning experiences if it is not repeated within 30 days.
Moreover, traditional e-learning food service training courses are complex and lengthy and cover multiple objects over a more extended period. Conversely, microlearning provides proper retention time to restaurant employees to process the acquired information into practical.
Microlearning is one of the most recent digital teaching tools that disseminate the content in particular and small nuggets or micro bites. Microlearning mainly addresses the millennial generation’s training and retention patterns. Millennials will be 75% of the workforce by 2025, and their average attention span is 90 seconds, supporting the need for microlearning.
Besides, microlearning is a highly effective training approach for the restaurant and foodservice sector. In fact, Bites evidenced that microlearning video training saves onboarding time by 67% without compromising employee work quality. Bites offer professional content in a fun social media style that hooks your restaurant employee in short video training without downloading app hectic.
Your restaurant employee gets thorough training in the form of precise and organized short videos equipped with stunning visuals accessible at any time of their choice. That’s why, Bites microlearning training style has the highest completion rates, i.e., 90%, compared to the industry standard of 40%.
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