Your catering team plays a vital role in customer satisfaction at every event you book. Beyond the quality of your food, your employees are the frontline face of your catering business. Due to the high turnover rate in the restaurant industry, and event work in particular, facilitating employee training can be challenging. Let’s dive into how you can implement quality microlearning for retention and improved performance.
Catering Staff’s Role in Customer Satisfaction
Catering goes far beyond prepping, cooking, and serving food. Your presence sets the tone and ambiance for every event and is vital for both customer service and customer satisfaction. To gain loyalty, retention, and new leads your employees must be as outstanding as the food you serve.
Their roles span the range of:
- Food safety—your team must be trained in food temperatures, food handling, and the unique challenges of transporting fully and partially prepped food.
- Ambiance—your team must comprehend how to set a formal table, arrange table décor, arrange service areas, how to seamlessly serve a large group, and how to serve and engage with guests without disrupting the event.
- Communication—to ensure the event flows properly your team must have easy access to the service schedule, who their point of contact is, and how and when to communicate when problems arise.
- Food waste—sustainability is of increased importance to catering companies and the clients you serve. Your staff must be trained on how to minimize waste and preserve food for post-event donation.
How the Bites App Optimizes Catering Staff Training and Onboarding
At around 70%, restaurant staff turnover is inherently high. Lack of training contributes to high turnover rates, as proper training boosts confidence and job satisfaction. That being said, catering team members often work one-off events or only work with you on occasion. Your core staff will be there, but you will need to ramp up staffing for special events. This often includes referrals from your employees, gig workers, college students, and other restaurant professionals in search of a few extra shifts. You might not even do an in-depth interview with referrals.
Even those tenured in serving and behind-the-scenes operations need to comprehend the menu and unique events specs.
Utilizing the Bites app empowers you to train and onboard via a convenient microlearning platform. Our app integrates with popular communication tools, including Slack, What’s App, and LINE. Training is delivered directly to smartphones via social media style stories and posts.
Training can include any combination of:
- Short videos
- Flashcards
- Slides
- Surveys
- Multiple choice questions
- Social-media style discussions
- Links to e-sign paperwork
- And more
How the Bites App Streamlines Catering Onboarding
As you build your event team, add each employee to Bites with their phone number—no complicated login or traditional accessibility issues. Head to the dashboard to track analytics, including each employee’s training progress and retention rates. On average, 90% of employees engage with Bites content!
Streamline onboarding and training by creating “bite-sized” materials, including any combination of:
- A welcome video featuring you and your chef, with an introduction to what makes your brand unique.
- Virtually onboard one-off and last-minute new hires, providing direct links to the paperwork they must e-sign.
- Add existing PowerPoint slides and digital materials to the app for at-your-own-pace training.
- Conduct surveys to assess training retention and identify areas of opportunity.
Want to learn more? Let’s chat!
How Bites Optimizes Catering Staff Engagement and Performance
While in-person restaurant staff training can be completed solo or in small groups, our social media style feed encourages pre-event team building. In the catering business, it’s not uncommon for team members to meet for the first time on the day of your event. With Bites, your team can engage with one another beforehand.
When team engagement is combined with interactive learning modules, your team will be cohesive and proficient in their roles. This will lead to fewer mistakes and bottlenecks, and an improved experience for both internal and external customers.
Anyone on your team can create interactive elements in a manner that is as easy as creating social media content on your favorite platforms.
This might include:
- Creating 1 to 5 minute event-specific video modules, including factors such as the venue layout, dates and times, menu details, and more.
- Creating role-specific video modules to ensure each team member comprehends their job duties and service area.
- Answering FAQS relating to the dress code, dietary subsections, setting a formal table, tips for pouring, serving, and carrying trays, and more.
- Creating social media style posts to introduce team members and build excitement surrounding each event.
- Scheduling automated and real-time content and event reminders.
Ready to Supercharge Your Catering Business Employee Training?
If you want to learn more about how to implement highly effective hybrid or fully virtual employee Onboarding and training —contact reach out to a Bites expert today! We have multi-industry solutions, including options for supercharging training and onboarding for your catering business.
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