Restaurant Trainers: Let’s Toss Out The Binders

In 2011, when I was promoted from an hourly employee to management at Lettuce Entertain You Restaurants, I was handed a box containing three spiral-bound notebooks filled with all my training materials. Big, heavy, and overwhelming. “Here, read this… and take this test, and hey - don’t forget this stuff because you’re going to need it.” Good luck. Not only was this a tall order for the learner, but it was challenging for the content creators and trainers to keep all of these notebooks up to date. 

It wasn’t until much later that I realized how taxing it must have been to keep these notebooks up to date for all new hires in a quickly growing company. If a mobile learning app like SparkLearn had existed back then, my training process would have been more effective and much more efficient!

Every role in a restaurant requires training.

Every role within a restaurant requires specific skills, procedures, and processes, and SparkLearn helps organizations create and maintain comprehensive training programs for each one of those vital team members. With our easy-to-use dashboard and intuitive content delivery, managers can quickly find the content they need for specific tasks or positions. The cloud-based platform lets you access your internal library from any device to stay connected throughout the training process.

Using a digital learning platform like SparkLearn for restaurant training has numerous benefits over paper manuals and on-site classes because it enables you to quickly onboard new employees by providing them with all the necessary information in one place and available on demand. Using a digital learning platform like SparkLearn means your workers don’t have to spend time searching through multiple documents or attending lengthy in-person sessions to get up to speed on their responsibilities. Since the content is easily accessible online, no matter where they are located or what devices they’re using, employees can review information whenever they need a refresher. By utilizing SparkLearn as your primary source of training materials, you ensure that everyone gets access to the same high-quality content regardless of location or situation, ensuring consistency across teams and locations. No updating binders, printing pages, or circulating handouts is needed.

Track and update training progress against
customer feedback.

Older training models also fall short when trying to determine if they are working and if your workers are actually using them. One of the best features of SparkLearn is its ability to provide data analytics and reporting tools that give you insight into how well your team is doing during their training sessions. You can track completion rates, evaluate performance on quizzes and tests, and identify which topics were most difficult for learners. This feedback can be used to fine-tune your training program, so it's as effective as possible.

Traditional methods for restaurant training just aren't enough anymore; restaurant folks need something more efficient and less time-consuming if we want our teams to continue to succeed. If you’re still using training manuals in your restaurant, it’s time to switch things up. Not only are these static documents hard to customize and keep up to date, but they can leave your employees feeling bored and disengaged.

SparkLearn is easy to use for the trainer and the
hourly employee.

That's why I'm so excited about what SparkLearn has to offer: an organized system with easy-to-access content that makes onboarding quick and painless while still ensuring everyone receives the same quality instruction no matter where they're located, allowing restaurants everywhere to offer the best possible hospitality.