Foodservice businesses can be in a constant state of having to train new staff and provide ongoing education to employees who have been in their roles a long time. This can drain the trainers’ time, take time away from other critical tasks in the business, and, depending on how quickly training can be delivered, delay the progress of an employee. What’s more, when training is delivered by different people, there is opportunity for food preparation or safety instructions to be inconsistent, creating problems downstream. But increasingly, foodservice businesses are using training modules that deliver lessons via virtual reality, augmented reality and mixed reality to provide consistent lessons in bite-size chunks. Employees can access the lessons on their own time and have an immersive experience that mimics their real-life work surroundings. Five Guys is one brand that has adopted such tools, though options are available for brands of all sizes. Using the Five Guys example, a new employee who has never worked the grill before can use the restaurant’s immersive training tool to virtually stand in front of the grill, learn how to use the patty press, when and how to use various utensils, when to move the burger along to the next station, and how to maintain the flow of order preparation.
![]() Over the past several years, restaurant operators have had to manage a delicate balancing act: Assess and adopt new technology to make business run more efficiently, but do so in a way that engages employees and guests and avoids alienating them. It’s a challenging task to handle when there is often little time in the midst of running a restaurant to sit back and consider the broader picture. As a result, operators may find themselves drowning in too much tech, losing the human touch with guests, and possibly turning off staff who assume they will be replaced by automation. If this sounds familiar, it may be time to reframe your business’s relationship to your tech, emphasizing that it’s not there to take over, but rather to provide a new level of background support that makes it possible for you to provide the best human support you can. A recent report from Modern Restaurant Management provides some suggestions. Think about what you want to provide for your guests – is it friendly service with a personal touch, or do people simply want their food fast so they can get on their way quickly? Build your tech strategy around that. When considering new tech tools or systems, involve your staff in choosing them, giving the people who will be using the tech an opportunity to test it out, ask questions and raise concerns. Then, when training staff on your tech, help them understand the “why” behind it by taking them through each step of the guest journey and demonstrating how the tech supports it. ![]() Whether you’re looking to slim down your tech stack this year or integrate new tools, your technology is likely to be the nerve center of your business going forward. Your ability to harness it and have your staff using its full functionality will be critical to managing your business in real time and course-correcting as needed. At a recent Fast Casual Executive Summit, restaurant leaders shared their thoughts about using technology to the greatest advantage. Eric Knott, COO at PDQ Restaurants, emphasized the need for employees beyond the tech team or restaurant leadership to be involved in selecting, testing and determining the need for new tech. "Anytime we evaluate any technology, we bring in a resource group of individuals from the organization to weigh in and get opinions,” he said. “That could be a cashier, somebody that works the drive thru, a store manager. So we have a good group of opinions on how it touches each of them.” These representatives can help you appreciate the nuances of integrating new tech with your service model and what functions are more important to solving existing problems. Beyond that, they can also make for helpful ambassadors and potential trainers of the tech down the line when you’re trying to increase buy-in across your team. ![]() People learn in different ways – and the tools you use to reinforce food safety skills can help you make the lessons stick. Restaurant Technology News suggests using virtual reality headsets to role play different scenarios with staff. Having them take part in exercises that feel real can help muscle memory kick in. Ongoing reinforcement is helpful too – and leveraging their smartphones can help you make sure they always have the information they need. Send employees reminders and just-in-time updates via their phone, or simply allow them to use their phone to access a bank of helpful food safety information when they have questions. ![]() Leaning on tech tools to deliver your food safety training isn’t just more efficient – it can also set you up to make your training sink in for staff. Consider implementing tools that gamify your food safety lessons or at least make them more interactive for staff. Tech-based training can help you use different approaches to teaching that ensure you’re delivering content in a way that reaches a range of learning styles. Finally, tech tools make it easier for you to make training a continuous process for your staff – not a one-and-done task but an ongoing, understood part of your culture. These platforms are dynamic and designed to help you deliver updates and new information better than a manual training system could. ![]() While it’s true that more restaurant operators are automating front- and back-of-house processes right now, they are also focusing more on how they can make the most of their staff – and keep the people they have. According to Nation’s Restaurant News Intelligence, this is the top priority for operators. It ranks higher for them than reducing labor costs, as well as streamlining both back- and front-of-house operations. The labor shortage of the past few years has required operators to adopt technology that supports employee retention efforts. That includes taking such steps as digitizing the onboarding and training process, automating scheduling, and adopting labor-enhancing tools to help them deliver quality service (as opposed to bringing in technology designed to replace human labor). This is a beneficial talking point for operators managing staff. Regularly collecting feedback from staff about their pain points can help you identify where technology might help lighten their load and enable them to focus on guest-facing work. It may even help you keep them from moving on to a different job. ![]() Just like your guest data clarifies the habits and preferences of those who dine with you, your employee data can reveal truths about your team and your own training procedures that you wouldn’t be likely to learn otherwise. As a recent report from Entrepreneur explains, employee data is about more than tracking your staff’s working hours or sales. Perhaps your data can demonstrate that employees who receive more comprehensive training on your restaurant menu and specials tend to generate more sales – or perhaps there is less of a correlation than you expected. Wouldn’t that be helpful to know when you’re contemplating whether or not to invest in such training for all staff – and what aspects of training are most important to provide? Your data can also reveal who is most efficient in generating sales, so you can aim to have those employees working during your peak hours. When you review the data you have on employee performance, how much are you able to draw from it that can help you make proactive decisions to help your business? ![]() It seems every part of a restaurant kitchen has a “smart” solution these days, whether it’s smart sensors to monitor the temperature of a pot of water, the volume of ingredients needed for a dish, or any number of other tasks. But these new tools are only as good as the knowledge employees possess in using them. Make sure your staff first understands the problem you’re looking to solve with smart tools and appliances. Then provide hands-on introductory training, follow-up training and ongoing monitoring to ensure you’re getting the most you can from these new additions to your kitchen. If you have a tech skeptic on your staff, it may improve your eventual buy-in by working with this person on the new tool, then having them teach others on the team. ![]() If you’re not using technology to improve your employee engagement and retain staff, your competitors likely are – and that may well change the labor landscape for restaurants in the years ahead. According to Nation’s Restaurant News Intelligence’s 2023 Restaurant Technology Outlook, 47 percent of restaurants are interested in technology tools that support employee training and onboarding, 43 percent are interested in tools that support employee productivity, and 24 percent are looking for automated scheduling tools. AI is driving many of the new tools available in this area and delivering precise forecasts that allow operators to optimize staff headcounts according to demand, pay people on time, automate compliance, and gain more time to personally interact with staff and create the connections that encourage them to stick around. This will continue to be critical as wage increases and high turnover make it more expensive to train and employ staff. ![]() In the past few years, your restaurant has likely expanded the number of sales channels it offers to guests. Many full-service restaurants may have permanently ramped up their delivery and curbside pickup businesses, while quick-service restaurants may have made significant investment in their drive-thru business. But regardless of restaurant category, being able to deliver a consistent brand experience in every available ordering channel is critical – particularly if one channel seems to be getting more focus/investment/attention from guests than others. It starts by having a strong central nervous system in the form of a POS that streamlines all of these different business strands, makes it easy for staff and guests to process orders through them, and has functionality that allows the business to track and prioritize orders and other information in real time. Still, a recent report from Restaurant Technology News says many restaurant businesses are holding off on implementing such an all-in-one tech solution, largely because it might be too difficult for staff to learn in the midst of handling daily tasks and serving guests. However, it says, “utilizing these solutions can eliminate vendor fatigue for hospitality staff and free them up for higher-level activities…These solutions are giving them more time to prioritize, execute tasks, and delight guests, which ultimately increases efficiency and revenue for the business.” |
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