Top 3 Benefits of Implementing a Digital Training Platform in Your Restaurant
In this article: The top 3 benefits of using a digital training platform to train servers, bartenders, and restaurant support staff.
It’s January - you know what that means! Time to reorganize and rethink SOP’s, training procedures, and everything else that makes your restaurant run smoothly.
After the holiday season most restaurants experience the slowest time of year. January and February (with the exception of Valentine's Day of course) can be painfully slow, but it’s the perfect time to do those things you don’t have time for all year.
This can include everything from deep cleaning, to finally putting that popular special on the menu, or even reimagining your entire concept.
If you’re using traditional pen and paper training methods, then you might want to use this time to implement a new digital training program.
There are lots of great benefits to using a digital platform for team training, but today we’re taking a look at the top 3 that most of our clients experience.
Benefit #1: Easy access to training materials
The top benefit of using a digital training platform is having easy access to all of the restaurant's training materials.
With traditional training methods, usually there is a packet or handbook given to new employees when they're onboarding that includes all of their training materials - menus, uniform guidelines, steps of service, etc.
While this is super common and most people won’t have an issue with it, there are a few downsides to using traditional printed training materials:
- They’re constantly going to be out of date, and communicating changes means reprinting for the entire team
- They get lost
When you implement a digital training platform, especially one that has a mobile application, you’re not only giving your new hires the ability to easily access all of their training materials at any time, but you're also giving your managers an easy way to keep everything up to date and communicate those changes.
Plus, there will be no more missing papers or excuses for not coming into training with your checklists or other materials!
Related: Keeping Your Training Material Up To Date
Benefit #2: Automations
The second benefit of implementing a digital training platform is that many of them have automation features that will drastically help you and your team save time and streamline your processes.
For example, with Yelli, every time you invite a team member to join your account their training plan will automatically be assigned to them based on their job role. This way you and your management team don’t need to individually create and assign training over and over again.
Other automations might include auto-assigned tests or quizzes and training material that is automatically organized by department/job role.
Automations help your team save time because the software automatically completes tasks for them. Instead of spending time issuing training or organizing documents, your team can be on the floor with guests.
Related: Building an Effective Training Program for New Restaurant Employees
Benefit #3: Team engagement
The third and final benefit of implementing a digital training platform is that it can help improve team engagement, both for new hires and veteran employees.
With traditional pen and paper training methods, printed handouts are often too information-dense, making it hard for your team to retain information.
With training software like Yelli, you can break down your training materials into smaller, easier to find sections like menus, sidework, table layouts, etc.
This way when a new hire is working through their training they aren’t as overwhelmed by 50+ pages of documentation, and can instead find the exact information they need in the way they’re used to finding it - on their phone or tablet!
The key to a successful training program is getting your team members to actually learn the material you need them to. Implementing a digital training program is a great way to encourage your employees to do that.
Related: Removing “The Binder Method”: How Restaurants Should Be Modernizing Their Staff Training
Conclusion
It’s no secret that staff training is a big task, and it is also one of the most important parts of running a successful restaurant.
Our goal at Yelli is to help restaurant teams around the world improve and modernize their training programs. We believe that implementing a digital training program is the best way to do this, because it:
- Makes accessing training materials easier for everyone
- Helps to automate and streamline training
- Improves employee engagement, especially with younger employees
If you’re interested in learning more about what Yelli can do for your team, schedule a demo with us here or get started for free right now.
See you on the floor! :)
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