Value of Training in Restaurants

From my observations, most operators do not see value in training. Even if they do have a training program, it is often treated as a "download program" by managers who don't understand value in education either. Training in restaurants is too often delivered by people who do not want to train, filled with shortcuts and without performance metrics. Then operators say that there is no ROI on training, when they don't set up effectiveness measuring tools.

A comprehensive training program needs to include management training not only in operations but in leadership, in communication, in risk management and in public relations. A restaurant manager with a high school diploma who can't spell right or talk in public, he will make a poor trainer. Managers who think that education is a waste of time, they will make poor trainers too.

Kitchen training should include presentation, flair, professional curiosity, guests relations and ethics, even at an Applebee's or a Denny's restaurant. The level of culinary sophistication of the American public has refined tremendously in the last three decades. Restaurants need to catch up without necessarily becoming presumptuous.

Dining room training needs to include attention to detail. For instance, bringing a glass of soda with the beverage dripping from the sides, that's poor service. A server, who does not understand the difference between egg white and low cholesterol eggs omelets, is a poor server.

Training helps is the consistent delivery of perfect service and food quality. It helps reduce food and labor costs. And it improves organizational effectiveness.

Proper training reduces food costs by way of the server who can explain recipes to guests and by correctly entering food orders. Part of performance management, restaurant operators need to quantify comps per guest count, voids per shift and the value of errors to sales ratio.

Proper training reduces food costs by way of the cook who properly executes recipes. At a popular steakhouse that serves over a dozen different steaks, they always have a steak inventory discrepancy at the end of the night. They produce some items instead of others.

Proper training reduces labor cost because it is a dominant factor in employee retention. As an example, I know of the case of a restaurant operator who has reduced management training from 12 weeks to 8 weeks and started hiring managers at $5,000 less because it is an employers' market. But the management turnover rate jumped from 30% to 150%. So instead of reducing management training cost by 40%, it just tripled.

Training is thus an important business factor in the restaurant industry, but not the only one. Operators need to measure their training effectiveness and correct their systems inefficiencies.