A survey of restaurants conducted in 2014 discovered that 43 percent of respondents have recently increased their spending on training. And much of this training is in the form of eLearning, which is proving to be an efficient path for restaurants looking to improve the quality of training while minimizing its expense.
Tablets such as the iPad or Surface are quickly becoming the training technology of choice for restaurants seeking to upgrade the ways they teach workers necessary skills. This shift makes sense: Younger employees form a sizable chunk of the hospitality industry’s workforce, and these Millennials are already familiar, if not expert, with tablets and iPad. Furthermore, eLearning initiatives free managers to spend more time for their most important duty: managing. Here are some reasons why restaurants are turning to tablet training technology to improve efficiency:
Training in the Kitchen
Training employees to prepare something from the menu, whether it’s a new item or an established favorite, comes with a learning curve that can be reduced with hands-on experience. The only problem: A computer containing how-to videos or other content isn’t quite adaptable to a kitchen environment. Tablet training technology not only makes this content portable, but also more effective. For example, an employee being taught to cook a new dish can follow along with a training video, learning to prepare the item step by step in the kitchen, and pausing and rewinding as needed until he or she gets it right. In this way, workers master skills more thoroughly and in less time with consistency from location to location.
Training on the Go
Most restaurants don’t have much extra space to sit an employee in front of a screen to watch a training video. With tablets, these workers can view this content anywhere it’s convenient: in the break room, in a quiet corner of the dining room during a slow period, or even at home. This is a great strategy with general training content such as welcome-to-the-company videos that don’t require kitchen time but also shouldn’t interfere with the store’s operations.
Consistency Across Locations
An underlying philosophy of chain restaurants is that the taste and quality of food is similarly excellent at each location. Customers don’t want to be surprised to discover that the soup they love at their local store doesn’t taste quite the same (or as good) on the other side of town. Tablet training technology helps ensure consistency among multiple locations. Updates to a recipe, for example, can be easily sent to every appropriate iPad in the company so that the changes can be instituted quickly and uniformly.
Quicker, Impactful Rollouts
Restaurants spend an enormous amount of money and resources on new products. On the store level, the rollout must be successful to justify the development and marketing expense behind it. Tablet training technology can provide a big boost to a new menu item. First, employees will more quickly learn how to prepare and perfect the item, ensuring it’s the best it can be when customers order it for the first time. Second, the marketing behind a rollout must be skillfully executed at the local level, and tablet-based content can help managers and workers prepare for the debut in order to make it as impactful as possible.
What training technology does your restaurant use, and have you been happy with the results?
