Mistakes in a business are costly. Incorrect orders, inefficient business practices, and poor customer service can sink a company before it ever has a chance to be successful. It’s essential to have a well-trained staff that fully engages and commits to their roles to avoid such problems.
What is Training?
Training involves keeping your staff current on procedures they need to be familiar with for success at the company. Staff training can look like a million different things. It depends on who you’re training, what your industry is, and what the goal of the training is.
The primary group to receive training are new employees, familiarizing them with your company’s mission, rules, and standard operating procedures. Training will also be necessary for current employees for new implementations, to guide a recently promoted employee, or in the case of regular employee development.
Staff Training allows business owners to improve their employee’s productivity and safety by imparting skills and job-related knowledge to help them succeed. Training gives better employee flexibility in the workplace and can reduce turnover.
Training vs. Development
Training puts the focus on new information. Staff training may look like preparing a new employee or updating a current employee on changing procedures. As a business grows and your employees advance in the company, they will likely need training on new business practices, equipment, or positions in the case of promotions.
Development involves ongoing training to encourage staff to perform their best at work. Incorporating this training style encourages your employees to remain engaged and excited about their roles at the company. Developmental training may focus on addressing weak spots, improving work culture, or training for redundancy in different positions. Regular developmental sessions can help foster creativity and productivity while reducing employee turnover.
Why Should You Train Your Staff?
Regular training is a factor in employee success and business growth. Initial training improves confidence and builds employee satisfaction while fostering growth and consistency in their performance. With happier staff, a business can worry less about high turnover rates and watch its reputation thrive through employee initiative.
So far, the facts have backed this theory up. One study found that companies with more training saw 24% higher profits due to higher employee engagement. Another found that companies that managed a 5% increase in customer retention due to better services saw a 25 to 95% increase in profits. In the case of employee retention, QATC discovered a lack of training and development as a top reason for employees to leave a company.
Here are just a few of the benefits that are associated with regular training.
- Transparency
- Positivity
- Improved morale
- Less supervision required
- Fewer accidents
- Increased productivity
How Should You Train Your Staff?
A highly effective training session requires specific goals from the business owner. Ask questions to help develop your training objective.
- What are the needs and wants of your employees and your business?
- What is your ideal employee?
- What is the mission of this training?
- How does this mission tie back to developing your ideal employee?
Set clear objectives and select the training that melds with your intended goals. Evaluate the training programs regularly and take criticism from your staff to improve your sessions.
Types of Training
There are countless types of training out there. Selecting a training style goes back to your goals for the session. Each training type lends itself to a particular skill or trait you expect from your ideal employees. Here are just a couple that may be relevant to your business.
- Skills training: This can include any basic skills expected of your employee. Skills training will likely be the best option when onboarding new staff or implementing new procedures or programs in your business.
- Cross-functional training: Skill redundancy sets up an efficient business. Relying on only one or two staff members to have the skills necessary for your business to run effectively can cause headaches if those employees quit or get sick.
- Team training: Teamwork is vital in most industries. Helping your employees find their rhythm as a unit without the stakes of a usual workday can help improve their workflow.
- Diversity training: Ensuring an inclusive and accepting environment in your workplace can be a game-changer for staff happiness. Happy employees are successful employees, so make sure your staff understands the importance of inclusivity in your business.
- Compliance training: For any industry that must follow specific legal guidelines, compliance training is a requirement. A restaurant, for example, must obey all health code procedures to operate. Employee fluency here is an absolute necessity.
- Customer service training: Customer service industries rely on this training to ensure success. Staff with poor customer service skills can destroy your company’s reputation and dramatically affect profits.
Training Formats
After selecting the best type of training for your goals, you must decide the best format for a training session. Training format can depend on your specific work environment, industry, and business goals. These include
- Online learning: A virtual training session offers the most flexibility for your staff and allows them to learn in their homes, but this training may not work for more hands-on protocols.
- Manager coaching: Individualized coaching from a manager is a great way to get the most out of your employees. It may be difficult with more staff or an already overwhelmed management team.
- Hands-on training: Hands-on training is perfect for the day-to-day building blocks of the job but won’t work for more abstract aspects of the workplace, like diversity training or compliance training.
- Role-playing: Role-playing can be an effective tool for customer-facing positions. This method allows employees to practice necessary skills without the added stress of failure during a shift.
- Classroom style training: Online training has replaced this style in a post-COVID world, but you may still prefer in-person interactions to deepen the learning experience.
Training and the Restaurant Business
In the restaurant business, ongoing training is key to delivering a stellar dining experience. You’ll want your staff to train in customer service and have technical training for restaurant-specific equipment or familiarity with menus.
Kitchen staff should foster creativity. They can help design menus for each season or a special event. You can also use customer comment cards to help find weak points as objectives for ongoing developmental training. MustHaveMenus has a wealth of different templates to help make the process easier for your team. From comment cards to simple menus, MustHaveMennus has got you covered.
