The Covid-19 pandemic has made our social life almost come to a stand-still. Unlike the earlier days when families used to dine at restaurants and hang out at coffee chains, nowadays, most customers prefer to stay at home. As per Bloomberg reports, one-third of the restaurants in the US may face permanent closure this year.
If you own one such restaurant, don’t worry as things will gradually get better. The restaurants can resume indoor service and operate with 25-50% capacity. However, what you need to assess: are you well prepared to meet the expectations of the diners in the post-COVID world?
One of the major challenges you would face is how to train restaurant staff after the pandemic. The fear of getting contracted by the infection has made customers more cautious and they are concerned about hygiene and safety measures.
Training your Restaurant Staff in the Post Pandemic World
Gone are the days when all the new staff members at your restaurant gathered in a meeting room, and the training sessions used to be delivered for numerous employees together. As social distancing has become the norm in the post-COVID world, you cannot afford to groom the staff using traditional training methods anymore. In almost all other industries, the training and meeting sessions have gone virtual including educational institutions, software companies, pharmaceutical majors, and financial giants.
All you need to come up with is a fresh approach on how to train restaurant staff after the pandemic.
How Technology will Change the Way Restaurants Function
As you are gearing up to resume your restaurant operations, the first challenge will be to train staff on new technology and systems. Though you can have plenty of jobs for new recruits, you still need experienced staff to lead the important roles in front office, warehouse, and kitchen. As discussed earlier, the traditional methods of managing restaurant operations must undergo a drastic change.
Your staff needs to be well versed in using software systems and processes as technology plays an integral role in POS terminals, inventory management, labour management, and other systems. The senior staff members who are not tech-savvy need to get accustomed to the latest technologies and systems. As everyone prefers mobile phones, you need to ensure that training options are also available on the mobile platforms.
Using eLearning to Train Restaurant Staff
As we cannot travel like before, using eLearning to train restaurant staff has found increased acceptance across industries. There are several E-learning courses that have been of immense help to the restaurants in training their employees. With these courses, the restaurant staff doesn’t have to travel, there’s no need for a live instructor, and the classes are available on-demand. As interaction is the most important element in any training, the E-learning interface is lively and keeps the learners engaged.
Technology plays an integral part in restaurant management, thanks to apps such as inresto that help in integrating both front-end and back-end operations.
It’s essential for your new employees to have a fair idea about the various aspects of restaurant management. With the help of E-learning courses, you can train the restaurant staff in advance before they work in the live environment. However, you might be thinking that the scenarios will be entirely different while working in the actual world. There’s always the option of delivering training in real-time as and when the staff needs it. To strengthen the training methods, E-learning companies have come up with app walk-throughs for individual processes. This feature makes life much easier for the restaurant staff.
How E-learning Benefits Restaurant Management
Let’s look at the various areas in restaurant management operations that are covered as part of E-learning. Due to these courses, how to train restaurant staff after the pandemic is not an issue anymore.
Restaurant Inventory Management
New employees at your restaurant will get a fair idea about the various aspects of inventory management through e-learning programs. Inventory management is much easier through restaurant management software as it leads to leaner inventory levels. Further, these systems also help you identify wasteful expenditure and the reasons it leads to an increase in food costs.
Through this identification, unnecessary costs can be eliminated after understanding the root cause. You can maintain the optimum inventory levels as the software suggests the right amount of inventory to be maintained accurately. This accurate forecasting lets you calculate the amount of food to be prepared and cut down food wastage to a great extent.
Labour Management Operations
Manually scheduling the employees to work in various shifts is one of the biggest challenges of any restaurant. It’s not a pain anymore as software tools let you automate shift schedules. It also checks the timings of each shift schedule against the local and state labour laws to ensure that regulatory compliance is met. The staff’s punching timings, overtime, and break timings can be easily viewed from anywhere using the software. It’s of real help for employees undergoing e-learning lessons as they get to know the labour management practices before working in the actual world.
Reports Generation
E-learning lessons can take the employees through the various aspects of report generation. You can take accurate decisions with the help of real-time information updates. For the managers in charge of several restaurants, the performance figures of each restaurant will be available at their fingertips. They can access the reports from any location and from any device. You also get the option of creating tasks and assigning them to various users. If they do not complete the tasks on time or if there are any deviations, the person who created the task will be alerted.
If you feel that the labour costs are too high or the stock of inventory is running too low, you can take immediate decisions. There’s no need to check multiple places as the information is readily available at your fingertips.
Parting Words
During the pandemic, using e-learning to train restaurant staff is, without a doubt, a real blessing. However, there are certain areas where hands-on training is necessary. Hence, the right approach would be to come up with a mix of both traditional methods and e-learning techniques.
