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FROM THE FIELD
November 2007
Testing Your Own Training Program
Sure enough, I peered into the bag as I wandered out into morning rush-hour traffic, and my drive-through breakfast order was wrong again. That made about three out of the last eight at that particular store. That's a ridiculous failure rate.
Immediately the mind raced back to several years ago, when a cocky speaker at an industry seminar had said some very insulting (and stupid) things about the state of the American workforce, especially in foodservice. At that time, unemployment was about 2%, and it seemed that what was left at the bottom of the labor pool was not worth having. Everywhere, people griped about the uselessness of younger employees in particular.
But the truth—then, as now—is that foodservice draws from the same labor pool as many other industries do. How is it that young people can be good at other things, but not foodservice? The fact is that the problem lies not so much in the people as in the training, or lack of it. As an industry, foodservice doesn't train people how or what to do, let alone educate them as to why, and we don't teach them to aspire. It's as if we've consciously decided it's more profitable to have bad help than to spend anything on training.
Some years ago—some decades, actually—I did a couple of years as a training administrator for one of the most sophisticated training groups on the planet, the Air Force. I got trained for that job. I got certified. And then my job was to ride herd on section supervisors who were responsible for following very rigid training programs with their subordinates. Then some years later, as a sideline I became a trainer again, this time certified by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation.
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"Define tasks, prescribe training and practice methods, certify proficiency and document thoroughly."
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Some basic notions of training came out of those experiences. First, if youx re going to be serious about training, you have to develop a program that does four things. It has to define specific tasks, prescribe the training and practice methods, certify proficiency and thoroughly document the progress. A fifth thing, reward, should go without saying.
How many of those things does your training program do? Some of you have good ones. Some of you, judging by results, donx t.
What's your training program for kitchen maintenance, for example, or for store-level work in general? Do you have organized, formal training materials? You should have a list of every single task, itemized, from floor cleaning to condenser cleaning to step-by-step steamer and soft-serve maintenance, etc. The list probably should appear on a grid, with blocks for certifying initials. Maybe re-certifications should be prescribed for regular intervals—quarterly, or semiannually, whatever. Just because somebody knew how to do it correctly three years ago doesn't mean he still does. And anyway, equipment and practices change.
Details can vary, but the point is that you should have some kind of organized document that indicates everything an employee should be trained for, when the training took place, and when a trainer signed off on proven proficiency. Once certified proficient, that employee is held accountable for doing it right every time. At any given time, you should be able to look at a piece of paper and see what an employee has been trained to do, and what tasks remain uncertified.
Logically, you'd bring a new employee in with the less demanding tasks, and work upward to the more complex ones. Again, logically, you'd have only certified employees performing each task.
Most serious trainers say trainees like to prove proficiency. They like to achieve, and they like to be respected. No surprise there. Want more motivation? Tie pay to task proficiencies. More task certifications should mean more money, more respect and so on.
A topic like this could take a hundred pages, obviously. But this isn't rocket science. It doesn't require hard-to-find knowledge. It just requires persistence. And maybe somebody with some experience at it.
Brian Ward
Chief Editor
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