Time poor; Learning deprived

Supervisors in the hospitality industry know they have to train their staff to deliver service which matches the promise made to guests. However, other than monthly or quarterly team meetings, there never seems to be the time. Even then, the agenda never seems to have time to concentrate on training. Who has the time to develop training anyway?

Getting teams together for a special training event is difficult if not impossible.

The result is that staff are almost exclusively trained on-the-job with live customers as their guinea pigs.

Customer service is at best, haphazard. At worst the maxim. "We learn from our mistakes," is done at our customer's expense.

Using Micro Training to build skills

Training staff, new and old, needs to fit into time poor schedules. It needs to fit into fifteen or twenty minute time parcels before or after shift. Supervisors need to be able to locate training easily that takes no effort to deliver.

Micro training in the form of twenty minute quizzes, roles plays and demonstrations enables supervisors to actually train their staff away from the glare of discerning customers.

Make the training fun, introduce an element of competition and the ingredients for people actually remembering the training are coming together.

competition is best in teams as people are less reticent to participate in teams and can learn off each other. However, if a team on shift is too small then have one team member compete against another. Give prizes for the highest score. Keep a continuous tally and give a prize for the most improved over a month or a quarter. Get the team going and soon you will have the team building their own learning games.

Change Factory Micro Training Options

Change Factory is creating a series of Micro Training sets which are ready for you to use. Each consists of a quiz, short lecture or role plays on one side and a take away piece of learning on terms and methods on the flip side. The first set available is the restaurant training series.

Restaurant Micro Training Series One is five self contained quizzes and lectures in a zip file ready for you use to train your staff in:

1. Wine types and terms - a quick lecture and wine terms take away.
2. Booking process quiz and difficult customer take away.
3. Table service - finishing and clearing quiz and
4. Wine service quiz and serving wine take away
5. Superior service quiz and suggestive selling take away

Priced at AU$19.95, Restaurant Micro Training Series One will be immediately useful and will kick start your team into developing their own ideas.

To download Restaurant Micro Training Series One and pay by Visa or MasterCard or PayPal,

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