By Christina Lundin
A lot can go wrong in the hustle and bustle of a busy kitchen.
A staggering 8,000 workplace injuries occur annually in the foodservice industry. In addition, improper storage and food preparation can leave restaurant patrons ill and put owners at risk of being fined for health code violations.
Proper restaurant safety training is essential to avoid the chaos of potential kitchen disasters.
The importance of safety training
Safety conditions can directly impact bottom lines in a few different ways.
First, food-related ailments impact nearly 50 million Americans every year. This is the direct result of poorly handled food.
Food poisoning, spoiled ingredients and unsanitary kitchens can make your customers sick. Not to mention, it hurts your restaurant’s reputation and ultimately reduces its revenue.
Employee accidents are also detrimental to your bottom line. You may be responsible for the costs of their medical treatment and paid time off as they recover.
Plus, staff shortages can be logistical nightmares that require rescheduling, altering shifts and can cost loads in overtime.
Cleanliness and care are critical in the food industry.
Stained clothes and dirty utensils reflect a poorly managed and unsanitary dining facility. However, traditional training methods are time sinks that require all employees to sit through long face-to-face safety meetings with little opportunity for engagement.
Ultimately, though, taking preventative measures by adequately training staff can save time and money.
With effective digital solutions, Shift makes it easy to save time and money while getting your staff up to speed.
Learn How To Integrate Restaurant Training Videos In You Back Of House
What is Shift?
Shift is an employee engagement platform that integrates seamlessly with your point-of-sale, learning management and other third-party systems. It’s ideal for restaurants that want to improve employee communication and access to training, and speed up the training process itself.
How does Shift help with restaurant safety training?
Shift can decrease training completion times by up to 30%.
By cutting out some of the most difficult and tedious aspects of employee training, you can save time and money using Shift. It takes care of the small details so you can focus on the big picture.
As any seasoned manager knows, some of the simplest tasks can take up valuable time. For example:
- Creating and disseminating effective staff reminders
- Tracking training completion
- Scheduling and conducting training with employees
Moreso, these processes are reiterative and can become cumbersome to everyone involved.
Shift alleviates some of these problems by:
- Notifying staff of mandatory training via on-premise TVs
- Highlighting employees who have not completed training
- Ensuring that staff can access training programs immediately by scanning QR codes on their phones
Altogether, it's a far more convenient way to get up to speed with compliance.
Learn About The 6 Things You Need In Your BOH Staff Training
Setting yourself up for success with ease
Getting started with Shift won’t break the bank or take too much time. It’s simple and easy to use, allowing you to reap its benefits quickly.
Here’s how you can get started.
1. Set up screens
First, set screens up wherever employees spend most of their time, like in the back of house. Be sure that you are intentional about where the screens go.
Try to maximize the efficiency of your display by placing them in areas where employees are likely to pay attention to what they see rather than just walking by.
2. Pick the right plan for you
There are many different options to choose from.
Do you have a large staff? Will you need to manage multiple displays at once? Shift has many different plan options to suit restaurants of all sizes.
3. Create a display that packs a punch
Once you’ve signed up for Shift and your screens are installed, you can use Shift to create displays for your employees.
We offer a suite of built-in customization tools to bring your most creative ideas to life. With Shift, you have everything you need to engage your employees in the most effective ways possible.
If you aren’t sure how to start, you can always use one of our display templates.
These are great, quick solutions for creating displays on the fly. They are predesigned and allow you to customize their formatting to include all the pertinent information you need.
4. Share important information at the right time
Now that you have the pieces together, you can determine the best times for your displays to share your content.
It’s easy to create an engaging and efficient rotation of information.
You may choose to display a reminder for staff to complete training, followed by a QR code that links out to training early in the day, and include a celebratory achievement screen for completion before the end of a shift.
There are endless possibilities since the displays can be fully customized to meet the needs of your team and your training goals.
What else can Shift help with?
Safety training is just one way Shift can help you make the most of digital signage. Keep reading to discover all of the ways Shift can help you make the most of your time and budget.
Multisystem integration
Shift works in tandem with different third-party software. As a result, you can easily display and train your employees on your point-of-sale (POS) and learning management systems (LMS).
For example, you may track your inventory through your POS system.
It’s easy to plug that data into Shift and create an incentive for workers to recommend specials that use excess food items, ultimately preventing wasted food and money.
Quick internal communication
Restaurants get busy and chaotic during peak hours. With so many moving pieces, it can be difficult for managers and staff to effectively communicate during times when it’s needed the most.
With Shift, missed communication opportunities aren’t something you have to worry about. You can share pertinent information with your entire team through a single, centralized display.
Gamify work
Research shows that competition can motivate employees.
Shift can help you take advantage of that by making it possible to gamify elements of work.
For example, you can track the performance of different workers to see which ones sell the most products. Then you can reward high-performing employees with a gift card.
Recognize achievements
High turnover rates plague the restaurant industry, and frequent retraining costs time and money.
Employee recognition is a simple way to make employees feel valued and help improve retention.
With customized Shift displays, it is easier than ever to make your employees feel seen, heard and celebrated.
Custom achievement displays, sharing rave customer reviews or creating coworker appreciation feeds can alter your workplace culture. You’ll incentivize excellent performance and emphasize the value of teamwork.
Share valuable feedback
Shift-powered displays are also great for sharing customer feedback with your team.
Depending on your objective, you may choose to share rave reviews or emphasize areas of growth for your team to target. In an industry that relies on excellent service, it can be the perfect way to remind staff of performance expectations.
Digital displays make it easy to revolutionize your restaurant
The Shift platform helps you reach your true potential with optimized training, incentives and engaging displays. It's a customizable solution to help you meet your staff's needs regardless of your restaurant's size.
Better invest in your team and your business’s growth.
