E-Learning in the Right Place, at the Right Time, at the Right Price - By Jeff Tenut, E-Learning Instructional Design, DiscoverLink

Chris Nelms from On the Border, Lisa Schweickert from Golden Corral, and Mark Lindquist from Culvers will each discuss the methods and approach each of their organizations utilized to incorporate E-Learning into their programs and maximize benefit. I will then describe the value that E-Learning brings to the restaurant industry and will demonstrate how investing time and training in an employee drives revenue and increases the store and organization's overall success.

Chris Nelms - On the Border

Focus: Consistent Message, Driving Hospitality through Engagement, Coaching and Translation

Corporate worked with Operations and Training to devise a campaign that would change the way we do business. We did not think the traditional style of dissemination would drive such an important message to the field. From training regional directors who teach district managers who teach general managers to the team members...We Were Worried!

Being worried made us think of different options, so we enlisted the help of our fellow CHART members from DiscoverLink who had done some research and development work for us before. They worked with us to determine the metrics we wanted to achieve: They were:

a. A Consistent Message

b. Driving Hospitality through Engagement

c. Coaching for Managers

d. Translation

1. Consistent Message - We thought of how many trainers we had and how the message gets changed or watered down, or most importantly loses the passion. We believe that we have great trainers in the field, but we also believe the most senior team members are good workers, but may not be the best trainers. We wanted everyone to see the same message the way we imagined it from the beginning.

2. Driving Hospitality through Engagement - At On The Border we have a party at every restaurant every day, and we wanted to drive our team member engagement in the same way. We are upbeat, and we want the learner to see that in our training program. We knew the look and excitement we wanted every team member to see, but we also knew our in-store trainers would not understand the passion behind this campaign. We also had to show the team members what was in it for them.

3. Coaching - You can't successfully roll out a new program without the buy-in from the managers. They had to understand the program so they could coach it. They knew this program meant increasing return guest visits!

4. Translation - From our survey data, we received an overwhelming number of comments that in order for this program to be 100% On The Border, everyone in the restaurant had to be part of this new program. We needed the same impact in a different language.

Lisa Schweickert - Golden Corral

Focus: High Standards, Just-In-Time, Saving Money

Golden Corral has been involved in E-Learning since 1999. One of our Company Beliefs is that 'We never stop striving to improve.' E-Learning has helped us follow through on that Belief. E-Learning not only allows for effective, consistent communication of information, it allows us to track training and continually set higher standards for restaurant operations. As our restaurants improve the percentage of Co-workers certified, we have seen our turnover decrease, positive guest feedback increase and CSQ scores increase. E-Learning is one of several tools we have provided to our managers to help with the people side of our business.

1. We wanted our Co-workers to be able to train anytime in the restaurant and we wanted everyone to have a consistent message. With E-Learning, it is available anytime and we know exactly what the learner is seeing!

2. We wanted our compliance training online to guarantee compliance but also to reduce training time. During our initial move to our current format of E-Learning we saved 20 minutes per Co-worker. We have recently revised our Orientation/ Compliance courses using new, more interactive templates from DiscoverLink and have saved an additional 1½ hours of training time for every new Co-worker.

3. We then wanted our Co-workers to know their progress and get recognized for it. So they are now given online pins demonstrating their increasing competence. The more they learn, the more the top of their page lights up with Pins which corresponds with the actual pins they receive.

4. DiscoverLink helped us with reporting and to see that not only does the LMS track the individual development of each team member; it also can track the overall compliance of each restaurant. We are able to prove that our restaurants that are most compliant with their training are also generating the lowest turnover, highest sales increases and best profit!

5. We decided we wanted current standardized testing in the field to remove the chance for error and out-dated tests. So we put our quizzes and tests for our Management Training program online.

6. The CBT has become a vital tool for the operators. It is their portal for not only Co-worker and Management training but also provides an additional link to our internal Portal, our online applicant tracking system, our Co-worker on-line pre-screener, Co-worker recognition prize site, and ServSafe(TM) online.

We are not settling for status quo, we know we can always find new ways of being better! E-Learning allows us to continually improve and add more value. By teaming with a group that knows the restaurant industry we have a partner who can build tools that are operationally friendly and applicable. DiscoverLink is continually challenging us to look at our training from a fresh perspective and brings new ideas on how to continually move our training forward.

Mark Lindquist - Culvers
Focus: Quality, Culture and High Expectations

At Culvers we wanted to use E-Learning to focus on quality, culture development and meeting our high expectations. We engaged DiscoverLink to help us hone in on these focuses and to define what they meant to us.

Quality

• Boils down to the leader - modeling the expectations

• Teaching WHY - guests eat with their eyes, if it looks good it'll taste even better

• Inspect what you expect - 'Would I be happy if this were my meal?' If the answer is no, it clearly doesn't meet Culver's quality standards.

• Take pride in what you do! - respected career

Culture

• Core values that built Culver's brand ('human' side of our business)

• Inspirational leaders who create an atmosphere of caring - great place to be!

• There's a big difference between friendly people and people who truly 'care.'

• Caring creates an emotional connection that makes 'team members' and 'guests' feel welcome, wanted and comfortable - making it easier to choose Culver's.

High Expectations

• Team members crave knowledge

• Build meaningful purpose into their work with WHY!

• Empower the team - use their best judgment at any given time to provide solutions

• Spirit that allows there personality to shine by owning it!

• Commitment to teamwork - everyone makes a difference

How does E-Learning help us with this? It teaches in fun, fast paced, interactive training and reduces boredom. Team members are retaining what they learn better. It's hands-on practice prior to reaching the station position. They have a greater awareness of what's expected. Trainers coach more and direct less. And, team members are now receiving consistent information.

Jeff Tenut - DiscoverLink
Focus: Using Training to solve problems, invest in the business and employees, increase competencies, and driving revenue as an ROI.
*Given that you hire a person that adds value immediately through personality, perspective, behavior, professionalism, intuitiveness, integrity, etc...

We at DiscoverLink teach our clients how to use training to solve problems, invest in their businesses and in their employees and increase competencies. The case study examples showcased above are real life stories of how trainers at these companies used E-Learning to address their company issues. Here's a way we evaluate a particular issue, in this case how valuable it is to retain an employee.

Restaurant Theorem 1.1

Does the Employee have Value?
1.1.1 A new employee starts with a competency of 0, but by their fifth day they contribute, their competency may be at a 5. Due to increased knowledge and experience they are productive and therefore have value. (S1)

Is an Employee an Asset?
1.1.2 Because of 1.1.1, employees have value. If you lose an employee there is a cost to replace them. If there is a cost to replace them, then employees are an asset. (S2)

Is the Employee an Investment?
1.1.3 Because an employee has value (1.1.1) and they are an asset (1.1.2), can they also increase in value? If that employee who worked 5 days quits, you lost an employee with a value of 5. You have to start over by hiring a new employee and their value starts at 0. If that same person stays, due to increased knowledge and experience, their value increases to 6 or 7. Because an employee's value can increase over time, it makes them an investment! (S3)

If you had an A player that has worked for you for 1 year, look at the investment you have in them. If they told you they were going to quit and now you had to replace them with a new hire, that new hire does not have the same level of knowledge and experience. How will that difference in the new employee affect their co-workers, guests, manager and company?

LOSE THE EMPLOYEE (Now competency of 0) KEEP THE EMPLOYEE (Competency of 8)

Decreased experience means they are not able to help others, they in fact will need help Higher level of teamwork

The guest may not get the best service, the right answers, relationship building Guest knows this person, good service and good food, a sense of caring with experience

The manager, after spending all that time selecting and hiring a new employee, they will need to bail out the new person more often, answer more questions, rework the schedule considering a weaker employee...it costs more money to bring on a new person... The manager knows this employee is experienced and needs only to thank them and praise them.

The company as a whole suffers with the constant investment in training. Turnover is generally accepted. Don't accept turnover, work to reduce it, synergy grows at a higher percentage than its parts. If everyone's competency grows by 10%, the restaurant productivity grows by over 25%.

Here's the Challenge: Look at a cure for attrition, training is important, but what are you doing beyond training? What are the necessary steps needed to keep great people? What is the company doing, the manager doing, the Training and HR departments doing?

IDEAS:
1. Training should never stop (career path to management and beyond)

2. Manager input is very important (connecting, praising, coaching)

3. The new employee wants to fit in (Do they have a training plan with two-way expectations? Do they have an in-store mentor to connect with?)

4. Is the manager setting them up for success? This generation in the work force will conform to whatever is in place. Set high standards, communicate with them and hold them to it! (Use preshift meetings, new product rollout, weekly evaluations for new team members.)

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