74% of employees believe they aren’t reaching their full potential. And 94% of workers say that they would stay with a company longer if it invested in training.
Those are just a couple of the reasons why it’s important to make sure that you continuously train your back-of-house restaurant staff. Doing so should also help your bottom line by increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of your team.
But you don’t want to have to dedicate time to training each employee manually – restaurant training videos are an engaging and versatile way to keep your back-of-house staff up to date.
Keep reading for a step-by-step guide to integrating restaurant training videos for your back of house.
An overview of using restaurant training videos in your back of house
Training videos are a time-efficient way to train your back-of-house employees – a single piece of content can train your entire team.
This has the potential to save you hours which you can dedicate to other parts of the business.
Plus, it’ll give your back-of-house workers the ability to complete the training on their schedule, which will likely increase training completion rates.
The simplest way to start using training videos in your restaurant is with digital signage. A good setup looks something like this:
- Add digital signage to your back of house
- Use your digital signage software to display training videos
- Let your employees access those videos on-demand
- Use technology to track training completions and prompt employees who are falling behind
Here’s what you’ll need to begin
The good news is that you don’t need much to start creating restaurant training videos and sharing them with your back of house. Here’s what you’ll need:
- Well-placed screens in your back of house
- Powerful digital signage software
- A camera and editing software to make your videos
That’s it – once you’ve got these items, you’re ready to start making your training videos!
Step 1: Invest in digital signage technology
First off, you’ll want to select your digital signage software. There are lots of options on the market to consider, but not all of these come equipped with the same features.
Ideally, you want to find digital signage software that’s versatile enough to handle each of the following tasks:
- Internal communications with employees (such as BOH training videos)
- On-premise advertisements for customers
- Entertainment for patrons
- Interactivity functionality for custom displays and internal training
If you’re looking for digital signage software that can handle all that, Shift could be just what you need.
Our software will make it easy for you to not just train your back-of-house employees with videos, but also enhance your customer experience in the front of house in order to help grow revenue.
Step 2: Add screen(s) to your back of house
Now you’re ready to add the screens that you’ll use to display your training videos.
You can also use these screens to keep your BOH employees on-task throughout their shifts and to convey important real-time information to them as they work.
With that in mind, it’s a good practice to place your BOH screens in spots where employees can see them while they work. That way, you can enjoy all of the performance-enhancing benefits of digital signage in your back of house.
Step 3: Invest in video creation tools
You may or may not need to pick up any special equipment to make your training videos.
Nowadays, even an iPhone is powerful enough to capture high-resolution video on its own. Plus, there are loads of free video editing software options available online.
So you may only need to purchase a camera or video editing software if you’re looking to make highly unique training videos, or plan to use these for other purposes for your business.
The bottom line? You don’t need to spend a fortune on special equipment to make high-quality training videos for your BOH.
Step 4: Create your content
Now you’re finally ready to start creating your training videos. We’ve included three tips for doing that in this section to help you make content that stands out.
Have a specific objective for each video
It’s always important to focus on a single, specific topic with each training video.
You typically don’t want to jumble a bunch of different ideas together just because they’re loosely related to one another, as this can get confusing.
When you have a singular objective and state it at the beginning of the video, your employees know what you expect them to understand once the video is complete.
That should help to focus their attention where you need it to get the most out of these training videos.
Focus on engaging your audience
For training videos to be effective, you need your workers to pay attention to them. That’s more likely to happen when you make the videos engaging.
You can do that in lots of different ways, but the general idea is to make the mundane more interesting.
You might achieve that by:
- Weaving a story throughout the training video
- Adding animations to your video (Shift can help you do this)
- Showcasing your personality in the video
- Using easy-to-understand diagrams
Short and sweet is always best
Finally, don’t make your training videos any longer than they need to be.
The average person’s attention span is decreasing, and training is rarely the highlight of an employee’s day! With this in mind, try to say what you need to say as concisely as possible.
Step 5: Share that content on-demand with digital signage
Once you’ve finished your videos, you’ll be ready to start sharing them with your BOH employees. There are two ways to go about this.
One option is to show the training video to everyone that’s on a shift at the same time. The other option is to allow employees to watch the video themselves whenever they’ve completed their normal tasks for the day.
Both of these strategies can be effective, and which will ultimately have more uptake will depend on your employees’ preferences and schedules.
For example, if you can carve out 15 minutes during each shift to show each of your BOH staff a training video, this could be a great way to get all your employees up to speed in a very quick manner.
However, if your restaurant’s shifts are usually very busy with little downtime, then this may not be the best plan. Instead, by allowing employees to watch the video on-demand, they’ll be able to get trained without impeding your restaurant’s schedule.
Regardless, you’ll want to make sure that each training video is available for employees to watch later if they need a recap.
Step 6: Add interactivity to your videos
While not an absolute must, it could be a smart move to bring some interactivity to your BOH training videos.
Research shows that learning is more effective when active. So if you’ve got some tough concepts that you want to share with your team, then adding a quiz or recap session could help them retain more of the information.
Shift can help you do this with QR code technology. Team members can easily access the quiz or recap via their mobile devices.
Step 7: Use technology to keep track of who completes each training module
You want to make sure that everyone on your back-of-house team completes their training promptly.
Technology can make this easier for you to verify. Employees that choose to watch a training video on demand can access the video by scanning a tracked QR code on the screen. This is an excellent way to keep track of who completed each training module and when they did so.
Don’t let these potential pitfalls derail your progress
Training videos can be a cost-effective way to keep your back-of-house employees engaged, safe and effective in the workplace.
Be mindful though of potential hindrances that could reduce the impact of your restaurant training videos, including:
- Creating videos that fail to capture and hold the audience’s attention
- Making your videos too long
- Failing to come up with a good system for making sure that everyone on your BOH team sees each training video
Shift makes it easier to get started with back-of-house restaurant training videos
Keeping your back-of-house workers up to date on training can be especially difficult because you may not interact with them as often as you interact with your front-of-house team.
Restaurant training videos delivered through digital signage solve this problem and ultimately save you time in your already busy schedule.
Training videos are a relatively easy way to communicate important information with your back of house. If properly leveraged, they can improve your team’s safety and efficiency, and ultimately your revenue.
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