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Some restaurant managers believe that cross-training is simply a tactic for staffing simplicity. In fact, cross-training can be much more than that.
When restaurants effectively cross train their labor, they build a team that thrives on versatility and flexible interests. As you cut bar labor costs, optimize sales by comparison, and create a workplace culture that actually stimulates your employees, you might start to wonder why cross-training didn’t become a focus area before.
The effort to compete in this hospitality landscape shouldn’t be understated as a need. Where new competitors emerge almost daily, cross training could rise up to the challenge. Already, many managers are turning to this training effort as a way to boost the quality of their service and to secure employees with more fulfilling work, while enjoying lower turnover rates, labor shortages, and uncertainty.
Having a fully flexible culture of professions could turn out to be a game changer for those on the cusp of high-sale, high-margin success and slipping into the drain with inefficiency and bloated operational and overhead expenses. Training in multiple areas shows an interesting, hidden source of revenue and profitability at bars. Increasing the value you deliver with the same service, food, and drinks can have an impact without changing your offers..
Explore some of the approaches below to see how you might increase the strength of your restaurant or bar operations by bridging “talent siloes.” Interconnected training programs and steady managerial oversight will help staff develop the skill and confidence they need to bring business benefits.
Key Takeaway: Cross-training safeguards operations, but it also limits the effect of bored talent from swaying unpredictably over service quality. Empowering your staff to become more dynamic helps them deliver exceptional quality— and far more consistent experiences—for your customer base. The effect this has on the restaurant, bar, and hospitality industry is obvious to all (especially your most loyal brand advocates).
3 Steps to Incorporate Cross-Training for Restaurants
Sometimes the key to an effective cross training program isn't overthinking the possibilities of who can do what. Instead, managers should probably start with the rules where flexibility delivers the most immediate impact on revenue.
In short, we should be identifying the most high impact roles and structuring training programs around them. When to identify these rules you can move on to teaching, refining, practicing, and measuring the success of your new program.
Let's spell this out a bit more in detail for each of these three basic phases of implementation.
Step 1. Choose High-ROI Roles
If you start with roles where added flexibility could mean more immediate ROI for the company, you're going to be looking at priority roles like these:
- Servers
- Cooks
- Bartenders
- Hosts
You won’t see a sommelier certification at the top of the list because of its closer relationship with the details of bells and whistles, despite their great effect on experiences overall. Smelling wine serves the restaurant less than direct service staff. The sommelier salary is also not quite as cost-effective when compared.
Take the example of a high-volume brunch restaurant chain stationed downtown. They offer delivery, but such a casual dining chain might want to show their delivery drivers how to handle phone orders, reducing the need for staff to be committed only to front-of-house or back-of-house.
In other examples, servers or waiters should probably learn basic bartending and hosting duties. On the other hand, line cooks can be trained to switch stations, offer service, and even make a quick run with inventory management procedures, considering their experience behind the scenes.
Bartenders, who already run a key role in almost any restaurant or bar, could discover skill in areas like server support (bringing drinks to eager tables during a rush) or cashing checks while they’re on the floor. They might also be interested in learning to prepare cocktail recipes and standardizing serving sizes or strategies as more managerial duties.
Step 2. Structure Multi-Modal Training
Secondly, when you are training these servers or bartenders and hosts, shadowing can be very effective, for initial costs and for staff knowledge gains.
If you pair a server with a bartender for two shifts per week, for instance, each is more likely to learn drink recipes and variant styles of customer service techniques while at the bar—compared to trying to get comfortable after finishing a course-like training session. This can also be more practical for restaurants that don't have a ton of time to sit their staff down, challenging them with theory and pop quizzes.
Other strategies include micro learning and “gamifying” where short lessons are given over 15 minutes or less, followed by workshops that immediately practice those skills. This could work for getting staff ready for troubleshooting POS systems and handling common customer complaints.
Step 3. Practice, Measure, and Refine Talents
The final step to giving your line cooks POS skills and challenging bartenders with table service will be careful assessment: is restaurant cross-training bringing business benefit?
To answer this question you should look at various metrics:
- labor cost percentage
- table turnover rate
- employee retention
For calculating labor costs, you should aim for a 5 to 10% reduction in the overall spend on scheduling. When you look at table turnover, you should see that cross-train staff are able to improve the speed of service and therefore the collection of Revenue and checks by at least 20% during daily sales.
While both are average industry improvements with cross-training systems, employee retention is more complicated. As a director, trainer, or manager, you should measure these on a quarterly basis and make sure that you're comparing retention with promotions and transfer exits.
Frequently Asked Questions on Restaurant and Bar Cross-Training
If leadership wants to appreciate the nuances of cross-training in bars and restaurants, it's going to demand serious attention to the most common concerns and popular misconceptions about this strategy and labor-saving approach.
Look at the most frequently asked questions below, and you'll see restaurant managers (as well as bar owners and wine directors) look at cross-training from many angles before gearing up to develop a full-fledged training program.
What is the biggest challenge when implementing cross-training?
The main challenge is usually maintaining service quality while training staff and giving them confidence in new, unfamiliar roles. This can be addressed by implementing training gradually, starting with complementary roles (like servers learning hosting), and ensuring proper supervision during the learning period.
How long does it typically take to cross-train an employee effectively?
Cross-training can take 2-4 weeks for each role or “title” your employees are stretching their existing skills to fit and fulfill.
Depending on complexity, you should aim for 1 to 2 training shifts per week. Outside of training on those days or parts of a larger shift, let the staff maintain their primary duties. This will give them more time to practice and focus on building up talents in new areas, before their tasks with switching over midstride—especially for advanced skills.
Will cross-training increase labor costs initially?
Investments run throughout the process of training, developing efficient ways to teach new skills, and the hours spent with slower-paced practice. Nevertheless, this initial “starting” investment can be quickly conquered and recaptured within as few as 3 months.
Managers quickly notice much less overtime, better coverage in schedules, fewer holes and deficiencies when switching team members (from lunch to dinner, for example). Leadership recognizes that the improved operational efficiency soon pays for itself when savings greatly exceed these relatively slight additions to training costs.
How do you motivate employees to participate in cross-training?
If managers can offer clear incentives like wage increases for additional skills, the team will feel more urgency and interest in adding their energy and commitment to the mix.
Beyond this, some employees see appeal in being able to secure different scheduling opportunities as well as the prospect of career advancement—horizontally or vertically. Ensure that you emphasize how cross-training enhances their resume and job outlook to make the work more engaging, minimizing the idea that its sole purpose is to save the business money in operations.
Does cross-training affect service quality or inventory counting?
When implemented correctly, cross-training typically improves service quality by creating more knowledgeable staff and reducing wait times. The key is maintaining high training standards and not rushing the learning process. One of the biggest challenges is getting team members to the point that they feel confident and self-assured with new skills.
These could be talents or techniques learned over years of different experiences in hospitality. Although, you can often rely on your entire team across training. That makes it easier to translate and share different skill sets with relative ease since there are many different “experts” (and possible teachers) on the floor.
