Chapter 13 - Training Employees

Training in the past | Management’s responsibility for training | Kinds of training | if you are going to train | Levels of learning | Approach to training | Presentation of job skills | Training pointers | How to make a job breakdown | Training with pictures | training films | Teach more than the job | Summary

Training is a word like "education," easy to say but not too clear at times as to what is meant. Education, it is said, can cure most of the world's woes. Certainly training is a keystone of good food service. But what kind of training? Who is to do it? How?

The European restaurant of quality has a built-in training program. Learning any part of restaurant operation or management is a well defined process. Everyone—rich or poor—who wishes to learn the business takes part in the program which is the apprenticeship system. In the dining room the learner starts as a commis (assistant to a waiter) or debarraseur (bus boy). Over a period of years he may arrive at being a full fledged waiter or chef de rang. In the kitchen the new employee may begin his career as a dishwasher and after five years be appointed a department chef.

Time was when highly skilled cooks from Italy, France, and Ger­many came to this country in large numbers and it was not unusual to hear no English spoken in the kitchens of the fine restaurants. When the Ritz Hotel in New York City was opened, for example, recruiters were sent to Paris to bring an entire brigade of French cooks to man its kitchens. Today this source of skilled labor is negligible, and high cuisine is less popular, not as highly prized as it was before World War I.

The apprenticeship system, long a source of trained culinarians, has found few persons interested in it in the United States for the last 20 years. The system which provided well rounded experience over a period of two to five years has little appeal to the young man today. He can get a fairly well-paying job without the years of apprenticeship. Most restaurant jobs are taught in a few days or weeks, especially in restaurants that have semi-fixed, cycle, or fixed menus.

Academic cooking schools have never supplied a large number of cooks, bakers, waiters and hostesses for restaurant work. Some public school systems—Chicago, Detroit, Seattle are examples—offer cooks' training. A few private schools give courses for cooks, bakers and stewards. The Army, Navy and Air Force, of course, are constantly training cooks and bakers but on an elementary, institutional feeding level rather than what is needed for commercial cookery.

Management's Responsibility for Training

This leaves the big job of training to restaurant management. Trade schools and colleges are not going to do it. Trade associations will not be able to do it. You, the operator on the job, will do it by training on the job. State restaurant associations like Texas and Indiana are showing how a training program can train supervisors to train em­ployees. Fine educators like Travis Elliot can help managers learn how to train. The National Restaurant Association can sponsor management short courses. But, when the chips are down, 85 percent of the training must be done on the job. Food sanitation courses and traveling training courses can supplement what you do, but they can never substitute for on-the-job orientation and training.

The chains such as Howard Johnson's, Stouffers, Hot Shoppes and Morrison's Cafeterias have specialized training personnel—chefs, host­esses, salad makers, bakers—who travel from unit to unit teaching their skills both to supervisors and employees. These traveling trainers teach mostly by demonstration and actually working with a crew in setting up a cafeteria line, cooking, and other job performances.

Training is a continuous function in restaurants, the process by which information, skills, and attitudes are communicated to others. Inexperienced employees are taught how to perform their jobs. New employees, experienced or not, must learn the particular recipes, equipment, and ways of doing things in their new jobs. Better methods, better equipment replace yesterday's ways and are explained to all employees through training. Micro-wave cookery, for example, will necessitate re-training of all cooks using it.

Supervisors tend to work at and emphasize those aspects of their job which management emphasizes. Management must continually emphasize training and give recognition to supervisors who are training-conscious. Giving salary increases and promotions to supervisors who are good trainers is part of insuring employee training.

Through training we give something more valuable than money by giving the person new skills and information. We help to make the employee more valuable to himself and to the restaurant, give him self-reliance and make management's job easier.

Most of us are enthusiastic about training as long as we don't have to do it or when it applies to someone else. But in restaurants training is management's responsibility and, except in large restaurants or chains, much of employee training is done by the manager. Today we cannot rely on our competitors to train for us (then hire away his employees). Do not expect an employee to perform, prepare, or serve food the way you want it done until you have trained him to do it that way.

A fine restaurant centered its service around a beautiful copper cart, a rolling cart from which roast beef was carved and served directly to the patron. The cart was showmanship. But it is not being used now. The restaurant cannot find a trained carver who also has the person­ality to go with the dining room service. Why not train a carver and server? This kind of question can be asked in many restaurants. Why not train for the skills needed?

Kinds of Training

Employee training can be divided into the following: Induction or Orientation Training, Job Instruction, and Refresher Training.

Induction training acquaints the employee with the restaurant, the other employees, the supervisor, and the restaurant's goal—food serv­ice at a profit. It comes in the first interview between manager and employee when pay periods, overtime work, uniforms, and similar matters are explained. Tell the new employees what the job entails. Tell them the worst along with the best. If the cook is hard to get along with, let this be known to the new waitress—"When the cook gets tired, he may blow his top. But don't let this upset you." If the new assistant cook is responsible for keeping the preparation area clean, tell him, "The floor around the broiler and deep fat fryer is mopped at least twice a day, or oftener if needed. You also empty the garbage can when three-fourths full." When such sad parts of a job are not told the new employee, he resents their being added later.

Be sure to explain to new waitresses that side work is very much a part of the job. Maybe they also make the salads and help with vege­table preparation. If cooks are entirely responsible for keeping their own stations clean, that too should be part of the hiring information. Refresher training is that training given to old employees to keep them abreast of new developments, and upgrade their skills. The daily line-up of waitresses or counter girls is an example of refresher train­ing. The day's menu is explained and current problems discussed. Re­fresher training can be a part of weekly employee meetings. Every restaurant that is not stagnant holds regular refresher training sessions in one form or another, sometimes by skilled groups—waitress meet­ings are an example—sometimes in small groups.

If You Are Going to Train

First and most obvious is the necessity for you, the manager, to know every job in the restaurant yourself. You are the "best man" in the operation.

Consider the dish machine, the number one headache of most res­taurants. Who is to train the dish machine operator? Can the chef do it? Many fine chefs do not know how to operate a dish machine—least of all do they know when something is out of order. To be a good chef does not require any degree of mechanical interest or aptitude. One restaurant operated its warewashing machine for three days without any detergent. No one had told the new crew about detergent. Another crew operated the dish machine for two days with the rinse line out of action. The manager must know the dish machine like a brother— its temperament and shortcomings, its strong points and how to make it perform.

You will need to know how to teach and what to teach. Recognize that many restaurant employees have at best only high school educa­tion, come from low social-economic groups and have little motiva­tion to learn. Instructing requires teaching skills, job information, and above all, enthusiasm.

Don't expect miracles. In training employees, you mustn't expect too much. Patience is a great virtue in training. Restaurant employees have about average learning ability. In many cases they may have less than average. Learning typically starts fast, then slows down or levels off for periods.

"But I told him to use the slicer to cut turkey." This kind of state­ment is common in the restaurant. Sure, you told him, and you tell them and you can expect to continue telling them as long as you are a manager. Check back, check back, check back. Correct work prac­tices before they jell into fixed habits.

And don't spare the approval. The restaurant operator, being one of the world's busiest men, usually feels that he cannot take the time to train thoroughly. Rather, he gives the new employee the "once over lightly" treatment, expecting to come back for more detailed training later. Being in a hurry, the trainer often is tense and keyed up. This tension is quickly sensed by the employee, who in turn becomes nervous.

An excellent way to reduce tension is to praise the newcomer for any slight improvement shown—"That's fine, now you're getting the feel of it." Implying failure only seems to upset the new employee more.

A "learn it now, dammit" attitude by the restaurant operator is also poor tactics. The autocratic approach not only keys up the employee unnecessarily, it chases away a good many people who might other­wise be assets to the restaurant. Resentment toward the abrupt ap­proach burns slow or fast, depending upon the person involved, but it always burns.

Wanting to learn is half the battle. The person who is eager to learn is the one who usually learns the quickest. Tell the new employee about the job, what it can do for him. Making learning pleasant helps learn­ing. It is safe to say that most restaurant employees are not particularly excited about learning how to operate the fry kettle, how to grill a hamburger or how to cut a steak. Neither are most of them particularly ambitious. The manager has to provide some of the incentives and try to make the learning fun. We all like games, and learning can be a game. Keep the learning situation pleasant. Avoid tension in yourself and in the new employee where possible. Give the employee something to strive for—"You can make two of these salads a minute after a little practice"—"Our waitresses can make as much as $20 a day on a weekend."

However, in setting goals, be careful to avoid giving the new em­ployee the feeling that he has failed. "Our waitresses can make as much as $20 a day on a weekend, but you will be making real progress if you make $5 a day during this first week"—"You can make two of these salads a minute after a little practice but if you make one a minute during the next few days, we'll be proud of you."

Give them plenty of show-how and do-how. Most restaurant jobs involve muscular skills. Muscles learn skills in the same general way that the brain learns ideas. In teaching a cook how to carve, the muscles must learn. So give the cook plenty of show-how. Let him watch you. Then give the knife to him and let him plunge into the meat for better or for worse. The expert who is not such a good teacher is likely to show-off more than show-how. To avoid this, let the learner show you how. Most of learning comes in the doing.

Presentation of job skills is by "tell and show."

After demonstrating and explaining, you should ask the employee to play back what he has learned. He "tells and shows" you. In the "play back" the employee learns perhaps as much as by watching and hearing the demonstration.

Follow-up is the last step in job instruction. A review of what has been taught may be highly informal. It might take place ten minutes after the instruction or the next day, and again later next week. The instructor suggests improvements and compliments the employee on what has already been learned.

Coaching goes on continuously in a successful restaurant; it may be subtle or direct. Re-setting the oven thermostat when it is too high—and it usually is—is coaching. Of course the roast cook must be aware of your action. Wiping a spot from the steam table in the presence of the dishing-up cook is coaching. Stepping in to demon­strate a faster way of picking plates from a washing rack is coaching. Re-arranging a salad plate for a salad maker is coaching. This kind of instruction must take place every day and constitutes the greater share of instruction.

Training Pointers

1.  Have Patience. Rome was not built in a day. Neither can a good fry cook, dishwasher, desk clerk, or porter be trained in "one easy lesson." Expect to repeat... and repeat... and repeat.

2.  Avoid Criticism of the Old Way. No one wants to feel that the way he has been doing a job is wrong. Use the approach, "Here is a better way." Never put anyone "on the spot."

3.  Put yourself in the Learner's Place. Recognize that learning is work. Take the learner along with you a step at a time. What seems easy to you may have taken you months to learn.

4.  Speed Learning with Plenty of Praise. Praise, not criticism, speeds learning. Encouragement is oil to the wheels of the mind. Most supervisors give far too little praise. Look for things to praise.

5.  Set Realistic Goals. Set a goal that the learner can reach. Let him experience success in each step of the training road. Start off with easy standards. Step them up as the learner progresses.

6.  Recognize Different Mental Capacities. Some employees can learn twice as fast as others. Don't be disappointed with our friends who are not very bright. They may make the best porters, dishwashers, or maids.

7.  Start with a Job Breakdown. The trainer needs a plan of teach­ing. Without the plan he is like a home builder without blueprints.

8.  Space the Training Periods. Learning is more efficient when it is spread out. A half hour a day is probably enough training for most jobs. Learning goes on in the mind between training sessions.

9. Be Positive, Encouraging, Optimistic—But Do Not Expect Miracles. Remember also that if the employee has not learned, the
trainer has not taught.

How to Make a Job Breakdown

System applied to training is a job breakdown. Set down in writing the steps and points to be stressed. Then you won't forget some points and can move efficiently in presenting the job to the employee. Here is a sample job breakdown:

JOB BREAKDOWN SHEET
for
Carving Meat

IMPORTANT STEPS                                     KEY POINTS
Place carving board and receiving tray in position.
Select sharp carving knife and fork.                          Be sure knife is sharp.
Place meat on carving board.
Cut and trim meat for carving.
Place trimmings in pan to be used later.
Carve across grain of meat.
      …                                                                    Arrange symmetrically
Place carved meat in receiving tray.                         in serving portions
Place meat scraps from carving board in pan with
trimmings.
Wash board with steel brush and hot soapy water.     Do not soak.
Wash carving knife and fork.
Dry all equipment.
Store in proper place.

Most restaurant work is taught by demonstration and telling. Setting a table, bussing dishes, working a cash register can be taught by demonstration. But system is needed. What is important is the way the task is broken into easily learned parts and presented step by step. No matter how simple the job may seem to you or the experienced worker, it is probably far from simple to the learner. Consider making a cheese sandwich. Slap a piece of pre-cut cheese on some bread and you have it. Far from it! The bread must be buttered. The sandwich must be sliced by sliding the cutting edge across the sandwich rather than chopping through. Finally, presentation of the sandwich on the plate—showmanship and artistry are part of the job.

Training with Pictures

"A picture is worth a thousand words."

Yes, and when it comes to training restaurant employees, a picture can save a great deal of the manager's time and energy. A job break­down in pictures as shown here also helps the manager remember all parts of the instruction.

Photographic sequences taken of restaurant tasks are simple to set up. They cost little. If the job changes, more pictures can be taken inexpensively. A job breakdown in pictures can be shown to new employees or used as a refresher for suggesting improved ways of doing the job.

	THE FAT IS THE KEY! Use a quality, hydrogenated fa!. It lasts longer, gives food better flavor with less fat absorbtion. DON'T use or mix with kitchen renderings.       USE LOW TEMPERATURE TO MELT FAT. Set thermostat at 200° when loading kettle. Advance thermostat to cooking temperature when heating units are completely covered with liquid, melted fat. FRY FOODS AT THEIR RECOMMENDED FRYING TEMPERATURES. Different foods will require different fat temperatures. Refer to wall chart or instruction book for proper temperature setting to use for each frying job.

DON'T OVERLOAD BASKET. Overload­ing drops fat temperature, results in greasy, fat-soaked food, takes longer cooking time.       DRY FOODS BEFORE PUTTING THEM IN KETTLE. Excess water kills fat tem­perature, causes sputtering, may cause foaming over. It may result in painful burns and poorly soaked food.       FRY FOODS OF SAME SIZE TOGETHER. Only by frying units of similar size and iype in the same bath can you insure that all will be cooked and finished alike.

DRAIN FOODS BEFORE SERVING. Drain excess fat from food either over the kettle or on the racks before serving. Keep food hot so fat will remain liquid and run off.       NEVER SALT OVER THE FAT. Salt, and also copper and brass, even in small quantities will make fat break down and become rancid very quickly.

DEFROST FROZEN FOODS BEFORE FRYING. Dropping chunks of ice in your frying fat is a sure way to "kill" its heat. Only small frozen items can be cooked right from the frozen state.

CHECK THE THERMOSTAT. Compare the thermostat setting when the kettle is idling with the reading on the ther­mometer with its bulb in the fat. If read­ings vary by more than 10°F., report the thermostat to the head cook or manager for adjustment. KEEP THE FAT CLEAN! Drain the kettle daily. Strain out food particles. Flush out the fat container with hot, strained fat to remove the sticking particles. Put strained fat back in the clean kettle. Add enough new fat to bring the level to normal. THE BEST TEST FOR FAT IS TO TASTE IT. CLEAN THE KETTLE THOROUGHLY EVERY WEEK. At least once a week, fill the empty kettle with water. Bring to a boil with the kettle's own heat source. Add 2 ounces of alkaline de­tergent per gallon of water (NEVER use soap). Brush all interior parts thoroughly while boiling. Drain kettle. Rinse thor­oughly with clear water four or five times. Use I ounce vinegar per gallon of water in final rinse to insure neutral­ization of any remaining alkali.

You may have a better way of working the fry kettle. That's fine. But your knowledge is of little value until it is a part of the nervous system of your fry cook. Pictures will help you improve your work methods and provide a vehicle for getting your knowledge to the employee. Why not work up a series for every job in the restaurant? Somebody in your family or restaurant may be an amateur photogra­pher who could easily photograph the various jobs.

Blow up the pictures to 8 by 10 inches, put them in plastic and insert them in a looseleaf notebook binder. Then you've got yourself a real training aid, something you can pull down from the shelf over your desk and use in explaining the job to the new employee. Later you should tell and actually demonstrate the job.

Let the employee take the book of pictures and study it. Discuss and change it if he has better ideas. That's training.

Training Films

Films and film strips can be excellent aids in training if they apply to jobs in your restaurant and if they are well presented. For films to be effective they must be introduced and discussed. An old saying among audio-visual people is:

Tell 'em what you're going to show 'em.
Show 'em.
Then tell 'em what you've shown 'em.

Few people learn anything from one exposure. The tell 'em, show 'em, and tell 'em what you've shown 'em techniques gives three exposures.

A few restaurant chains make their own training films.

Most of the training films available are made by food or equipment vendors and naturally are aimed at increasing the use of their products. A list of such training films that will be helpful for most restaurants and are available will be found in the appendix on page 274.

Teach More than the Job

Development of people is a key to productivity and high morale. Teach something more than the job. Restaurant employees who know more about the restaurant than just how to wash glasses, take in cash, or take an order probably are more productive than those who know only their job. We have no results of scientific studies on this point in the restaurant field, but railroad section laborers who were taught "more" by their bosses produced more than those who were told only how to tamp crossties and level rails. The same results are likely to be found in kitchens, behind counters and in restaurant dining rooms.

To Summarize

1.  Become training-minded yourself.

2.  Know how to do each job in the restaurant yourself.

3.  When hiring, tell the new employee just what the job involves—both pleasant and unpleasant duties.

4.  Break the job down and present it to the learner step by step.

5.  Set goals for the learner—goals that he can reach today.

6.  Give plenty of praise. Get him interested—enthusiastic if pos­sible.

7.  Show how, then let the learner show you.

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