News

Restaurateurs ditching paper manuals for digital training tools

January 8, 2019

Employees armed with mobile tools are happier, better trained and take better care of customers, according to a survey conducted in 2018 by Vanson Bourne on behalf of Inkling Systems, a digital learning enablement platform for frontline employees.

"Today's workforce expects immediate access to information that is personalized for their needs and available with the same engaging visual experiences they've become accustomed to through the use of smartphones and tablets," Inkling CEO Jeff Carr, said in a press release. "Increasingly, employers are recognizing the need to invest in digital tools and mobile devices that enable employees to search for information at any time, and both learn and collaborate in the flow of their daily work. They know this is essential to set their workers up for success and ultimately increase retention"

The survey, "Why Mobile is the Right Tool to Optimize Learner and Customer Experiences: A U.S. Study on How Organizations Benefit by Enabling their Customer-facing Employees with Mobile," which polled 500 retail and restaurant employees in the U.S., revealed that although most of those surveyed said mobile devices, mobile apps and software were vital for training their employees, nearly half were still using paper-based training materials.

Other findings included:

• Mobile-enabled employees improved customer experiences and impressions. Ninety percent of survey respondents said their customer-facing staff were their best organizational asset for shaping the customer experience, but 69 percent admitted frontline employees found it difficult to meet customer expectations. Fortunately, nearly all of those surveyed have already implemented, or were beginning to introduce, mobile devices (99 percent) and mobile apps/software (97 percent) for training; 86 percent reported that their frontline staff were better able to meet customer expectations since becoming mobile-enabled.
• Customer-facing employees did not receive enough ongoing training and lacked direct access to reference materials. On average, restaurants update their menus every seven weeks and launch promotions every five weeks. Given the frequency of change in the workplace, it may be surprising to learn that frontline employees received six hours of onboarding when they joined an organization but only three hours per quarter of ongoing training.
• Communication with frontline staff was a challenge because they don't sit in front of a computer all day. Both executives and workers agreed that communication is needed to improve in both directions. However, 86 percent of executives said headquarters could do a better job keeping customer-facing staff informed, and 61 percent of workers said it was difficult to share information with management. In addition, workers said tools for communicating with their peers was the capability they would most like organizations to provide.
• Outdated training processes and tools must be replaced. Only 19 percent of respondents said paper-based training was extremely effective for the modern workforce, yet 44 percent of materials were still paper-based. Ninety percent said it would be beneficial to switch from paper-based training to online/mobile-based training, with almost all (99 percent) indicating they believed mobile software training was effective. In the survey, 48 percent said more mobile devices for customer-facing staff would be better, and 41 percent wanted more mobile apps and software.