(How) Do you train your Supervisors?
Editor’s Note: ArcLab works alongside Experts and Training Providers to help businesses upskill workforces, improve staff performance to achieve more for the business, and digitally transform for the future.
This is a guest post by Lauren Wan – Founder of Passioneat Hospitality, a small but mighty hospitality consulting company that blends operational, learning, and culture expertise. Passioneat Hospitaliy partners with their clients to deliver sustainable and meaningful evolution of talent, guest experience, and business direction.
(Also read Lauren’s co-authored piece with ArcLab CEO James – “How to Train F&B Staff“)
Think about your team… The organisational structure, distribution of roles and tasks. The various weights of responsibility that each tier holds. Which tiers get the most attention and focus, which the least?
In many of the organizations we consult with, an often under-supported part of the workforce are our supervisors.
Rank-and-file team members strive for promotion and once they are presented with a shiny new title and uniform, full of excitement, they often face a difficult mix of noise and silence. Together with their new supervisory position, they are typically also gifted a heavy load of responsibility to now help others in the team rise while trying to grow taller themselves. They take on additional tasks on top of their usual operational duties.
Supervisors play the most crucial role in the team in a hospitality operation: active management of the floor and standards throughout service and conduit to more senior leaders who are also balancing back office tasks like ordering, scheduling, and HR admin. Supervisors are also the most common position to be tasked with training.
Too often though, they are left to figure out supervising and training on their own – considered too senior and experienced for operational training and too junior for leadership programs, thus they tend to learn through observation, trial and error.
Given that a lot of leadership growth is high-touch, how can we grow the next generation of hospitality professionals, trainers, and leaders by leveraging digital, bite-sized training?
Bite-sized Training (Nano Learning) can be as short as a minute for small learning ‘nuggets’ or up to 10-15 minutes for the learner to absorb longer pieces of information. Simply put, Nano Learning refers to highly-focused training through bite-sized chunks of learning content, often in an engaging manner, with a single learning objective.
Igniting Training, Igniting Trainers
At Passioneat Hospitality, our answer has been the launch of our Igniting Trainers program. Igniting Trainers is designed with a concierge approach. Knowing that each trainer and operation requires its own set of interventions and different tools at different times, we combine the best of digital and face to face training. Most train-the-trainer programmes are one-offs or a series of standalone sessions that provide little ongoing coaching. By leveraging digital mediums, we can transform the training journey by connecting the trainers – whom we call igniters – with our team, discuss their training needs, and deploy interventions to them virtually.
Virtual deployment of interventions is a necessary component, because it allows multiple things:
- The trainers can view the content when their operations allow
- Every trainer will absorb the material differently, so being able to slow-down, rewind, rewatch, pause, and take notes are all important steps of the preparation stage
- Some of the interventions have training aids that we deliver virtually, this saves precious time and reduces cost and waste because phones are quickly and easily transformed into high quality learning tools. Depending on the intervention, post-training sharing is also easily accomplished
What are some of the digital elements of our interventions?
- Reel style videos – made for vertical viewing, the reels help us engage the trainers quickly with a summary of the training’s goal. It’s also a useful medium for the trainer to send out to a group chat to excite the learners for the upcoming training
- Long form explanation video – combined with subtitles and key learning points, we’re able to explain the activity in greater detail, adding more texture and nuance with a distinctly human interaction. Choosing a more conversational approach helps the trainers to feel less like they’re taking instructions from a website
- Infographic – shares the intervention graphically in a simple step-by-step format with options for variations. The most valuable part of the infographic is the debrief section which is often the most challenging skill to develop as an emerging trainer
- Additional aids – depending on the activity, we may provide tools that can be used immediately or provide a structure for easy replication
How does this concierge format set trainers up for success?
- We know that operational trainers are time-strapped: now instead of spending 30 minutes searching for activities online we provide them activities that can be prepared in 5-10 minutes and delivered in 15-20 minutes. Eliminating the task of hunting for activities means that most trainers would be able to deliver a training each week or 50 interventions a year
- Operational trainers have a clearer and deeper understanding of the acute needs of their team and operation. Standard programs that deliver a series of interventions may not deliver the right intervention at the right time. This mismatch can lead to demotivation for the trainer and the team and suboptimal results
- Every concept and operation is slightly different, our coaching allows us to help trainers see the intervention from the lens of their needs. For example, a halal concept can adjust a cocktail challenge to a mocktail challenge and a Japanese restaurant can adjust a wine spotlight to a sake spotlight
- Rising leaders can often grapple with doubt and desire for a mentor. Having additional support from outside of the organization that helps them to grow and reach their potential throughout a sustained journey
- Digital is good, but hybrid takes training to the next level. Greater context, support, and application allows training to truly shine and learners of all levels to thrive
(Training) Concierge? I'm used to a Menu
We can think of the training concierge service like a librarian helping someone find the right book on the shelf, except we’re guiding our trainers through a virtual bookshelf of titles. We also act as a sort of book club – choosing the best next book to read based on the previous one; asking the right questions; and discussing the outcome of each read in depth.
Resources are only as valuable as the way you use them. With the vast collection of training available to each organization and team member, consider how you can support navigation of digital libraries for your team to bring learning from screen to life.
Are you ready to harness the potential power of your supervisor team? Reach out at https://passioneathospitality.com/contact
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