Three Key Ways to Use Your Restaurant’s LMS to Drive Tangible Results

Most restaurant brands rely on an LMS (Learning Management System) to support ongoing training and employee development. To better meet the needs of their hourly workforce, some operators are focusing on certain LMS features and best practices to help improve their overall operational success.

At Crunchtime’s Ops Summit 2023, three restaurant leaders with a combined 60 years of restaurant experience presented the best practices they leverage within TalentLink, Crunchtime’s Learning and Development platform, with outcomes ranging from streamlined access to resources to impacts on guest satisfaction.

1. Use QR codes for quick access to resources

Make information quickly discoverable by using QR codes in relevant places in your restaurant so employees can get up to speed quickly and get back out onto the floor. 

Kendra Power, Vice President of Training and Development of Bottleneck Management, shared how her team uses QR codes to seamlessly navigate resources in Crunchtime TalentLink. Kendra used the example of the keg room to demonstrate her point. In the past, when there was an unknown malfunction in the keg room, employees would have to go through the arduous process of finding and thumbing through a resource binder, or search through old emails because they received the needed attachment a long time ago. Instead, Bottleneck Management now laminates and displays several easily accessible QR codes around the keg room, which, when scanned within the mobile app, open the associated microlearning resource for instant access to instructions for addressing the malfunction. These QR codes are not only much more accessible than the old resource binders, but they also allow more flexibility. The codes are not limited to just traditional instruction manuals, but can also be used to post troubleshooting videos, giving the employees several different resources to leverage if needed. By providing continuous microlearning in addition to onboarding training, Bottleneck Management maximizes the training they're able to provide and ensures it's always delivered at the right moment.   

2. Manage exams easily with question banks

Minimize admin work by creating questions once and using them within multiple exams, with automatic edit propagation.

Kiesha Connelly, Regional Training Manager at Kelly Companies, described how Crunchtime TalentLink allows her flexibility in how she chooses to set up Kelly Companies’ question bank with over 1,600 questions. Despite having so many brands under Kelly Companies, many of these brands still go through quite similar training courses, and therefore, certain questions in the bank will be repeated in many different courses. Using TalentLink’s question bank, Kiesha can click on a question and view a list of which exams that question is in. She can also easily add and remove that question to any new or already existing exams. Additionally, should Kiesha find the need to edit one of the questions, she only needs to make the change once, and it will be automatically reflected in all of the exams where that question exists. 

Another important feature of the question bank is the classification system. Classifications can be broken down into three levels: topic, objective, and sub-objective. You can then use subcategories such as concept, department, and core training to further organize the questions. Once your classifications are built, updating information is a breeze. Subcategories can be broken down by positions for an easy update when changing menus, recipes, or a simple update to procedures. This organizational process makes it much easier to find questions you are looking for when creating new exams.

Customize reports with key metrics or custom calculations, including knowledge scores.

Jason Lechner, Director of Training & Development at Pizza Ranch, presented about increasing training adoption through the usage of reward incentives. Jason instituted the Tropical Sales Incentive Program, in which restaurant managers were awarded points for completion of training courses at their locations, with the hopes of winning a tropical vacation. Training completion data was derived from TalentLink reports. The results speak for themselves, as we look at the total learning program completions of Pizza Ranch’s four key stations, broken down by year:

• • 2020: 1,421 completions
  • 2021: 1,561 completions
  • 2022: 2,221 completions
  • 2023: 7,935 completions

That massive spike in completions demonstrates that the incentive program worked exactly as intended, as Pizza Ranch saw a threefold jump in completions from 2022 to 2023. This is not the only thing to consider, however. The jump in completions is great to see, but it is ultimately meaningless unless that increased training proficiency leads to an improved guest experience. Fortunately for Pizza Ranch, that is exactly what they found when comparing the results of their guest survey scores from 2022 to new scores from 2023:

• • Buffet fully stocked +4.0%
  • Service from the heart +1.6%
  • Overall value +1.7%
  • Overall satisfaction +4.1%
  • Guest loyalty index +6.2%

These decidedly upward trends show that the newly instituted incentive rewards program had a direct and demonstrable positive impact on Pizza Ranch. 

From QR codes, to question banks, to tropical vacation incentives, these are three very different, yet very impactful, ways to use Crunchtime Learning and Development to drive tangible results that deliver clear improvement. Whether you already use an LMS or are in the market for one, it’s important to select an LMS that meets the unique needs of the restaurant business.

Watch the video below to learn more about Crunchtime's Learning and Development solution: