How to Turn Your Staff into Street Food Pros

Hello Street food shop owners, We are so happy to have you here! You have no idea how much we look forward to having to learn with you every week. Did you enjoy our last week’s How to Maintain Excellent Customer Relationships? If you are yet to see it, click on the link and get right on it. Do you know that with all our generous marketing tips, you could Market your Streetfood Shop like a Pro? All you need do is to follow our digest because we have all the strategies that are great for your business.

Our entire digest is created with the street food shop owner in mind. So whether you are a rookie on the food business or have spent decades in the field, you need our series to increase the number of customers who visit your shop, to boost your sales and set the necessary goals.

You must be wondering what we have on our menu today? We will be talking about staff training. This aspect is as important as mastering marketing strategies because it is important that you have staff that operates on the same frequency as you. If not, it would be easy to lose your customers and your business. Secondly, your staff is integral to your shop’s success because they are the face of your shop. Well trained staff can lure any customer to make a return trip to your shop.

Are you ready?

Let’s go!

The Training Process

The first thing to give a new staff is an orientation of the tradition at your street food shop. Every business has a tradition that guides it. Tradition can consist of your shop brand, the things unique to you, the values you uphold, and all the other rules that guide behaviours at your shop. This is why it is important to hire passionate and reliable people.

Hold an orientation

During an orientation, you will talk to the staff about the basic information about your business, your activities, and everything he or she will need to excel at their job. An orientation involves

- A complete tour of your shop. This gives the staff a better understanding of the environment where he or she will be spending the most hours of their day.

-Payroll information like paydays, overtime rates, leave days, and other human resource related information.

-The story behind your street food shop and everything your shop stands for.

-An introduction to your management staff and other people they are going to be working with. This is important because it promotes good interpersonal relationship between your staff.

-An introduction to your shop’s menu and also a tasting to see the standards of the meals you prepare.

-What your training process entails.

Educate your staff
The next thing that follows after the orientation process is the staff training. During this process, it is important you know that there are no generalizations or assumptions. You must clearly outline and explain your day-to-day activities and everything that is expected of the staff. This stage will prepare the new staff to succeed at the job. This is the time to explain the role they will be taking on and all your expectations of them.
On the Job Learning
: It is proven that people learn better when they watch an experienced person carry out the same role, and then try to imitate him or her. It is important that your new staff observes the experienced personnel at your shop. This helps them learn the fine details that were not mentioned in the training manual or during the overall training.

To effectively achieve this,
-Pair the new staff to the experienced one over a period of time, say two weeks or one month depending on the nature of the job.

-Tell the old staff to go about their job as normally as possible while answering the questions posed at them by the new staff.

Teach them positioning and timing
The new staff should learn best when he or she is rotated around different positions at your shop, from bar tending, to food service, to cleaning, to cooking. This helps him or her to understand the shop better and be time conscious when he or she finally gets a permanent role. It is also important that your staff is flexible on every role so that in the case of an absentee staff, your shop will not suffer any loss.
Practice safety
Ensure that before they fully begin their new roles, they understand the need for safety to be prioritized. They must be taught how to handle food, how to store food, and how to clean every equipment or machinery that comes in contact with food. To avoid accidents at your shop, they must be taught how to move about in quick paces without running.

Using writing and Visual Materials

While some people learn faster when taught with the practical techniques, some other individuals may understand your shop faster when armed with lists of ingredients, procedures to follow, videos highlighting your values. Sometimes it is important to have information like the resumption time, how to behave towards the customers, written and probably pasted neatly on an information board as a constant reminder.

A new cook may need to have a book to refer to for the recipe of a particular meal. So it is important to inculcate both the theory and practical in your trainings.

Prepare worksheets and informational booklets that carry all the information they may need. Ask them question on the manual to make sure they read it. Then prepare worksheets to help them absorb the materials they have studied. Make available videos that are related to what your brand stands for and get them watch them. Ask them their thoughts on everything they have learned.

It is important that you look out for smart individuals who are equally fast learners because it will be expensive for your shop to spend a longer time in training staff.

A team of great staff can advance your street food business and make life less stressful for you. Coming up next week, we will move to another interesting topic that will help your shop go forward because your success is our ultimate goal.

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