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How to Use Effective Onboarding to Turn New Hires into Great Employees

Editor's note: Once we hire a good person, what do we do in those first few days, first few weeks to get them totally onboard and integrated successfully into our restaurant? All of us know how important the first few days of a new job are. So, when we talk about orientation and onboarding functions, we all know that they're crucial to get new recruits into our system, making them feel welcome and hopefully turning them into productive, happy, long term employees.

This article summarizes key points in a recent RestaurantOwner.com webinar "How to Prepare New Employees to Excel", presented by RestaurantOwner.com's Chief People Officer" Anton Villado, Ph.D.. Anton has been helping organizations improve their performance since 2001, by providing management solutions to organizations. A former faculty member at Rice University, Anton's expertise falls in the areas of organizational management, employee training and development, and personnel systems.

Anton has found that onboarding is often overlooked in many organizations and not just in the restaurant industry. He notes, "It's kind of like 'fly by night', 'do it because you have to' sort of thing, but it's amazingly powerful. We use it to equip and empower employees, and what's really interesting is, it's not difficult. It can be easier than job specific training or positional job training."

Onboarding is simply the training you provide to new employees to orient them to your restaurant and their roles. If we turn to training experts who study organizational science, they might delve into the concept more extensively, and define it as such: Onboarding is a planned and systematic attempt by a restaurant to introduce new employees to their job duties and the policies and procedures, expectations and culture of that restaurant.

What does that mean? Let's unpack it. Formal onboarding programs are a set of coordinated policies and procedures that help an employee adjust to a new job with regard to both tasks and socialization.

As an example, we can look at the onboarding program of a world-class organization like Pal's Sudden Service Pal's, an independent quick-service restaurant chain in Tennessee and Southwest Virginia, known for its exceptional organizational culture. In 2001, Pal's became the first restaurant to have received the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award. The onboarding program at Pal's is formal and comprehensive. Pal's follows a checklist. Following a checklist is a way to ensure your onboarding program is planned and systematic. In fact, the onboarding program at Pal's begins with a one-on-one meeting with the new employee and the restaurant manager.

During this meeting, the manager completes a 75-item checklist with the employee that covers everything from how to prepare your uniform to Pal's progressive discipline program. This is a stellar example of formal onboarding.

On the other end of the continuum is an informal onboarding program. Informal onboarding programs refer to programs where an employee learns about the job and restaurant without a plan. Informal onboarding programs typically cover whatever the trainer feels like covering that day. If the trainer is busy, and that's usually the case, they'll give a quick overview of the restaurant, or skip onboarding and get right to job training.

To be successful, onboarding is planned and systematic. It is focused on job duties, policies and procedures, expectations, and cultures. Job training could focus on how to operate a POS (point-of-sale) system, but onboarding would also emphasize that operating the POS system is a duty of a server.

Onboarding also sets employee expectations. Does my uniform need to be clean, or clean and ironed? Do I replace it if it is too small, too large? What constitutes proper attire? Who pays to replace it if it's lost or wrong-sized?

Pal's onboarding program includes a section that communicates the expectation that all employees will iron their uniforms. To make the point, during the onboarding process, the trainer asks if the new employee understands how to iron a uniform, and offers to show them how to iron their uniform shirt.

Onboarding also addresses the restaurant business's culture. This is probably one of the most overlooked elements of onboarding. Fortunately though, culture is communicated in many ways, some non-verbal. Restaurants might overlook culture if they fail to recognize it's power and importance.

Tying it All Together with the 'Four Cs'

How do we tie all this together into an onboarding program now that we've reviewed a shared understanding of onboarding? What are the critical elements of an onboarding program?

Training professionals typically organize onboarding content into four categories, and each start with a C, so we can refer to these are the Four Cs- of onboarding.

Clarification refers to ensuring employees understand their new role in the restaurant, and to understand their job duties and responsibility. Often, this comes from a job description, and the job description is a perfect place to start. For example, consider the duty to arrive on time for a shift. What does it mean to arrive on time for a shift? Without clear expectations, if you asked five employees, you might provide five different answers. Clarification means making sure that you and the new employee have a shared understanding of the responsibilities and expectations of the employee.

So, in the case of arriving on time, the employee needs to understand that arriving on time for a shift is one of their responsibilities and that it means they are ready to work, when the shift begins, in the proper attire, and with nothing more than what is needed to perform the job and clock in.

Compliance refers to teaching new employees about the basic legal and policy related rules and regulations. The most basic onboarding programs address compliance. This includes rules and policies regarding harassment in the workplace, discipline policies, tip reporting, serving alcohol, sanitation, and so on. If it's a policy of the restaurant, you want to take the time to train the employee on the onboarding process.

Culture is a broad category that includes providing employees with a sense of restaurant norms both formal and informal, spoken and unspoken. Does the employee feel like a valued member of the team from day one? Are they met with hospitality or hostility from managers and staff? If you assign a manager to onboard a new employee and that manager is swamped with other assignments, he or she might view their onboarding tasks as a hurdle. If they view onboarding as a necessary evil in their day, the new employee might sense that hostility. That could have a chilling effect on the employee's experience, not just for the day, but for their career at your restaurant.

Ask yourself if your new hire might feel as though the restaurant is investing in them. Do they feel that they are prepared to succeed, or set up to fail? Culture is communicated in everything you, and other managers and staff, do and say about everything.

Your culture is also communicated by the preparedness and professionalism of your recruiting, hiring, and training systems. Culture is a vital part of what an onboarding program trains, even if it's unspoken.

Connection refers to professional relationships that new employees must establish. This includes learning who does what, and who knows what, in the restaurant. It refers to understanding the responsibilities and roles of the entire restaurant team.

Helping new hires foster relationships with fellow staff also supports the ongoing learning that is vital to the success of new employees. Knowing who to ask and establishing a sense of psychological safety is an important part of the onboarding process.

Psychological safety refers to feeling able to take interpersonal risks. Simply put, it means feeling as though you can ask questions without being ridiculed or made fun of. Psychological safety means feeling accepted and respected. It's a critical element of high functioning teams, and it is especially critical for new team members or new employees.

Because restaurants are in the business of hospitality and creating guest experiences they have an advantage. A new employee, like a new guest, is driven by first impressions. Both have only one first experience and the restaurant must make it special.
For the employee, making it special not only communicates to the employee that he or she is valued, but it also shows that your business is serious about, and capable of, hospitality and creating a special experience. That perspective will also be clear to your guests.
How do you accomplish this? A simple way is to have all the employees sign a welcome card for the new employee. An easy gesture, but it shows the employee that everyone is welcoming them to the team.

To understand how critical it is, imagine this: a new employee has a question about a procedure or policy. Let's say the question has to do with whether they're allowed to honor an expired coupon. Regardless of the restaurant's policy, if an employee doesn't feel comfortable asking another about policy, their performance is going to suffer, and more importantly, the guest experience suffers.

Organizational scientists have found that when onboarding is done correctly, it leads to improved job satisfaction and organizational commitment, i.e. lower turnover. Higher performing employees tend to experience lower levels of job-related stress. When onboarding is done correctly, it has a substantial impact on your employees and on your restaurant business.

To help your employees build the relationships that are a vital part of being a team, you'll want to assign a person who is not a supervisor, but can serve as a point of contact. This person will answer questions, provide encouragement, and offer suggestions to the new employee. Ideally, the person who serves in this buddy position will be an appropriate role model for future behavior.

If the new hire asks a question like, Do we really need to do this? you don't want the buddy saying, Only if somebody is watching you, or something similar. You want someone you trust to set a positive example.

Another characteristic of an ideal buddy is someone who wants to serve as a buddy. Ideally, you can have volunteers serve as buddies. If you have adequate staff, assign two buddies. The overall goal is to provide a point of contact for the new employee, other than the manager/supervisor. Make sure the buddy is scheduled for the same first few shifts as the new employees. I suggest them working five shifts together, but the feasibility of doing that will vary from restaurant to restaurant. Don't introduce a buddy with a different schedule than the new employee.

Because restaurants are in the business of hospitality and creating guest experiences they have an advantage. A new employee, like a new guest, is driven by first impressions. Both have only one first experience and the restaurant must make it special.

For the employee, making it special not only communicates to the employee that he or she is valued, but it also shows that your business is serious about, and capable of, hospitality and creating a special experience. That perspective will also be clear to your guests.

How do you accomplish this? A simple way is to have all the employees sign a welcome card for the new employee. An easy gesture, but it shows the employee that everyone is welcoming them to the team. The cost is minimal, and the card may be circulated among your staff prior to the start of the shift.

You might also consider a Welcome Kit, which might include something like a coffee mug, a tee shirt and an entree voucher for two so they can bring their significant other, or friend, to the restaurant. Anything which allows the employee to celebrate their new job.

Operators should let their idea of what comprises good hospitality guide how they welcome new employees. The first day is a huge opportunity for you to showcase the owners' and managers' philosophy of hospitality.

Establish Performance Standards on Day One

Another important step in the onboarding process is to show the employee the performance evaluation form. One benefit of the onboarding program is communicating expectations, and how performance will be evaluated.

In that vein, you should clarify the new employee's role. This includes reviewing the job description, but you also want to explain how their position is related to all of the other positions in the restaurant. Your staff must perform as a team for your restaurant to succeed, and this is your opportunity to shape that thinking in the new hire.

Don't leave it to chance that a new employee will understand what it means to coordinate with other employees. Some new hires will have no, or limited, prior experience, and those with experience are coming from other restaurants. This is your opportunity to correct prior expectations.

The onboarding process doesn't end when the first shift ends. Schedule and arrange opportunities to follow-up with the new employee to see how they're adjusting to the their job. Spend time reviewing the new employee's job performance. You certainly don't want to wait until the 90 day review or even worse, the annual review, before a new employee receives performance feedback.

Train, Review, Ask

For each of the first five shifts, at minimum, meet with the new employee to discuss and review their performance. This is also an opportunity to offer them direction and ways to improve their performance. Offer encouragement as they continue to learn their new job. It takes a while to adjust to a new job, and you want to make sure that your employees know that you're supporting them in their journey.

Training should be continually updated and revised. To know what to update, and how to revise, you need to assess the effectiveness of your onboarding program. Gauge the effectiveness of your onboarding program by interviewing your managers and employees.

Employees can provide particularly valuable insight into the effectiveness of your onboarding program. Ask them, Did you feel prepared for your job? Were you surprised by anything after your onboarding training? Did we forget to cover anything in your onboarding training? Asking questions will give you a glimpse into your effectiveness of your onboarding program and help make revisions. If you see a deficiency, use feedback to fix it.

Click here to download the - "Employee Onboarding Checklist",