Congratulations! You’ve hired your newest employee, but the work isn’t over just yet. After you’ve found the right person for your restaurant position, you’ll need to properly welcome them into your workplace.
Guidelines for onboarding differ depending on each restaurant's needs, so it’s important to build your own onboarding process in a way that's most efficient for you.
Studies show great employee onboarding can enhance employee retention by 82 percent, making onboarding an asset to the operations of any restaurant. This is especially important considering total employment in the restaurant industry is still 750,000 employees below pre-pandemic levels.
To build a well-rounded onboarding process, you’ll want to cover the 5 C’s of onboarding:
It’s helpful to split the onboarding process into four separate phases to better cover the demands of the five C’s. These phases include pre-boarding, welcoming, training, and full transition.
The following article will provide restaurant onboarding checklists for these four phases so you can establish a streamlined onboarding experience for you and your new employees.
The pre-boarding phase is the time between when a candidate accepts your offer and starts their first day. Even though they haven’t officially started yet, you can use this time as an opportunity to make a solid first impression.
Since the employee doesn't know you and your restaurant at this point, minor miscommunication can easily happen. You can avoid this by staying connected, sending periodic updates, and making yourself available if they have any questions about the role or any pre-boarding paperwork.
While you want to be available, you don’t want to be overbearing. Remember, to be respectful of your employees and their other commitments, like if they are in the process of handing off work within their current employer.
The pre-boarding stage mostly focuses on paperwork, aka the fun stuff. Handing over a stack of paperwork can feel daunting, especially since important tax paperwork can easily get lost or filled incorrectly.
If streamlining the paperwork processes sounds enticing, then HigherMe can help. HigherMe lets you send a digital offer letter with all the tax forms and other required documents needing signatures like handbooks, policies, or any documented procedures. You can also see the progress of each employee in the onboarding stage from your dashboard.
Regardless if you streamline with software or onboard with old fashion pen and paper, your new employee needs to fill out the following documents:
If your restaurant requires the use of any devices or equipment, then you should issue them in the pre-boarding stage. If any account or system set up is required, you can use the first few days of employment to make sure they’re caught up with the inner workings of your restaurant.
Depending on your businesses operations, here’s a checklist of possible restaurant devices and equipment your new employee may need:
Assigning a veteran employee to mentor and train your newest hire is an efficient way to get them acclimated to their new work environment.
As the boss, new hires don’t want to annoy you and may be timid to ask you particular questions. You can break down this barrier by introducing an open door policy, which helps normalize new hires going directly to you to ask questions.
This also causes a trickle down effect in the training of your new hires. If all staff—veterans and new—are encouraged to go to you for training guidance, then everyone on your team will know your preferred processes. This helps keep communication strong and helps more experienced team members mentor new hires correctly from the start.
The responsibilities of mentors vary by each restaurant and their unique operations. Regardless, this foundational checklist is a great place to start:
Download these onboarding checklists for future reference.
Week 1 Checklist: Welcoming New Hires Phase
The next phase of onboarding is the welcoming phase. There’s an overwhelming amount of information for new employees to learn, so this phase is to help make the transition as easy as possible.
The best way to tackle initial training is to keep the first days simple and not provide overly excessive information. In most cases, they’ll forget a portion of their training so remember to re-explain important tasks throughout the first few months. You may even want to consider making your training information accessible to new hires later, so they can review and re-learn on their own time.
Restaurants tend to be fast-paced, so as your new employee gains experience, they’ll learn through action and have more questions as they progress.
To make this transition easier, here’s a checklist to help you welcome your new employees during the first month of their employment:
Week 2 and 3 Checklist: Training Phase
After welcoming your new hires, training them is the next big step to support their long lasting success at your restaurant.
The onboarding process can be overwhelming to say the least, so checking in with your new hires is crucial.
Now is a great time to revisit the handbook and make sure the employee understands all the rules after their first month. And, if any rules weren’t respected, this is a great time to address it.
Reviewing expectations is an effective way to keep your team connected to your company culture. You can do this by completing the following training checklist:
Week 4 Checklist: Full Transition Phase
Once your newest employee has started to master their role, there are a few steps to help them transition from feeling like new hires to full-fledged employees. It’s important in this phase for supervisors and managers to ensure these employees are setting good examples for the new employees to follow.
Here’s a checklist to help complete the full transition to employee and maximize each hire’s contribution to the team:
Simply put, your onboarding process should not be overlooked. How you get your new employees set up in their new role and how you guide them towards success will influence their attitude, overall work ethic, and length of employment.
The onboarding process, like the hiring process, is lengthy and time-consuming. So, if you want to streamline and save yourself some time, then HigherMe can help by keeping track of all your onboarding tasks in one centralized dashboard.
To learn more about HigherMe software, watch our 5 minute demo video or contact our sales team.