BEHIND THE COUNTER

SERVING THE NEEDS OF FRONTLINE RESTAURANT LEADERS

At-A-Glance

Initiate and observe discussions with employees to understand day-to-day functionality.
Create employee personas to prioritize what matters most.
Test curriculum and collect feedback to improve based on employee preferences.

The Challenge

A quick serve restaurant’s existing leadership and development program excelled at culture building but lagged behind in providing training for the hard skills needed by restaurant leaders on the frontline. For these employees, day-to-day restaurant demands were often a priority over formal, corporate training. It’s difficult to ensure that frontline restaurant leaders understand their roles completely. There can be gaps between the corporate expectation and the actual delivery. So, The ExperienceBuilt Group stepped in to identify the acute needs of restaurant leaders and what types of training programs would serve them best with their limited time.

The Experience Solution

1) Framing the MVP

We began our process asking operators and their teams what they need to help them develop their frontline restaurant leaders. We gathered information from restaurant leaders, team members, officers, cross-functional team members, and people leaders. This way, we could understand the restaurant's inner workings and team member roles in everyday operations. This helped us identify what was needed for specific training.

2) Defining the Audience

Our team built personas to better understand frontline restaurant leaders and inform the creation of a tailored curriculum. We based these personas on the staff members we interacted with during our research process.

3) Assessing the Program Prototype

The ExperinceBuilt Group led one-on-one interviews and focus groups with frontline restaurant leaders to hear their opinions about their training needs in order to determine the curriculum’s structure. EBG found that frontline restaurant leaders valued networking with people in their positions across franchises. Understanding employees’ preferences for program length, remote accessibility, time commitment level, and types of projects, prompted the development of a tailored curriculum with an emphasis on the networking component frontline restaurant leaders cared about most.

4) Testing L&D Pilot Program

Once frontline restaurant leaders tested the program, The ExperienceBuilt Group conducted interviews and sent surveys to participants to collect feedback. Additionally, EBG gathered input from operators to ensure they were seeing value in the program. This triangulated approach helps identify any gaps in our research while making improvements for future versions of the program.

The EBG Impact

The ExperienceBuilt Group continued content exploration of the pilot prototype, adding updated course topics to previous work. These virtual training programs offer more thorough tactical skills training and provide a shared experience for franchise leaders to connect with one another. We continue to monitor the rollout and measure key performance indicators so the company can expand the curriculum and launch new courses. This virtual program is now available to every operator in the country, resulting in the development of tactical skills, decreasing employee turnover, improving operational workflow, and molding future leaders.

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