I have found during my last eight years in the restaurant industry that cooks rarely get the proper training needed to do their job. Most restaurants today rely on a "Monkey see, Monkey do" training system in which little proper training takes place. While most multi-store restaurants have taken the time to develop some kind of formal training to ensure the safety of the products served, these systems are rarely effectively used. For instance, I have worked in six different restaurants where I never got a formal day of training in the kitchen or ever saw a training manual.

The problem Cinzzetti’s faced was that it lacked a strong formal kitchen-training program.

With this problem in mind I began a thorough front-end analysis to investigate the problem further.

Learning Context

Space was not an issue at Cinzzetti’s—the restaurant was previously an Office Depot. It is approximately 20,000 square feet and seats over 550 guests at a time. All of the kitchen appliances are less than four years old. Time, however, was a factor because if a cook walks out on in the middle of a Friday night rush, management needs to be able to fill his/her shoes by the following night. Therefore, even if a restaurant had the funds to give each employee a two-week training course, time forces restaurants to reduce training to the bare minimum. Money complicated things further because Cinzzetti’s did not have the resources to develop computer-based tools or even media based. Rather, we (i.e., the Cinzzetti's management team) were at the mercy of what was currently available on the market and within our price range. While there are some CD-ROMs available, computer space was limited. There was though one 13” VCR/TV combo available.

Too complicate the learning context further, other than management, there were not any employees designated as "trainers". However, most restaurants address this by taking a few lead cooks and running them through the training program with a kitchen manager. The turn over rate makes it impractical to do much else.

Learner Characteristics

The kitchen staff consisted solely of Spanish speaking people from South America—with the majority (estimated 95%) from Mexico. Some of them could speak a little English but Spanish was their primary language. Over 65% were males; their ages ranged from 18 to 55—with the majority between the ages of 20-25. The turnover rate varied from month to month. There are a handful of employees who are dedicated and who had been at Cinzzetti’s for over a year, but at the same time there were always others who continue to come and go. The majority of the kitchen staff had little formal education. Some could read and write in Spanish, some could not. Cinzzetti’s strives to hire cooks who have had previous cooking experience; due to the language barrier, it is difficult to verify just how much experience someone might have. Furthermore, a few months spent here or there does not necessarily mean that someone has acquired any culinary skills. While Cinzzetti's could strive to adopt stricter hiring practices (e.g. requiring at least three months of verified experience), the situation was grim.

Prerequisite information and skills:In an industry where people come and go, Cinzzetti’s sometimes hires people who are not always the most qualified for the job; despite this, every employee is expected to do the following:

• Be able to stand and work for extended periods of time (7-10 hours) without a break
• Be able to communicate verbally in Spanish or English (preferably both)
• Be able to read and write in Spanish or English
• Be able to lift 30+ lbs. with ease
• Be able to read a thermometer
• Have had previous experience working with a knife and other light kitchen equipment
• Be able to follow a recipe in Spanish or English
• Be able to remember a recipe once he or she has made it a dozen times

With all of this in mind, I wanted to design a training program that could meet the following outcomes:

As a result of the problem and the information about the learners and the environment, I began to design a formal training program.

The learning context (i.e. the limits of time and money) influenced the instructional strategies chosen at the macro-level. This is why a three-day training program was chosen rather than a one week or two week program. Thus, when faced with the structure of a three day training program the following sequence of events were decided on: Day One, “Safety and Sanitation”; Day Two, “Shadow a Trainer—some hands on”; and Day Three, “Trainer Shadows the Trainee—all on your own”. The logic behind this is that the first day will build a strong foundation of the importance of working in a safe and sanitary environment. The basics of setting and breaking down a station will be covered, as will some basic recipes. The second day will revolve around getting a firm grasp of the recipes. The third day will be a chance for the trainee to start demonstrating what he/she has learned—thus, giving management an idea of whether any extra training is needed.

Unfortunately restaurants are not designed for traditional classroom instruction; rather, they tend to be more of a vocational setting in which the learner is submerged in the thick of it all from day one. Nonetheless, certain instructional strategies can be used to ensure that the learning goals are met. The following chart can serve as a general overview.

For a more in depth description of the instructional strategies chosen and the rationale behind each decision, click on the following pdfs: Day One | Day Two | Day Three.

Responsibility #2: Design instruction of human performance strategy to meet the needs of learners.

This project was a success because it involved a very thorough front-end analysis that focused on the learners as well as managements needs. For instance, it was designed to fit into a three day cycle to help management meet their needs of having a fast program but also the learners needs by giving the option of taking an extra day of training. It was also designed so that it would be easy to translate into Spanish to help the spanish speaking learners.

Responsibility #4: Understands how to capitalize on the capacities and abilities of each learner.

This training program was designed to be flexible. Due to the language barrier that is often present, the final checkout with the kitchen manager was designed so that the learner could tell the manager the ingredients in different dishes instead of the traditional approach of writing the ingredients out on a sheet of paper--a task that is very difficult for many English language learners.

Responsibility #6: Uses incisive and relevant assessment and evaluation techniques.

This training program has a number of incisive and relevant assessments and evaluation techniques. For instance, all three days, the learner will have a few key concepts listed out to let him or her self-assess what they know. They will then sit down and checkout with a manager and answer some questions about topics they should have learned that day. On day two, he or she must make every dish for a manager to taste. On day three, they will be running the station throughout the shift alone. Every hour, a manger will complete a quality check which will include tasting the food. Day three will end with a recipe and safety/sanitation quiz. The following week a manger will complete a "cook check" on the new employee every day. This is a fill in the blank evaluation tool that allows the manager to evaluate how the new employee is doing; questions range from, "Is the new employee wearing the correct uniform" or "Is the new employee using a clean sanitation bucket?".