The first two weeks of a new employee’s experience in your venue will determine whether they stay for two years or two months. Most hospitality operators know this and still do onboarding badly. Not because they do not care, but because they are busy and have not built a system.
This is how to build one that works.
Onboarding Starts Before the First Shift
Send a new starter the information they need before they arrive. A welcome message. A run sheet for their first day. The address, the parking situation, what to wear, who to ask for. These are small things but they signal whether your business is organised or chaotic. Most new staff have already made a judgement about whether they want to stay before they walk through the door on day one.
Do Not Throw Them Straight Into a Busy Service
The temptation when you are short staffed is to put a new person straight onto the floor or straight into the kitchen and hope they work it out. Sometimes they do. More often they make mistakes that could have been avoided, get flustered, and either underperform or decide the job is not for them.
The first shift should be orientation, not trial by fire. Walk them through the venue. Introduce them to the team. Show them where everything is. Explain how a typical service runs. Give them a role that lets them observe before they are expected to perform.
Build a Written Induction Process
If your onboarding depends entirely on who happens to be rostered when a new person starts, your onboarding is inconsistent. Different managers will cover different things. Some things will be covered twice and some things will not be covered at all.
A written induction checklist ensures every new starter gets the same information regardless of who trains them. It does not need to be complicated. A one-page checklist covering what they need to know in week one, week two, and week four is enough to create consistency.
Our hospitality staff training service includes building induction systems that venue owners can actually maintain without constant oversight.
Cover the Non-Negotiables Explicitly
Food safety, allergen handling, cash handling, opening and closing procedures, and how to handle a difficult customer. These are the things that create liability if they go wrong and they should be covered explicitly during onboarding, not assumed. Document that you covered them. Have the new starter sign off that they understood them.
Check In at the End of Week One
A ten-minute conversation at the end of the first week costs almost nothing and gives you information you cannot get any other way. How are they finding it? Is there anything they are unclear on? Is there anything about how we work that surprised them?
Most staff problems that show up in month two were visible in week one if anyone had asked. The check-in is also a signal to the new person that you are paying attention to their experience, which is one of the simplest retention tools available.
High staff turnover is one of the most expensive problems in hospitality. We cover the full cost of it in our post on the true cost of staff turnover and how to reduce it.
If you want help building a proper onboarding and training system for your venue, talk to Pestle and Mortar. Our staff training service covers induction, ongoing development, and the systems that keep good people in your team.
About the Author
Wayne Farmer is the founder and chief consultant at Pestle and Mortar, Australia’s hands-on hospitality consultancy. With experience running hotel kitchens, boutique dining venues, and a successful catering business, Wayne has spent his career helping Australian restaurant, cafe, and catering operators build more profitable, better-run businesses. Learn more about Wayne and how Pestle and Mortar works.