Project Title: Five Loaves Deli Onboarding Training: Choose Your Own Adventure
Tools: Articulate Storyline, dzine (AI image generator), Google Docs
Time in Development: 320 hours
My Role: Instructional Designer/eLearning Developer
Client: Judy Owens, owner of Five Loaves Deli
Executive Summary: This eLearning module series provides onboarding training for new hires at Five Loaves Deli, a family-owned restaurant located in Huntsville, TX. It is designed to be taken on a company-issued laptop, or alternatively on the new staff member’s laptop, tablet, or smartphone. Five Loaves Deli employs approximately 12 staff members, mostly women, who range in age from 16-50. The purpose of this training is to ensure that new staff can perform the three most important tasks at the deli: implementing a process to take orders at the register, identifying leadership’s expectations about how to wait on customers dining in, and listing the procedure to bag take-out orders. This eLearning module series is designed using the Choose Your Own Adventure model to activate learners’ prior learning. Learners can decide which module to begin with, but they must complete all three modules on Bagging To-Go Orders, Waiting on Dine-In Customers, and Taking Orders at the Register – and they must complete a mandatory, 10-question final quiz and earn an 80% or better to progress to the next phase of training, which involves first shadowing a season employee as they perform each of these tasks and then being shadowed by a manager as the new hire performs each of these tasks.
Challenge: Currently, Five Loaves Deli lacks training for new employees other than a brief, one-day shadowing of a trained staff member by the new hire. As a result, the staff of 12 are unclear of leadership’s expectations related to basic restaurant tasks, sometimes even a year or more into their service at the deli. While a few staff members at Five Loaves Deli have extensive restaurant experience, most staff have little to no restaurant experience. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the pool of new hires has shrunk, and the deli has resorted to hiring high school-aged staff members who may have little to no work experience.
Solution: After consultation with the owner, it was determined that asynchronous, eLearning modules would be the optimal solution to the problem of new and current staff’s lack of clarity relative to leadership’s expectations. Asynchronous, eLearning modules presented the best solution because learners could take them at their convenience and as directed by leadership. Because Five Loaves Deli is a family-run business, there is not a companywide LMS to host these modules, so Moodle was identified as a free resource to host the training.
Result: This training solution is valued and needed by the owner. By explicitly educating new hires on leadership’s expectations, framing feedback as constructive criticism meant to help team members succeed, and encouraging staff to empathize with customers, this training will help to them to create a friendly, efficient restaurant experience for customers, leading customers to return, leave positive online reviews, and ultimately increase revenue. I uncovered low- and no-cost solutions to deliver this training to new hires and gather feedback on learner perceptions of the training, as well as measuring changes in staff behavior that demonstrate the training has been effective.