Regional seafood operator to try hybrid CBT online training

Small to mid size foodservice companies are as interested as industry giants in benefiting from online training, but relatively limited resources are forcing them to approach things differently.

Some smaller players, including Sea Island Shrimp House of San Antonio, are unwilling to break their capital or services budgets or wait until they are large enough to afford a true online training infrastructure with dedicated frame relay or satellite data networks and radically unique content.

Sea Island Shrimp House, or SISH, is attempting to gain some of the benefits of online training trainee progress tracking and simplified systems for updating and distributing content by creating a hybrid system centered around a conventional computer based training, or CHI, program and generic, broad band Internet connections.

Owned by the Anthony family, SISH has been using CD ROM and hard drive installed CCITT material in its seven fast casual restaurants for about two months. The first generation of training content was targeted at reducing the time managers spent on orientation with new hires, training manager Curt Winkler explained.

Despite the newness of the SISH CCITT system, it is already in transition.

"We're buying a [network] server for the corporate office, where we will use it for polling test scores from the restaurants," Winkler said. "I'll be able to audit all the test scores and know what is going on."

Winkler said the company also planned to use the broad band Internet connection at each of its restaurants as a conduit for pushing down training material updates in a relatively seamless fashion.

The content for the Sea Island Shrimp House CCITT system was developed by modifying an off the shelf application used to test and track trainee competence in course work. The chain's consultant, T.J. Shier of Incentivize Solutions of Flower Mound, Texas, said he took Sea Island's printed materials and created modules and tests for each position in the restaurant.

"Instead of long manuals full of print [text], we created interactive modules full of pictures and text in bullets, in both English and Spanish, including orientation, " Schier said. "All of their [new hire]'paperwork' is now part of the module and printed out and signed as they [trainees] get to it."

Schier previously was vice president and director of field support for Chuck E. Cheese's parent, CEC Entertainment Inc.

Discussing the range of fees restaurant companies might pay for digital content, Schier said a lot of variables can impact the price. If the client had sufficient conventional training materials on hand to leverage, and he did all the compiling and needed to use the services of audio or video or translation professionals, multiple modules and testing could run $10,000 to $30,000. However, he added, that may not be the case if he simply creates computerized testing systems or spends a day or two setting up a master "layout," or template, and shows one of the client company's employees how to create modules and tests. Then the fees could be a fraction of the full service charge, or $3,000 to $5,000, the consultant said.

SISH's Winkler said that by using the technology enhanced orientation and training system, "we took an hour and a half and gave it back to them [managers] to manage their stores." He said the new system also has resulted in new hires that are "50 percent ahead of the individuals we would have hired a year ago" in terms of "understanding the jobs they are going into" and "understanding the questions they need to ask." Given those results, Winkler indicated, more detailed training content is in the works because "we now know it is worth the expenditure."