"When it came to holding employees accountable I was never sure if I had done my job in telling them how to do it right the first time.  With the Sunrise Food Service Series, I have become a better coach and feel much more comfortable upholding standards on certain behaviors.  I use to hear a lot of “No one ever told me” ... ”I didn’t know” ... “3 different people have told me three different ways” ... where today I am hearing almost none of those comments.  It is pretty difficult for an employee to argue that “no one told me” when they have been trained, certified and have “signed” off on the various skill sets.  Having been in the industry for 30 years I felt a lot of anxiety about the lack of training, as well as accountability for both managers and employees.  I feel much more confident now that I have a system that works."

"By using the Sunrise Food Service Series, a few of the observations I made immediately were; #1 – The employees are taking training much more seriously because we are; #2 – Their self-confidence is dramatically improved; and #3 – We have all become much more accountable to one another and our guests.  Just get it out of the box, and start using it.  You don’t want to leave it on the shelf and just look at it.  It has helped me refocus my thoughts on training and has given me an organized approach to the employees.

“I don’t know how many owners or managers have sat in on an unemployment hearing and not had good documentation, but I can tell you its frustrating and very costly.  With the Sunrise Training System, I am much more confident that once employees have gone through proper training, proper documentation, testing and certification, they are more inclined to be accountable and less prone to behaviors that will get them terminated.  However, whether its unemployment, work comp, or Health Department issues, knowing that employees have been trained, certified and have signed-off on their training, we feel much more prepared when incidents come up.  It can mean big bucks and a bad reputation without the proper training strategies.”

“The thing I like about the Sunrise Training System is that it is easy to use and pretty straight forward.  Most of my staff is young and the DVD training works because it is very visual.  Each segment, on average, is about 25 minutes.  However, we take a good hour to go through it because we stop periodically to ask what they think about a certain scene they have viewed.  Many times it may not be exactly how we do it, but it certainly offers us an opportunity for open discussion.  The other part I like is the CD ROM where I can go through my Trainer’s checklist, modify and add to test questions, and customize it for our operation.”

“We are always measuring performance from a monetary standpoint with daily, weekly and monthly reports, food and beverage costs, etc.  When was the last time we measured performance based on employee efficiency, turnover, check averages per server, etc.?  We know that many of our restaurant competitors are doing those things.  However, if you are really interested in setting yourself apart from the competitors, the consistent and effective training of your employees and the tracking of their performance is the big difference between success and failure.  It is a satisfying feeling for all of us to know that, as our industry grows, the employees that make it happen day-to-day will grow with it.

As one of the largest employers of youth in the country, it is imperative that we become more organized and sophisticated in how we approach our business.  If we are going to lift our image and expand our industry we are going to have to find new and better ways to educate and train.