Pal\'s Sudden Service Is a Quick Service

Pal's Sudden Service is a quick service restaurant chain that seeks to compete in part through excellence in the service function. Part of the strategy involves delivering food very quickly to customers, with a minimum of errors. To achieve these goals, the company expends considerable energy on training its employees. This paper will outline some of the principles that I would use if I worked for Pal's in order to continue to eliminate errors and increase overall quality.

Reducing Errors

If I was in charge of training, I would utilize the same techniques to reduce errors that are found in production management. Those techniques, while typically developed for manufacturing enterprises, can be easily adapted to the service industry. Something like Six Sigma is a good approach because it focuses on statistical analysis to determine the root causes of errors (Smith, n.d.). A good starting point might be something like the 80/20 approach, where it is believed that 80% of errors come from 20% of processes. Thus, the same types of errors are being repeated over and over again, and if those errors can be identified and eliminated then the business will see a dramatic reduction in errors. Human processes are often at the heart of errors no matter what the industry, so once the error has been identified, training is almost always the solution.

The first step is to develop metrics to measure the different errors that are occurring. This can help management to identify the underlying factors that are contributing the most to the errors. All the training in the world will not help a company like Pal's Sudden Service if the training is not focused on the areas where the majority of errors are occurring. Thus, management must take responsibility for identifying the root causes of errors before an appropriate training program can be developed.

The training program also needs to take a multidisciplinary approach to reducing errors. Looking to successes in other industries for good ideas is recommended, if the fast food industry lacks success stories. For example, in the medical industry it has been found that simulations reduce errors, and that industry borrowed the idea from airlines (No author, 1999). Simulating transactions during the early part of the training can help to put abstract concepts from seminar-based training into focus for the trainees. Another option might be the use of video from the store to highlight areas where errors have occurred, an idea borrowed from professional sports.

Evaluation

Evaluation of training programs comes in two stages. The first stage is the preventative stage. Pal's addresses this in a few ways. It tests employees at the training stage, and then also when they enter the work environment. These tests provide incentive for employees to remember the lessons of training, and for the company to identify gaps in training and subsequently address those gaps. The preventative stage is an area where it appears that Pal's has had considerable success already, so there might not need to be much improvement in that area.

The second component of training evaluation is in the real world results. This requires the developing of metrics and measuring tools to help Pal's management team to identify how successful their training program has been. In particular, having a control (i.e. "before") and "after" will allow management to test to see if training focused on a particular area has genuinely resulted in improved results in that area. This information can allow management to adjust training programs that have not been effective, or to rethink the underlying causes of that particular problem.

Another methodology is Kirkpatrick's four-level training evaluation model (MindTools, 2013). The four levels are reaction, learning, behavior and results. While learning and results have already been discussed, this model for evaluating a training program introduces two other measures. The first is reaction, where the company's trainers observe responses of workers to the training. In general, Pal's has a good record of employee receptiveness to the training, and it is important that a training program is received well in order for it to be effective. If the employees are not generally reacting well to the training, this might indicate a problem with the training and poor results are likely to follow.

Behavior change is critical to the success of training in service industries. The tests that Pal's currently uses test the ability of the employees to retain the information they have been given, but it is important that they apply that information to their everyday work. If they are not, the company needs to know this, because the failure of the results might come more from lack of application, or it might come more from the quality of information being applied. The company must understand why a given training program fails, not just that it fails. Thus, monitoring behavior is a critical component to evaluation. Managers can also subject this to statistical analysis, measuring how many employees are implementing the training, how often, and to what level of perfection. Such information can help both the training process and to identify deficiencies that require further training.