Onboarding checklist: A guide to effective staff induction with an LMS

When you take the time to onboard your staff properly, you give them the tools they need to be successful in their role and improve employee engagement. That’s why it’s so important for hospitality businesses to have a comprehensive onboarding process in place. 

At Access Hospitality we have helped thousands of companies in the hospitality industry to streamline operations, improve processes, and better service both their customers and their staff. When it comes to onboarding, our accessible LMS makes it easy for hospitality operators to deliver a seamless onboarding experience for new starters, and it’s accessed by thousands of new starters every day. Our experience and expertise in this area have given us quite a few insights, which we are always happy to share. 

In this article, we'll look at what a great onboarding experience is like, and how to implement it across your business. 

What to include in an onboarding checklist

The best way to ensure that all training and onboarding is delivered effectively and consistently across your organisation is to put a checklist in place and ensure it’s followed. Before we talk about best practices in creating that checklist, let’s look at some of the essential components that you will need to include in your onboarding. 

HR paperwork 

It might seem like a boring bit but ensuring that you share HR paperwork with new starters on or before their first day is important. It helps you to stay compliant with employment law, ensures you’ve collected key emergency and banking information, and helps you to be more efficient from the outset. By making it the first step on your onboarding checklist, you can make sure it doesn’t get overlooked. Consider using specialist hospitality HR software to manage this. 

Job-specific training 

Some steps in your onboarding process will be universal, but others will need to be tailored to individual roles. Bar staff don’t need to know how to prepare a menu dish, and it’s unlikely you’ll be asking the chef to mix a cocktail. At the same time, there will be different requirements for compliance training depending on the duties of the staff member. Every role will require specific training, and it’s important to make sure that your employee onboarding is relevant to the individual. This is often easier and more efficient when working with an LMS for onboarding. 

Safety protocols 

Mitigating risk, protecting your staff and customers, and staying compliant with your insurance are all very good reasons to make sure that you include clear training on safety protocols within your business. Make sure your staff know what their responsibilities are when it comes to workplace and food safety, and what to do in an emergency. 

Company policies 

Onboarding is the time to make sure staff members have read and understood your company policies. This ensures that employees understand the obligations and expectations they must meet to help you stay compliant, reduce risk, and maintain your brand’s reputation. If it is built into your onboarding checklist, then you have a clear record that it has been done. 

Cultural orientation 

New staff members will settle in faster if there is time dedicated to helping them understand your business culture, the hierarchy, and the team dynamics. Offering oversight of the business helps to set expectations and can reduce the natural anxiety that comes with starting a new job. 

How to create an effective onboarding checklist 

Building an effective onboarding process should certainly focus on efficiency. But it should also focus on helping each team member to reach their full potential within the business. That way, they will be happier and more productive, and your business will get maximum value out of each individual. 

Make sure they understand what is expected of them 

• Offer clear job descriptions, with training for each responsibility attached. This gives them a proper overview of how their role fits into the ecosystem of your business, and how the training they will undertake helps them to do their job properly. 

• Spend time helping them to understand your brand values. Business culture and brand values are things that often get overlooked during onboarding, but they are crucial steps in the process. Many of your new staff will likely be customer-facing from day one. That means they are acting as representatives and ambassadors of your brand; it’s difficult for them to do this if they don’t understand the values of that brand. 
• Make company policies and protocols easy to access so that new starters can quickly familiarise themselves with everything they need to know. 

Create a job-specific training plan that includes all necessary training to enable them to do their job 

This includes, but isn’t limited to: 

• Safety training – e.g. food safety, allergens, serving alcohol  
• Product training – e.g. making certain dishes or drinks, understanding your menu so they can answer questions about it 
• Technical training – e.g. knowing how to operate certain equipment, understanding how and when to clean equipment 
• Processes – e.g. locking up, opening, closing down, cashing up 

Put the right support in place 

• Create a buddy system or mentorship program for new starters so that they have a more experienced team member to help them when they need it. 
• Ensure there are clear channels of communication in place, and make sure staff are encouraged to give feedback so that you can continue to improve the process. 

Create a manageable training schedule 

• The best onboarding plans take place over weeks and months. Create a 30-, 60-, and 90-day schedule where you can check in on progress and release more training content in phases. 
• Make it possible to unlock onboarding training content as they progress. This can help to make it more engaging and prevent team members from becoming overwhelmed. 

Plan for the future 

• Onboarding is the perfect time to ask employees about their career aspirations and start to develop a personalised career pathway for them.  
• Put in place appropriate development training (eg. management training, resilience training, mental health training, etc) 

Leveraging an LMS for onboarding

A Learning Management System (LMS) is a software platform that allows you to deliver and track training programs for your staff. A good LMS platform will streamline the learning process for your team by providing a centralised hub where you can manage all aspects of online learning activities in your organisation. 

For hospitality operators, an LMS can help you deliver more consistent and structured onboarding training across the whole business. Great restaurant training software will allow you to offer flexible and personalised training so that team members can access the training they need when they need it.  

When it comes to using an LMS for onboarding, there are significant benefits for hospitality businesses. 

Allow staff to access training anywhere 

Hospitality staff don’t tend to spend much (if any) time sitting behind a desk. So, choose a Learning Management System for hospitality that allows your staff to easily access online training from mobile devices.  

Create a collaborative environment with clear communication channels 

Your LMS should make it easy to keep staff updated and for them to communicate with peers and supervisors throughout their onboarding journey. 

Track compliance training  

Using an LMS for onboarding will allow you to keep clear records of compliance training from one centralised dashboard.  

Enjoy more flexibility and responsiveness 

LMS onboarding makes it easier to respond to changes in training needs, whether that’s because of new legislation, or shifting business requirements. Choose an LMS that also allows you to incorporate your brand and values into the training, and is fully customisable so that you can build training plans which fit your organisation’s needs. 

Evaluate progress 

Using an LMS in your onboarding process will allow you to view all your reports in one place. This will make it easier to benchmark employee performance and progress, track engagement and retention, and find ways to improve your onboarding. 

Deliver the best onboarding experience 

In this article, we’ve discussed best practice for creating an effective onboarding checklist for your hospitality business and what it needs to include. We’ve also looked at how a learning management system can help you to build an effective and efficient onboarding plan that delivers value. 

When it comes to delivering the best possible onboarding experience, Access CPL Learning offers everything you need. If you’d like to find out more about how our hospitality LMS system can improve your onboarding, get in touch with one of our friendly team members to schedule a demo, or watch a personalised demo.