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Why Restaurant Training Needs to Start Teaching Social Responsibility

Restaurant Training is often associated with some pretty negative terms: annoying, ineffective, boring. 

Ouch. What's up with that?

Well sometimes, whether we like it or not, it's our job to influence the actions of our company employees.  And sadly, sometimes employees make poor decisions. Should corporate social responsibility be a part of your restaurant training curriculum?  We think yes!!!

First, what is corporate social responsibility?

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is essentially an ethical plan. While you can read a bunch of long and fancy-sounding definitions, in its most basic sense CSR is understanding the results of your employees actions within the various communities associated with your brand. It's about making the ethically and morally correct choices.

Why is corporate social responsibility important to the restaurant business?

The CSR landscape is more critical today than ever before. Decades ago, the world was run on sovereignty. A country or state, or some government body, regulated how the world was run. Its actions impacted the state of the economy, and its regulations dictated how issues were solved.

And while that still remains true to varying extents, businesses are now taking over as rulers of the world -- even if they (and we) don't see it that way. Let's look at some examples to illustrate how.

Whole Foods

In Q4 of 2011, Whole Foods started their plans to open a store in Jamaica Plain, Boston. While they simply saw it as an expansion of their business, the residents of Jamaica Plain were outraged. Not only would this new store replace the previous local grocer in that exact location, but it would suddenly raise the costs of groceries for that neighborhood -- going from a no-name small business to an organic chain store. All the employers of the local store -- some working there for over 10 years -- were now out of a job. Should Whole Foods have considered these societal effects before making their decision? Did they even think about it?

What Does CSR Have to Do With Restaurant Training?

We are strong advocates of CSR training.  This is the message that we intend to deliver to our clients through our employees.  It is not about just doing community service simply because it is the right thing to do. It also can benefit SMEs on marketing and branding levels.  It can be a lot more valuable not just to the community but also to business as well.

How to Merge CSR and Restaurant Training

If you agree that there should be a CSR and restaurant training convergence, there's a few ways to start doing so for your own restaurant.

What does your restaurant do -- something that's reflective of your company culture -- that could translate into positive, feel-good deeds? The restaurant trainers will say that CSR is extremely easy and fun to teach when your employees do and say things that others naturally want to talk about.

Many restaurant training departments avoid poking their nose into the business impacts of their organization because they don't think it's their job to do so. But communicating how those impacts could affect your ability to do your job really should fall under your purview. You know, as a restaurant trainer, your employee’s moves will have a negative social impact, there's a good chance it will have a negative business impact, too.

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That's all I got for today. John