How can technology help with onboarding?
Tech can centralize SOPs/checklists, assign training steps, track completion, and keep schedules and communication clear so new hires aren't guessing what comes next.
Restaurant Onboarding Checklist for New Hires
Overview
Hiring gets someone in the door. Onboarding decides whether they become a strong performer - or a short-term mistake. Getting them ready to work confidently - and keeping them long enough to matter - is harder. Most restaurants don't lose people because of pay alone. They lose them because the first days feel confusing, rushed, or inconsistent. New hires walk in wanting to do well, but if they don't know your standards, your systems, or where to start, they fall behind fast. That's when mistakes pile up - wrong modifiers, slow tickets, missed steps, awkward guest moments, wasted prep, and unhappy teammates. You feel it in labor hours, food cost, and guest reviews.
A strong onboarding process fixes that. Think of it like setting the rails before the train starts moving. When onboarding is clear and repeatable, new staff learn faster, managers spend less time firefighting, and your restaurant runs more smoothly - even on your busiest shifts. The goal isn't to overload someone with information. It's to give them the right information in the right order, so they can build real skill and confidence week by week.
Before Day One
The fastest onboarding starts before the new hire ever walks in. If day one begins with you scrambling for a uniform, hunting down a login, or deciding who will train them, you're already behind. Pre-boarding removes friction so your first shifts are focused on learning - not confusion.
1. Create a one-page role scorecard - Keep it simple- the top responsibilities, the standards that matter most, and how you'll measure success in the first 30 days. Examples could include - hitting ticket time targets, following portion specs, on-time attendance, or using the correct guest greeting steps. This gives new hires a clear target so they don't guess what good looks like.
2. Prepare every tool they need ahead of time - Have uniforms, name tags, station keys, safety gear, POS access, scheduling app access, recipe binders, and SOPs ready before their first shift. If you use digital checklists or training videos, send links in advance. Every missing tool on day one steals training time.
3. Build a realistic first-week training map - Owners often try to teach everything at once because they want people productive quickly. That overload slows learning. Instead, set daily goals -
Day 1. Orientation + basics
Day 2. Shadowing + one controlled task
Day 3. Systems training
Day 4-5. Partial solo work with support
A steady ramp builds confidence and skill faster than a firehose approach.
4. Assign a trainer or buddy before the first shift - Don't pick a trainer last-minute. Choose someone steady, patient, and consistent with standards. Tell them exactly what they're responsible for teaching and what "ready to solo" looks like by the end of the week. Training without ownership leads to mixed messages.
5. Set expectations for how onboarding will work - Explain what their first week will look like, how feedback happens, and what the pace of learning should feel like. When people know the plan, they feel less stressed, learn faster, and are more likely to stay.
When you handle these steps before day one, you're not just being organized - you're protecting your time, your team's energy, and your standards. A little structure up front saves hours of correction later.
Day One Checklist
Day one sets the tone for everything that follows. If a new hire leaves their first shift feeling lost, embarrassed, or unsure where they fit, you've got an uphill battle. But if they leave thinking, "I get how this place works and what I'm supposed to do next," you've built momentum. The key is structure without overload.
1. Start with a real welcome, not a rushed handoff - Take 5-10 minutes to greet them, introduce yourself (or the manager on duty), and confirm you're glad they're here. This sounds small, but it lowers anxiety and makes people more open to coaching. When day one feels human, not transactional, people engage faster.
2. Give a clear culture snapshot - Explain what your restaurant stands for in practical terms - how you treat guests, how you communicate under pressure, and what "teamwork" looks like during a rush. Keep it simple - three or four core expectations. New hires can remember a few standards. They can't remember a speech.
3. Walk the space in the order they'll work it - Instead of a random tour, show the flow, where prep happens, how food moves to the line, where expo lives, how dishes return, where side work is stored, and how guests move through service. When people understand the physical system, they make fewer wrong turns - literally and mentally.
4. Cover the non-negotiables early - These are the rules that prevent problems later- attendance and call-out process, break rules, appearance standards, phone policy, and basic guest-first behaviors. Keep it short, but direct. New hires appreciate clarity more than vagueness.
5. Handle paperwork efficiently so it doesn't eat the shift - Whether it's tax forms, direct deposit, tip acknowledgments, or training sign-offs, batch it and move on. Day one should be mostly training, not admin. If possible, pre-fill what you can or send forms ahead of time.
6. End with a simple "what happens next" plan - Before they leave, tell them exactly what tomorrow or the next shift will focus on. Example - "Next shift you'll shadow Maria on register, then you'll take the last hour practicing orders." This removes uncertainty and gives them a clear mental target.
A well-run day one doesn't try to make someone job-ready instantly. It makes them - comfortable, oriented, and eager to return. That's the foundation you build speed on.
Food Safety, Workplace Safety, and Compliance Basics
Safety training isn't the "boring part" of onboarding - it's the part that protects your guests, your team, and your business. New hires don't break rules because they're careless. Most of the time they do it because no one showed them the right way clearly enough. Your job in onboarding is to make safety feel simple, normal, and non-negotiable.
1. Teach the core food safety habits they'll use every shift - Keep it practical. Proper handwashing, glove use, avoiding bare-hand contact with ready-to-eat food, and staying home when sick. Show them where sanitizer buckets go, how often to change them, and what clean as you go looks like in your kitchen. If they learn these basics early, you prevent a ton of downstream issues.
2. Cover temperature and cross-contamination rules with real examples - Don't just list numbers. connect them to tasks. Show how you label and date product, where raw proteins are stored, and how cooked foods are protected. Walk through your "danger zone" expectations, and demonstrate how to use thermometers correctly. New staff need to see the standard, not just hear it.
3. Make allergens and guest safety a clear priority - Explain your allergen process step-by-step, how questions are handled, how tickets are marked, who confirms the order, and how the plate is protected from contact with allergens. Emphasize that guessing is never allowed - if they're unsure, they stop and ask. This one habit can prevent serious guest harm.
4. Train on the top workplace hazards in your restaurant - Focus on the biggest risks - slips and falls, cuts, burns, lifting injuries, and chemical exposure. Show safer knife handling, hot-pan communication, proper floor-sign use, and where spill kits or first aid supplies are kept. New hires should know how to avoid common injuries before they work a busy shift.
5. Explain emergency procedures like you expect to use them - Point out fire exits, extinguishers, gas shutoffs (if relevant), and who leads in an emergency. Review what to do during a fire, power outage, or medical incident. If something goes wrong, you want instinctive action - not confusion.
6. Clarify compliance rules that affect pay and fairness - Touch on your break policy, tip pooling or tip-out structure, minor labor rules (if applicable), and any local requirements that matter. This protects you legally, but it also builds trust. People stay longer when the rules feel transparent.
Safety onboarding doesn't need to be long. It needs to be clear, demonstrated, and repeated. When you train safety right at the start, you reduce accidents, avoid costly mistakes, and set a professional standard your whole team can follow.
Systems Training
Once a new hire understands the basics and safety, the next step is teaching your systems - the repeatable ways your restaurant runs every day. This is where speed and consistency are built. People don't struggle because they can't work hard. They struggle because they don't know your flow, your tools, or your expectations under pressure.
1. Train the POS and payment flow in real order, not random buttons - Start with the exact steps they'll follow on shift- open a check, enter items, add modifiers, send to kitchen, split checks, apply discounts, and close payment. Show the why behind rules like comps/voids needing approval. Even small POS mistakes can create wrong orders, shrink, and slow service, so don't leave this to trial and error.
2. Teach station setup and prep systems the way you want them done - Walk through how a station starts, stocking levels, backup placement, labeling, and what "ready for rush" looks like. For BOH, this means par levels, FIFO rotation, and where tools live. For FOH, it might be server station resets, side work organization, and drink setup. A clean setup prevents chaos later - and saves minutes every hour.
3. Explain ticket flow and communication standards - New hires need to learn your language- how tickets are called, what expo expects, how to confirm modifiers, and how to say "behind," "hot," or "re-fire" in a way the team understands. Communication systems are what keep errors from becoming waste and guest complaints.
4. Build habits around quality checks and handoffs - Show where mistakes typically happen - before food is fired, at plating, at runner pickup, or at table drop. Teach them the quick checks you expect. right item, right temp, right garnish, right guest. This is one of the easiest ways to reduce re-fires and plate waste without adding extra labor.
5. Train closing and accountability systems early - Don't wait until their third week to talk about closing tasks. Introduce your checklists now - what gets cleaned, restocked, labeled, locked, and logged. When people learn the closing rhythm early, you avoid "half-done" closes that hurt opening shifts and morale.
Systems training isn't about micromanaging. It's about giving people a reliable playbook. When your systems are clear, new hires get faster sooner, managers spend less time correcting basics, and your whole operation runs with fewer surprises.
Skills Training by Position (FOH vs. BOH)
After your systems are clear, training needs to go deeper into role-specific skills. This is where a lot of restaurants unintentionally slow onboarding down - by teaching every position the same way or by expecting people to "pick it up" during live service. FOH and BOH need different rhythms, different priorities, and different definitions of "ready."
For front-of-house, the early focus should be guest flow and confidence, not speed alone. New servers, cashiers, or runners need to learn how your restaurant wants guests to feel from the first 30 seconds. Teach the greeting steps, how to introduce themselves, how to guide guests through the menu, and how to pace service so tables don't feel rushed or ignored. Menu knowledge should be practical- top sellers, common modifiers, allergy notes, and how to answer "What do you recommend?" without freezing. Upselling should be framed as helping guests choose well, not pushing items. If FOH learns the right habits early - eye contact, active listening, repeating orders back, checking on tables at the right moments - you prevent wrong orders, cold food, and poor reviews later.
For back-of-house, early training must lock in accuracy and consistency before speed. New cooks or prep staff should learn recipe specs, portioning tools, cook times, plating standards, and how to set up their station for the flow of service. Show them what a "perfect plate" looks like and what's not acceptable - overcooked proteins, missing garnishes, sloppy portions, or unbalanced bowls. Portion control is a big owner win here - consistent scoops and weights protect food cost and make ticket times more predictable. BOH also needs repetition on timing - when to fire items, how to coordinate with expo, and how to recover quickly if something goes wrong.
No matter the role, cross-training has to be intentional. Decide what "must-know first" skills are and what can wait. A new line cook doesn't need to master every station by day three, and a new server doesn't need to handle a full section on the first shift. Build toward it. A steady ramp reduces stress, improves retention, and gets people to reliable performance faster than rushing them into the deep end.
The goal of skills training isn't to create a robot. It's to create a teammate who can deliver your standards - even on a slammed Friday night - because they learned the right way first.
Performance Checkpoints
Onboarding doesn't end after day one or even week one. What turns a new hire into a reliable team member is the sequence of check-ins that follow. Without checkpoints, people either drift (because they aren't sure how they're doing) or they build weak habits that get harder to fix later. Short, scheduled reviews let you coach early, spot gaps fast, and keep good hires from slipping through the cracks.
The 3-day checkpoint is about comfort and basics. Ask - Do they understand the flow of the restaurant? Do they know who to go to with questions? Are they following the safety and system standards you've taught? This is where you fix small confusion before it becomes a bigger performance issue. If they look overwhelmed, your answer isn't "push harder." It's "simplify the next steps."
The 7-day checkpoint is about capability. By now, they should be handling a controlled slice of the job with support. Look at a few clear indicators -
- Are they improving shift to shift?
- Are they making the same mistake repeatedly, or new mistakes as they learn?
- Are they showing effort and curiosity, or avoiding feedback?
- This checkpoint helps you decide whether the training plan is working for them or needs adjustment.
The 14-day checkpoint is about consistency under real conditions. They've likely seen a rush or two. Now you're checking if they hold standards when it gets busy. Are ticket times improving? Are portions and plating specs steady? Are guest steps being followed even when they're in the weeds? If results dip under pressure, that's normal - but it means you need targeted coaching, not more general training.
The 30-day checkpoint is your first real performance picture. You're looking at reliability- attendance, speed, accuracy, teamwork, and attitude. At this point, someone is either becoming a long-term asset or showing signs they won't. Be honest and kind, but clear. If they're on track, tell them exactly what they're doing well and what the next growth goal is. If they're not, decide quickly - extra training, a different station, or a respectful exit. Dragging it out hurts your team and your labor.
These checkpoints don't need to be long meetings. Ten minutes with a simple scorecard is enough. The power is in the rhythm. When new hires know you're paying attention - and that improvement is expected and supported - they level up faster and stay longer.
Make Onboarding Repeatable
If you want to hire great staff fast consistently, onboarding can't live in someone's head. It has to live in a simple playbook that any manager can follow the same way, every time. Repeatable onboarding is what protects your standards when you're not in the building, when the store is slammed, or when you're hiring multiple people at once.
Start by turning everything you've done so far into a master onboarding checklist. One version for FOH, one for BOH, both following the same timeline. Keep it tight and practical- what to cover before day one, what happens on day one, what gets trained in week one, and how the 3/7/14/30-day checkpoints are handled. The goal is less "training by memory" and more "training by system."
Next, standardize how trainers teach. Even good trainers can drift if there isn't a shared script. Give them a short trainer guide with -
- what to demonstrate,
- what the new hire should practice,
- and what sign-off ready looks like.
This reduces mixed messages and makes performance more predictable.
Then, keep training bite-sized and trackable. New hires learn faster when they have daily targets instead of a big vague goal like get better at the job. Small wins stack up. If you can't measure progress, you can't coach it - so track simple things like station readiness, POS accuracy, portioning consistency, or guest-step completion.
Finally, store all onboarding tools in one place. Whether it's a binder in the office or a digital hub, your SOPs, recipes, videos, quizzes, and checklists should be easy to find. When training materials are scattered, onboarding slows down and quality drops.
Streamline Onboarding with Altametrics
If you want onboarding to run smoothly across shifts and locations, Altametrics can help you turn this playbook into a living system. Their platform supports restaurant operators with tools for workforce scheduling, timekeeping, inventory, checklists, and operational reporting - so managers aren't rebuilding onboarding from scratch every hire.
For onboarding specifically, Altametrics provides onboarding and checklist resources and lets you assign tasks or training steps, automate reminders, and track completion - making it easier to confirm every new hire clears the same standards.And because Altametrics ties labor tools (like scheduling and mobile shift communication) to day-to-day operations, new employees can get up to speed faster while you keep labor controlled and teams aligned.
If you're ready to reduce early turnover, train faster without cutting corners, and keep onboarding consistent even as you scale - click on "Request a Demo" below.
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Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know if onboarding is working?
Track simple indicators- early turnover, training hours per hire, common errors (wrong orders, re-fires, waste), speed improvement, attendance, and manager coaching time.
How do I onboard quickly without lowering standards?
Prepare before day one, teach in a clear order, use a trainer buddy system, and set daily goals. Speed comes from structure, not rushing.
What should be included in a restaurant onboarding checklist?
A strong checklist covers pre-boarding setup, day-one orientation, safety/compliance training, systems training (POS, station flow, communication), role-specific skills for FOH/BOH, and scheduled performance checkpoints.
How long should onboarding take for a new restaurant employee?
Most roles need a structured first week to learn basics, then 2-4 weeks to reach steady performance. Onboarding shouldn't be a single day - it's a ramp with check-ins at 3, 7, 14, and 30 days.
