Date: 01/26

Trainer: Alexander

Trainee/s: Justin and Stephanie

Follow: Day 2

First and foremost, my hats are off to Mic for doing a GREAT job on his day one train. He instilled this class with all the tools they needed to excel on their day two. Thanks Mic.

Today was an awesome train.The trainees were top notch, prepared, had great hustle and initiative and were an all around solid class. The shift itself was great as we were slightly more busy than our usual Thursdays. However, it also provided some unique training experiences. Two of our three cleans were after private parties where the customers just lingered in the theatre making the cleans a little more difficult than usual. Also, because they were private parties, one theatre was let out about fifteen minutes early which cut in to our dinner break.

 I was scheduled a run shift while the trainees were doing their day one train; therefore, this week I am provided with a unique perspective in knowing how they performed based on my observation of their day one.

 Justin: As previously mentioned, I was able to briefly observe these trainees on their day one train. To my delight, it seemed Justin had a greater pep in his step today. He seemed more awake, aware and ready to hustle. I was thoroughly pleased with his performance. His solid knowledge and role comprehension matched his performance! He also surprised me with his initiative. I have no complaints about Justin. I look forward to seeing him develop and grow over the next few months.

Stephanie: Stephanie was also awesome. To my surprise, I feel like Stephanie was constantly out performing Justin. She is, however, a self proclaimed "over achiever" and thus her performance is understandable. Her knowledge, retention and work ethic is superb. She, like day one, showed great initiative with servicing out customers. 

I do, unfortunately, have a couple red flags I'd like to warn about. Stephanie seems to work so hard she may burn out quickly. As the night wore on she seemed to loose steam and need to break more often. Perhaps this is simply because it was a later shift tonight and she is not used to working so late. Also, she seems to have trouble multitasking. I was quizzing her while she was wiping menus during a theatre and seemed to become frazzled with answers she had been answering effortlessly earlier that night.

All in all, Stephanie was awesome and will be a great addition to the Alamo family. She is very eager to cross train and become familiar with the different roles. 

What roles do you see the trainee/s attaining in their future with the Alamo Drafthouse family?

Justin: Justin clearly has his eyes set on becoming a server. I would recommend this as he familiarizes himself with the new Alamo standards and continues to show his hustle and desire to grow with the company. 

Stephanie: Stephanie isn't sure where she sees herself in the near future. She is eager to cross train and learn different roles so she can make an educated decision as to what role she is most passionate about. I would strongly recommend she be cross trained and exposed to all aspects Alamo. She has previous management experience and, with proper training, seems to have tools and characteristics that could potentially see her stepping into the MIT program. This is a bold statement as I have only had limited interaction with her, but on the surface my initial impression is she could potentially request this role in the future. 

Did you cover all topics on the Follow Card? Yes

Do you feel that the trainee/s was given enough guidance? Yes

What was something you learned from this train? Blogging immediately after day two trains may be difficult. It seems Mic and I both had to do these blogs the morning after.

What feedback do you have to improve our training efforts?
 I second Mics comment to have the trainers do a tour of all the other locations so we can point out what differences the trainees may encounter. Also, when we do this tour it'd be great to create an outline that we could have a hard copy of. In the outline it'd be nice to have manager names of other locations, trainees names, location phone numbers,  gmail account log ins and detailed information as to how new hires can check the upcoming schedule.

In regards to scheduling, I'm sure there are reasons as to why we schedule new hires the way we do, but it seems to me the most logical thing to do would be to give the trainees their three days of training on set days in the same work week. Day one, two and three, should be on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Lastly, I know know how busy the Alamo U staff is at the moment but I feel we need to keep all our current training material of to date. For example, there are questions on the test about menu items that have been removed from our menu (ie. falafel, fish and chips.)