Why Checklists Alone Aren’t Enough
Wisetail | 4 min read
People are at the heart of organizations, and problems involving people are innately multilayered and complex. To better understand what happens while they’re on the clock and what resources they need to perform their jobs successfully, our team partnered with OnePoll and surveyed 1,000 employees in the food and beverage, retail, restaurant and hospitality industries. Those surveyed ranged from entry-level staff to manager-level workers, and were asked questions regarding habits and behaviors, as well as questions about their daily routines.
Then, we joined our Product and Marketing Manager, Toni Nigrelli-Lafleur, and our Product Manager, Kyle Reichelt, to discuss the survey results and highlight reported habits and behaviors that put businesses at risk. Toni and Kyle looked at why learning is an essential component of daily operational tasks and habits.
The OnePoll survey revealed that daily tasks, routines, and stressors impact workers’ days and their quality of work. To better understand workers’ daily experiences, check out these key findings:
- Workers are stressed. On average, workers have 11 tasks to complete by the end of each shift, with morning shifts typically having the most tasks to complete, while workers in the hospitality and restaurant industries have a large number of tasks throughout their shifts.
- One error can equate to chaos. 76% of workers said that if they forget even one of their numerous daily tasks, everything at work can be thrown into chaos.
- Small errors can snowball. 53% said that missed steps caused bad situations. Simple missed steps can turn into big, impactful errors, and result in customer complaints, broken equipment, and even lead to people getting hurt.
- Training is incomplete. 61% of workers received training when they started their job, but not much after. As workers are growing in responsibility, they are not always receiving the adequate training or given the appropriate tools, or necessary support to correspond to their elevated degree of responsibility.
The OnePoll survey also showed that frontline workers would like to receive better training, be given the ability to organize their days, see assignments and check them off as they go, and have the time to decompress. Additionally, they would like to see technology implemented and harnessed by their organization to solve these needs, and to make their lives less stressful.
To ensure new hires and established team members receive the appropriate training and have their workplace needs met, operations and L&D solutions need to work hand-in-hand to develop opportunities for employees to learn in the flow of work. Management teams need to develop thoughtful, readily accessible training materials that are easy to use.
OnTrack, a dynamic checklist tool, puts training professionals in the driver’s seat to create a proactive relationship between daily operational tasks and learning—allowing companies to provide the best experiences for workers, guests, and their communities. Harnessed in tandem with your LMS, OnTrack helps organizations make thoughtful changes, and improve employees’ work experiences.
In addition to being mobile friendly for those on the go, this tool allows employees to complete configurable checklists and upload important, associated media. This ability allows employees to document and share visual records of tasks that were completed, or errors that need to be corrected. These checklists are organized by location, and permissioning then allows for employees to only see those that are assigned to their role. They can be left partially completed and saved, and users can tag others to show coworkers where they’ve left off, so other team members can seamlessly pick up and continue required tasks. Additionally, this tool is easy to configure, and can be a powerful tool for onboarding, instruction, and to allow management to ensure daily processes are performed in their entirety.
