8 ways to maintain clear and consistent standards for QSR success

Learn why inconsistency can be costly for your business, and how you can avoid it.

Having a clear and consistent set of internal standards is crucial for your QSR business. The nature of the industry means there is little margin for error when it comes to complying with regulations. The challenge in multi-site businesses is multiple sources of truth for instructional content and guidelines, leading to inconsistency and confusion.

By having a clear and consistent set of standards, QSRs can minimize the risks associated with compliance issues, brand damage, and slowed growth. 

Here are Op Central’s top 8 tips on maintaining internal standards for compliance in your QSR:

1. Keep instructional content centralized in one location. Whether it’s an intranet site or another repository, make sure all policies, procedures, best practices, and recipes are kept in one place. 

For multi-site and franchise QSRs, Op Central offers a centralized platform for managing instructional content across all locations. You need confidence that your franchisees are following the same standards and procedures as corporate-owned stores.

2. Make sure the “Single Point of Truth” is well organized and easy to access. There is no use in having all of the information in one place if it’s not organized in a way that makes it easy to find and use. Usually, a simple search function is all that’s needed.

With the help of an online operations manual, QSRs can maintain a Single Point of Truth (SPOT) for all instructional content. This ensures that all policies, procedures, best practices, and recipes are well organized and easy to find.

Op Central's Instructional Content Notifications ensure all employees are notified any time a policy, procedure, best practice, or recipe is updated. This helps keep everybody on the same page and prevents confusion and inconsistency.

3. Use engaging, clear, and concise content when writing or updating policies and procedures. Ambiguity can lead to confusion and inconsistency, so it’s important to be as clear as possible. Restaurant language can be particularly challenging, so make sure to use terms that are well-defined and universally understood. For example, “preparation” might mean something different to a chef than it does to a server, and “clean” can have a different meaning in the dishwashing area than it does in the dining room.

Using rich media content, Op Central helps QSRs deliver engaging and effective training to employees. QSRs can also create digital checklists and workflows to streamline operations and ensure consistent standards across the restaurant.

4. Review internal standards on a regular basis. Internal standards need to be living documents that are constantly evolving to meet the needs of the business. Whether you’re making a change to a policy or procedure, or adding a new best practice, be sure to communicate the changes to all employees.

Op Central helps QSRs verify that employees have read and understood the updated content. You can use any combination of quiz questions to verify each person genuinely understands what is expected of them. Anybody that has been marked as 'required reading' on the updated content will be required to sign-off and complete the re-training.

5. Train employees on the importance of internal standards. It’s important that all employees understand why internal standards are important and how they contribute to the success of the business. Make sure to provide employees with adequate training on the topic, and make yourself available to answer any questions they may have.

6. Hold employees accountable to internal standards. Employees need to be held accountable for adhering to internal standards. Be sure to establish consequences for non-compliance, and make sure all employees are aware of them.

Step-by-step instructions should be devised to guarantee your employees maintain the quality level you desire for your brand. Creating a go-to resource for all team members to follow, capturing, storing, and refining company policies, allows you to be certain your workers are putting their best foot forward.

7. Have a plan for when things go wrong. Things will inevitably go wrong from time to time, so it’s important to have a plan in place for how to deal with them. Be sure to document the steps you need to take to rectify the situation, and make sure all employees are aware of them.

8. Celebrate successes and learn from failures. When employees do adhere to internal standards, be sure to celebrate their successes. This will help to reinforce the importance of complying with standards. Similarly, when things do go wrong, take the opportunity to learn from the mistakes that were made and use them to improve the policies and procedures in place.

Work with a trusted partner

Maintaining internal standards for compliance in QSRs is important for ensuring the quality of your product and protecting your brand. By writing clear and concise policies, providing adequate training to employees, and holding them accountable to these standards, you can maintain a high level of quality control in your restaurant

Working with a partner who specializes in QSR compliance can take the burden off of you and your team. Op Central has a team of experts that can help you develop and maintain internal standards, as well as train your employees on the importance of compliance. Visit Op Central's website or contact them today for a live demo at 1800 954 145.