How Jack in the Box Employee Training Stays On Brand
See how the fast food giant infused its unique brand into employee training—during a global pandemic—and was able to reduce employee turnover in the process.
When Jack in the Box decided to modernize employee training for the company’s 60,000 employees located in 2,200 quick-service restaurants across the U.S., the L&D team had no idea that two weeks later a global pandemic would soon hit the nation.
But the team was confident in their choice to go with Inkling to brand Jack in the Box employee training to make frontline workers feel part of company culture and reduce employee turnover. Not only that, but the flexibility of Inkling became paramount for the company to respond to new safety procedures to keep both employees and customers safe, and to keep the business running.
Engaging New Hires From the Start
Since Jack in the Box is 94% franchised owned, the company’s training team had been putting together a strategy to ensure that the employee training experience was more engaging and aligned with its brand. The challenge was that new employee onboarding wasn’t always consistent across all locations. Each franchise often had its own training that didn’t always sync up with the corporate direction. And, the training experience also didn’t match the fun and light-hearted image Jack in the Box had in the market.
To complicate things further, the company launches a minimum of six new menu items each year. That’s two to four new products with new ingredients, packaging, and preparation processes every two months. Employees need to be trained on all of these new menu items quickly to offer them to customers but the authoring process for training was lengthy and complicated.
The director of the training team had heard about Inkling from new leaders at the company who had experience using it in other job roles, so the team began to take a serious look at it. The goals of the initiative were to enable employees to be more self-sufficient with training so managers could spend more time with customers, to reduce complexity both on the part of the learner and course authors, and to speed up new employee proficiency as well as proficiency for all employees with new menu items. Once the team saw the capabilities of Inkling, they knew training would soon go from dull and tedious to engaging and fun.
Collaborating on Fresh, Branded Training Content
The Jack in the Box training team worked with Inkling to create templates that would infuse training content with the hip branding the company is known for. The team even worked with the company’s advertising agency to leverage branding for training videos and ended up calling the new system Jenius using the ever-present “J” and a tagline that emphasizes the cheeky tone of the brand, “Pretty Jenius, if you ask us.”
During implementation, the training team even did a little house cleaning by refreshing older content and throwing out anything that was out of date so everything would appear new and exciting with the launch. Another tactic during implementation that was key to success was putting together an early user group that was hand-picked by the best trainers in the field. The director of the training team says this was a great way to get real-world feedback before flipping the switch to all locations.
At first, the team thought decentralizing content creation and brand consistency was an oxymoron scenario but seeing Inkling’s ability to brand templates while enabling collaborative content authoring in action left any doubts in the dust.
Templates are branded and authors only need to input training content. And because the system allows multiple authors to make notes, suggest edits, and give feedback on the same document, there are no more version control headaches. Authors can use video, flip cards, interactive photos, infographics, checklists, and a whole host of media to encourage that fun brand experience during training. Now Jack in the Box employee training content is fresh and interactive, meaning no more death by PowerPoint.
Giving Employees Knowledge (and Confidence) to Meet Challenges Head On
All of this happened during a pandemic when a lot of companies were closing their doors and sending people home. But people still wanted their Jack in the Box—and the company delivered by keeping its employees safe and informed. Inkling enabled the training team and HR to send out clear, consistent communications about new protocols and training in response to COVID-19 with the click of a mouse.
The results speak for themselves: reduced training costs, decreased employee turnover, the ability to deliver training to 60,000 employees in hours versus weeks, more efficient product launches, and better learner adoption.
But the training team at Jack in the Box isn’t just resting on their laurels. The team set up a Jenius Leadership Network that meets once a week for field trainers to discuss continuous improvement and feedback. They’ve also set up Jenius Support where managers and employees can go to get help if they need it. Today’s Jack in the Box employee training gives employees the knowledge and confidence to meet challenges head-on while delivering an excellent customer experience.
For more details on Jack in the Box and their Inkling implementation, watch the on-demand webinar: Jack in the Box Delivers a Learning Feast with Digital, On-Brand Employee Training, or view the infographic: Jack in the Box Serves up Fresh Learning with Inklng.
Inkling’s content authoring platform and software helped Jack in the Box improve employee onboarding and reduce turnover, among other things. Contact or chat with us today to learn more about how Inkling can provide an enterprise restaurant employee training and development solution.
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