Use Case
Curating and Delivering Learning Content for Your Audience
with Torchy’s Tacos | 3 min read
The Challenge
Low Adoption of an Unfamiliar Platform
They have a following of company-proclaimed “Taco Junkies” and a slogan of “Damn Good Tacos” – let’s face it; those of us that do not live near Torchy’s Tacos are in fiery habanero Purgatory perpetually missing out on good queso and the Taco of the Month. Torchy’s Tacos is a quickly growing family of 105+ taco-focused restaurants that deliver (literally they deliver to your door) mouth watering eats across the United States. Torchy’s launched their LMS, Taco Dojo, in 2017.
After launching, Torchy’s team quickly realized they would need to curate content in a fashion their staff members would absorb and deliver that content directly to them in an efficient way. The goal was to create a centralized home for virtual social interaction between restaurant teams, a platform to quiz staff on menu items, a competitive space to name the next month’s special, a digital learning reference, and so much more. To accomplish this, Torchy’s needed to identify how to speak to their audience and encourage the adoption of virtual Taco Dojo as part of their physical job within Torchy’s Tacos locations. “I don’t bring people to the content, but I bring content to the people,” remarked Christian Goff, Torchy’s Taco’s Director of Learning & Development.
The Solution
Bringing Content to People
Torchy’s L&D team recognized that their staff was made up of primarily Millennials and Gen Z who enjoyed creative content but in a shortened delivery. And since our attention span has shrunk from 12 seconds to 8 seconds, Taco Dojo housed a way to verify their team learned the menu through quizzes in that short timeframe.One way they started? Revamped meal-building ingredient quizzes. The learning curators behind Taco Dojo embedded drag and drop quizzing modules that made food training fun, engaging, and efficiently fast.
In the restaurant industry, there seems to always be a separation between virtual and physical worlds. Restaurant operations require staff to be fully present and aware of small details. Yes, they use technology for all efficiency intents and purposes. But an involved learning platform with social features? There’s often no time.
Content Displays
One small yet mighty move the Taco Dojo team made was displaying their LMS content on all back-of-house digital displays and having that same learning content on physical, hard displays for quick message reinforcement. By studying which content received the most attention and just how that learning content was grabbing attention, their team was able to place it where it mattered most to staff. From restaurant-wide news and recognition messages to new content videos and food safety requirements, Torchy’s people have a constant physical reminder of what’s new on Taco Dojo and access to it all on restaurant-wide iPads/tablets.
Digital Recipe Books
Identifying who was absorbing the content prompted the Torchy’s team to realize they needed to display all of their recipe books on Taco Dojo – and not just in person. For prep cooks, having digital recipe books on tablets is efficient because all recipes are accompanied by videos and external links with how-to-build instructions. This gives their back-of-house cooks everything they need to execute food preparation tasks in real-time in the easiest mediums they can learn from.
The Benefits
Quicker Learning More Consistently
We know that creating virtual communities for teams to engage, interact, and learn from substantially builds a culture of team success and lifelong company learning. However, if that community is not formulated to speak directly to platform users, the effort is lost. By studying their audience, lessening the burden of learning, and allowing them to access content in a digital language they understand, Torchy’s Tacos sees high engagement rates and overall increased learning retention. As a result, Taco Dojo is a pillar of restaurant operations all accomplished by meeting their team where they can learn easily. “Taco Dojo has the voice of Torchy’s. It really captures the awesome moments and people know this is where we go to learn and celebrate things,” says Christian Goff.
