What to teach a café new starter on their first shift

Choose an achievable first-shift outcome

A starter can spend a full shift watching the counter and still not know what they are allowed to do. Decide the outcome before they arrive: for example, they can take a straightforward order under supervision, find the approved product information and call the supervisor when the request is outside their training.

Avoid treating every new hire alike. Someone with café experience may need your till and house procedures explained; someone in their first job also needs the unwritten basics made explicit. Acas recommends tailoring induction to the person. The sequence below is a suggested café plan, not a fixed training timetable.

Further reading: Acas: planning an induction programme

Make the opening conversation practical

Meet the starter yourself or name someone who will. Walk the actual route they will use: staff facilities, work station, handwashing arrangements, emergency exits and the place to report a problem. Explain breaks and how they will find today's supervisor. Complete the safety instruction required for the tasks before practice begins.

Tell the rest of the team what the starter is learning. A colleague should not pull them onto the espresso machine simply because the queue grows. Their training boundary must remain visible when you leave the counter.

• Today's trainer and backup contact.
• Tasks they may practise with supervision.
• Tasks they must not attempt yet.
• Where approved instructions live.
• How to stop and ask for help.

Teach one complete customer interaction

For an ordinary till transaction, demonstrate the whole sequence slowly: listen, confirm the order, enter it, check the total and explain what happens next. Use your actual till training mode where available; otherwise choose a safe practice method that cannot create a real charge.

Then swap roles. Watch a simple practice order, followed by an exception such as an unavailable item. For allergy questions, teach the route to current verified information and an authorised colleague; do not reward guessing. Explain what good performance looks like before assessing it.

Leave a useful record for shift two

A note saying 'till training done' hides the difference between watching and doing. Write down the precise task observed, the help still needed and the next practice opportunity. Keep personal assessment notes in an appropriately restricted training record.

Example: a new starter correctly enters two practice orders but needs prompting to check the collection name. The next trainer can focus on that step rather than restarting the entire induction.

First-shift learning note
Task practised:
Observed without prompting:
Still needs support with:
Task restrictions for next shift:
Next practice and trainer:
Starter's question:

Finish with a short conversation

Ask the starter which instruction was hardest to follow and whether they know who to ask tomorrow. A quiet 'fine' is less informative than asking them to show where they would find the current allergen information or explain how they would raise a safety concern.

Choose the next skill from today's evidence, not from an arbitrary promise that everyone will be fully trained after a certain number of shifts. Keep the plan small enough that the next supervisor can actually deliver it.