Honestly what would’ve helped me during my training is if someone told me it’s okay to ask question especially when making drinking. And also go slow when making drink is for the first time !

Do not teach hot bar and cold bar on the same day, it's just way too much to learn and observe.... spend extra time showing where stock is located and how the stock room is organized. I wish we had learned more about sequencing drinks and how double barring works... Cold foam recipes are the most confusing... Every barista does it their "own" way and therefore when you are asking for recipe/how, you get different answers and can never really learn them..... That's all I can think of right now...

I had about a week and a half for training with each shift being about 5hrs. What was good about my training that really helped was knowing that asking questions even the potentially dumb ones are okay. Having written out somewhere the number of pumps/shots for each size. I had a lot of time on POS and DTO which helped me get a hang of it faster as well as helped me remember the recipes for the drinks. Anytime I messed something up my trainer always said “it’s just coffee” which honestly got me through training

I was a barista trainer before I became a SSV.... honestly I find the sooner I can teach new partners hot and cold bar the better. I know pos and cs is always standard to teach first but at least at my location new partners end up having maybe an hour or so on bar before they are scheduled for coverage. It’s really hard for people to learn recipes while coverage. Take advantage of the time you have to be coaching and side by side with them. Most green beans don’t know the difference between a latte, macchiato, americano... etc. The sooner they understand our beverages the better. My store has way too many people who can only be put on pos because they don’t know how to make drinks/ don’t know sequencing or are quick enough to be on dt bar or cafe during a rush.

Since ive had years barista experience they didnt really bother to train me so, please explain those god forsaken milk wands

the biggest challenge I had was the pumps/shots/scoops of whatever in each drink and each size. some goes as 2-3-4, 1-2-2, etc and I always mixed up which ones for what. be super clear about it to avoid remakes cause I kept doing wrong pumps/shots/scoops and I felt so bad about it but I was expected to know it and I was like ?? how was I supposed to know this?? so yeah!

I’m a trainer as well and I would definitely recommend showing someone how to do something and then letting them feel it out! If they make a mistake, let them know without being too harsh. It’s definitely easier to learn from mistakes than not being comfortable to make them at all and spinning out because of it. I think it’s an important tool to learning what not to do, because you’ll remember what you did wrong initially and learn not to repeat it. The way I was trained and train is starting out easy with coffee brewing and pour overs, moving to either hot bar or iced drinks like the shaken iced teas and refreshers, and then finishing up with Frappuccinos because they’re the most tedious in my experience and the pumps and ratios are quite different from latte and iced drink pumps. I also have made and posted up cheat sheets for people on note cards that are split into categories like drink name/shots/pumps/notes like “shots on top” or “almond milk” if that’s the standard for the recipe. I also encourage note taking, like having a small flip notebook to jot down recipes if they don’t want to always have recipe cards on hand or if there’s something for them to remember like flat whites get an extra shot with ristretto. And if you’re testing them on drinks, throwing curveballs can’t hurt like a cinnamon almond milk macchiato (I know it’s not core anymore but I have a LOT of people who get it still lol!) just to see if they can do it on the fly or if they need a little more work on associating a drink with a recipe. I also tend to teach people drinks like double shot on ice, and espresso con pana and espresso macchiatos because not everyone will know what they are if some random customer wants one. Basically it’s good to feel out your customer base and when people get more comfortable on bar to let them know the oddball drinks.

One of my frustrations when I was training was people being SUPER nit picky and watching me constantly. It’s obviously okay if you’re early on in training them but it can be stressful to feel scrutinized when you’re more comfortable at work and more often than not people will ask you for help if they need it. Creating an atmosphere of helpfulness and openness with trainees is more conducive to learning than having them feel like they can’t be trusted or can’t vocalize where they feel they need help or extra attention without being criticized or looked down upon.

My training was awful! I was trained at a different store from mine. I was basically taught cleaning, front POS, a little bit of cold bar and that’s it. Not even hot drinks or DT! And my trainer straight up said he didn’t care if I learned anything since he got paid either way...I was basically trained all over by kind coworkers when I went to my actual store.

It would’ve helped if I actually got trained on bar instead of having shots and pumps written on the hopper. I had been working at that Starbucks for 10months and when I transferred to a different store I was definitely in for a shock.