I’ve been working here for just over a month and these are a couple things that helped me out:

-Tell them to take notes for sure, lots of notes, they help you remember as you’re being taught and are great if you need to double check information later on

-go through where everything is, for example my trainer didn’t really show me where and what was in all the cupboards and drawers and so I recently figured out where some things I’ve been looking for were and it would have been more helpful to go through those things

-reassure your green bean, we need it. Having that support is critical, if my partners didn’t do this for me I probably would have quit cause of how overwhelming it all was and I also thought I was screwing up everything.

-FRAPS: my trainer explained how many pumps and scoops of things went in the fraps but I didn’t have the chance to go over what exactly goes in all the fraps like the ingredients so when i was put on bar alone and got a million fraps I was so lost

-lastly make sure to go over the things that aren’t ordered crazy often but do get ordered because there have been so many things that get ordered like once every couple of days that I had no idea what they were or how to do it. (Green belly, pour overs, custom tea, dirty chai)

Focus on concepts rather than recipes! It's so much easier and faster if you get them confident in drink routines for building blocks (common lattes, fraps, how to do a really solid steam, etc), so that once they're on the floor if they forget the recipe for, say a cinnamon dolce latte you can just say "like a mocha, sub cinnamon dolce syrup add sprinkles," or a café vanilla frap is a "vanilla bean made with frap roast," etc. On the floor questions are a lot easier to explain once they know the building blocks solidly without tutoring every time.

EDIT: Forgot to add a couple of websites I give all my green beans, both made by people on this sub I believe! $1 is a good resource for when you have those annoying customers who want to know what the nutrition information would be for their wild orders—just type it in and it breaks down an approximation of what's going on! $1 is a literal godsend for dating backups and for studying recipes/builds via the cheat sheet. I just write them on scratch paper and tell them to keep the tabs open on their phone, lol.

Here's the thing - there's no way in hell you can tell them everything in one week, and absolutely no way they'd retain it all of you did. Focus on routines (yes, you really do need to stream the milk first, every time, and you really do need to put frap roast in the cup before the milk). I tried to think of it as, what can I tell them over a headset, versus what do I need to show them. So I don't want to have to show them how to stream milk again, but I can go over the headset and say "it's a hot latte with cinnamon dolce syrup, whip cream, and dolce topping." I don't want to show them how to make a frappucino again, but I can easily say "it's a vanilla bean frappucino, but with coffee."

When it comes to teaching DT, teach them the magic phrase "sorry, I'm new, I'm just looking for that button/sorry I'm new, could you slow down a little?" Nine times or of ten it gives the customer a lot more patience, and it also lets whoever's on the floor know they need help.

CS needs to know where things are and how to make things - and I mean make things, like whips and frap roast and mocha, not "pour strawberry pieces into a container." If you don't have a list of product expirations posted near where you typically make things, I highly suggest making one.

Also PLEASE teach them the importance of FIFO! Drill in into their brain, until they start dreaming about making sure they use products that will expire soonest first.

The most important thing you can teach them is that it's ok to ask questions - I'd always rather answer the same question a couple of times versus have to remake a drink. It takes most people 2-3 months to really start to feel like they know what they're doing, so let them know it's ok to not know things yet!

Look at the list
Follow it—obvious or otherwise
I had a green bean —fully trained— not know how to make coffee.... pours beans into filter🤪🤦🏻‍♀️

definitely write down important stuff like i make a chart of shots and pumps for certain sizes and i write down the weird exceptions like americanos and macchiatos, just tell them they’re going to have questions and that’s completely normal! i’m a trainer and i always start by saying “you’re going to learn a lot of information and it all isn’t going to stick, you’re going to have questions and that’s normal i promise” i feel that really eases the nerves and makes it where they don’t feel bad asking questions. i also suggest quizzing like on register i’ll make up really hard drinks and make them ring it in and then i’ll quiz like “how do you make this drink” or “how many shots go in this size” etc. you’ll develop your own little training hacks though!

Just make sure you tell them where are the small stuff that usually isn't important is, that was my biggest problem after training, I didn't know where all the small stuff was lol.

Literally everything 😂 when I first started at my old store I was basically put on the window & the person who was my trainer ended up leaving to a new store so I literally never got trained. Now for being trained on bar again never happened I figured it out for myself during covid & one day just got tossed onto bar because I was one of the more experienced baristas to the other people who were working there at the time. So don’t really have any tips because the things that I wished I learned during training is literally everything 😂