At Food Folk, learning does not stop when an employee completes a course. Employees need to understand the theory, put it into practice and continue developing as they take on new responsibilities.

That creates a demanding learning environment. Training has to support employees across different stages of their journey, while managers need enough visibility to know who is progressing, who needs support and what should happen next.

At the same time, Food Folk needs to keep track of compliance, certifications and competency levels across the organization without turning learning into a manual administrative exercise.

And because restaurant operations are highly structured, digital training cannot simply sit alongside the way restaurants work. It has to fit into it.

Together, Food Folk and Learningbank have built a setup that brings e-learning, on-floor training, course administration and development into one place.

Employees get a clearer journey from onboarding onwards, while managers gain a stronger overview of individual learning and development. Theory can be completed before employees put it into practice, and practical training can then be followed up where the work actually happens.

On-the-job training has become an important part of that connection. When Food Folk wanted to use the On-the-job training functionality in the Learningbank platform, it did not fully match the way McDonald’s restaurants operate. Food Folk and Learningbank therefore visited a restaurant together and spoke with a franchisee, a restaurant manager and crew members to understand what was needed in practice. Their input was then used to adapt the functionality to fit the way training actually happens in the restaurants.

The result is a learning setup that is much more closely embedded in the way McDonald’s operates.

Employees can move through a connected development journey instead of experiencing learning as separate activities. Managers have better visibility into progress and can provide more relevant support, while practical training and verification bring development closer to the restaurant floor.

For Food Folk at headquarters, bringing learning activities together has also made the setup more flexible and less time-consuming. Live data on compliance and competency levels provides greater transparency across the organization and makes it possible to identify where attention is needed.