“We knew it was going to take strategic investment and planning to set ourselves up for future growth. When an industry peer described Axonify to us as ‘the Cadillac of learning management systems,’ that’s the first door we knocked on.”
Megan Stover, VP of People and Culture at Charcoal Group
Stoking up team knowledge and confidence
at the Charcoal Group of Restaurants
Daily bites of training, ongoing reinforcement and fired-up communications
drive team performance without draining manager resources.
$45K
savings in Manager time
97%
average participation
12x
training frequency
14%
knowledge growth
The challenge: Paper-based training was costly and monopolized managers’ time
The Charcoal Group of Restaurants consists of six brands across 16 locations (with more on the horizon!): that’s a lot of people who need to stay up to speed on menu items, guest service expectations and operational priorities. Historically, Charcoal Group took a manual approach to training team members. After the initial onboarding period, every new hire wrote many paperbased knowledge tests, which managers needed to leave the restaurant floor to mark.
“It would take a manager between 10 and 15 minutes to mark a paper test,” says Megan Stover, VP of People + Culture at Charcoal Group. “Staff could be required to write as many as four or five tests, and anyone who didn’t pass had to repeat the whole process.” The administrative burden of this paper-based testing process came at a high cost. Stover estimates it costs the organization $45,000 a year in manager time just to mark the tests, not factoring in re-writes or coaching time. There was an even greater toll looming, which Covid brought to a head.
Getting to the root of significant manager turnover
Coming out of the pandemic, 60 managers left the organization over a 12-month period. The disruption was significant. Some of the ripple effect of these losses was attributed to the understandable stress of working in a guest service role during a global pandemic. But Stover’s team discovered a more systemic problem when they dug into the reasons behind the resignations.
“Managers were saying it was too hard to work here,” says Stover. “Things were more difficult because we were in a sort of technology dark age and executing a lot of processes in spreadsheets or on paper.”
This inflection point became a catalyst for change. Leadership at the Charcoal Group decided it was time to get managers out of the office and onto the restaurant floor so they could work more directly with Team Members and Guests to build the business.
Freeing managers from administrative purgatory also required a better way to communicate important information to all team members—relying on MailChimp, pre-shift meetings and memos pinned to bulletin boards no longer cut it. The company also needed to replace its antiquated “manager access only” intranet with a centralized, searchable information hub. This would allow anyone on the team to easily find answers to their questions without having to go through a manager.
“We knew it was going to take strategic investment and planning to set ourselves up for future growth,” says Stover. “When an industry peer described Axonify to us as ‘the Cadillac of learning management systems,’ that’s the first door we knocked on.”
The solution: Automation takes training from fizzle to sizzle
The Charcoal Group leadership team was impressed with Axonify’s ability to automate every aspect of training—from onboarding to product knowledge to leadership training.
Onboarding now looks a lot different from the paper-based past. Once team members complete their role-specific training in Axonify, they perform a comprehensive knowledge check in the platform. They must score 80% or higher before working independently on the restaurant floor.
Cooking up reinforcement training to retain key information
The training benefits don’t stop at onboarding. In fact, one of the biggest selling points for the Charcoal Group was Axonify’s built-in ongoing knowledge reinforcement.
“Axonify gets to know which topics a user knows well and those which they need to keep working on,” says Stover. “The platform surfaces the right information back to each user so they can keep growing their knowledge. This is a huge win for us.”
Teams can access their ongoing training each shift using their own mobile devices, or they can choose to complete training on devices available in the restaurants. They also receive communications, including broadcast messages and alerts, directly through the platform. A centralized, searchable hub built into Axonify gives everyone the freedom to search for information on the fly and exactly when they need it.
To keep the knowledge flowing, Stover’s team taps into Axonify’s Content Marketplace to access professionally designed microlearning topics like WHMIS (Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System), food handling and wine training. Using prebuilt content frees up internal resources to build more customized high-priority training modules—like how to deal with difficult guests. Team members are now receiving ongoing reinforcement questions in Axonify along with one-on-one support with managers.
“Our training emphasizes that when faced with a challenge, our team members should involve a manager.” says Chelsey Sowden, Operations Support Specialist at Charcoal Group. “No situation is too small. And we’re training managers to act as that critical first line of defense. We’ve given them the tools to listen and solve issues effectively in the moment.”
“Knowledge is absolutely power, and with that comes confidence,” says Stover. “It’s coupled with a total team effort. If a team member feels that they need to slow down or stop alcohol service, they’ve got the training in Axonify. But they also have the support of their manager to help de-escalate. We’ve had a lot of success with this approach.”
“New team members have a greater understanding of our company and they are, without a doubt, set up for success. Axonify has removed the gray area from training. We know what team members know and that’s comforting.”
Will Carscadden, General Manager, Beertown Barrie (a Charcoal Group restaurant)
The results: Confident performance burns bright—shift after shift
Since implementing Axonify, the Charcoal Group has seen a significant reduction in turnover. The organization has also successfully reduced the administration burden on its management team by giving team members the tools to onboard more independently and then keep learning. Managers are loving the results.
“We now have access to check key metrics at our fingertips,” says Will Carscadden, the general manager of Beertown Barrie, a Charcoal Group restaurant. “New team members have a greater understanding of our company, and they are, without a doubt, set up for success. Axonify has removed the gray area from training. We know what team members know, and that’s comforting.”
Thanks to Axonify’s ongoing personalized knowledge reinforcement, team members are remembering more of their training. This translates into confidence when interacting with guests and making decisions every shift.
“We have people constantly asking us for more training,” says Stover. “We can’t keep up with content creation at this point, so we’re very thankful for Axonify’s Content Marketplace.”
With Axonify in place, the Charcoal Group enjoys 97% participation in training across all restaurant locations with an average training frequency of 12 times per month. This enthusiasm translates into 14% knowledge growth on critical training topics and Team Member confidence ratings of 9 out of 10.
It’s the ‘saison’ for skyrocketing beer sales
“I was in a restaurant recently where I attended a preshift meeting and one of the managers asked the team who could tell them about the saison beer we were currently featuring,” says Sowden. “One of the team members enthusiastically put up her hand and said, ‘Saison is a beer historically brewed in the spring for farmers to consume throughout the summer’ Then she started quoting the Axonify training she had just done that morning.”
This “expert effect” trickles down to guest service. Team members don’t just share what they know with colleagues at pre-shift meetings—they tell the same engaging stories to guests. “We weren’t able to do that as easily before Axonify,” says Sowden. “We have noticed an impact on feature menu sales due to the increased knowledge.”
Axonify is also giving managers clear visibility into which team members are retaining important information and where to focus their retraining and coaching efforts. They can also see when compliance certifications are at risk of becoming overdue. “We used to find out about problems after they happened,” says Stover. “Axonify has enlightened us to a whole pile of data and reporting we didn’t have before, which allows us be proactive.”
It’s a huge job to keep dispersed teams working together every day to bring amazing guest experiences to life across multiple restaurants. For the Charcoal Group, it’s all about celebrating wins, sharing moments of truth and empowering its people with the knowledge to create ‘wow’ moments.
“When we had our original planning meeting to overhaul our approach to training, one of the quotes that came out of it was ‘Do Less, Better’, says Stover. “Axonify has absolutely helped us do that.”
Fanning the flames: Building tomorrow’s leaders—today
The Charcoal Group isn’t stopping at frontline enablement. Next up: developing the next generation of leadership—right within Axonify.
Plans are underway to launch a structured management development program that blends the flexibility of digital learning with the power of realworld application. The program will live entirely in Axonify and feature interactive scenario training, practical assignments and curated content to build leadership confidence step by step. It will also include in-person seminars and retreats for deeper skill-building and hands-on experience.
By investing in internal development, the Charcoal Group aims to provide team members with the business acumen and experience they need to step into leadership roles—without requiring external culinary or hospitality education. It’s a strategic move to grow talent from within and set the stage for long-term success.