Challenge

Steamboat Resort located in north-western Colorado at Steamboat Springs, is striving to provide the best possible on-mountain hospitality experience. Operated by the Steamboat Ski & Resort Corporation, it is located on Mount Werner in the Routt National Forest.

There is plenty to do all year at Steamboat Resort, but the snow season sees the most visitors where the region is known for producing more than 95 winter Olympians!

As a ski resort, Steamboat operates seasonally which sees staff turnover being a challenge they deal with each year. Through Winter and Summer, the Food and Beverage team sits at 555 staff, reducing to 250 during the quieter months. This has resulted in onboarding being a repetitive and time-consuming task which Steamboat were needing to change.

Steamboat looked towards an online training solution that could provide essential skills training to their staff consistently and efficiently. With an aim to cross-skill staff, they looked for a solution that offered a wide variety of high-quality video lessons across multiple hospitality areas. Steamboat were also looking for a solution that would allow them to upload their own operational training online to ensure staff were fully trained on venue-specific procedures from day 1.

Steamboat wanted an engaging online solution to address their onboarding challenge that was regularly costing them time and money.

Solution

Steamboat was looking for a solution that allowed for on-the-go training of both fundamental hospitality industry skills and provided the ability to add their own learning videos and customize content. Overall, they were looking for a robust online learning platform that combined their operational training with skills training with the aim to reduce the speed to competency during onboarding. Typsy offered Steamboat the training solution they needed - an online learning platform that offers a variety of lessons as well as the ability to upload personalized videos via their Custom Content feature.

Steamboat partnered with Typsy to offer their hospitality staff online training while in quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic. This not only kept staff engaged during this challenging time but also provided a seamless transition for when existing staff returned to work.

Typsy worked closely with Steamboat to help them achieve their second goal - to curate customized training playlists incorporating Custom Content video lessons filmed by Steamboat. These playlists were built to automatically move staff from general topics trained while onboarding, through to more detailed, department and role-specific training as they continued working with Steamboat.

General topics scheduled to staff to watch include courses such as Workplace Health and Safety, Bullying and Harassment as well as soft skill training such as How to greet a guest. Role-specific training varied for each department but the F&B team watched courses on topics including Allergies, Food Hygiene, Interacting with guests, Sales techniques for food and beverage, and Front of House essentials.

Results

Implementing an online training solution via Typsy has allowed Steamboat to create on-the-go, fully customizable training workflows for their employees. By using the Typsy platform, Steamboat has significantly decreased the time previously required to onboard new staff and were able to give role-specific training that was tailored, accessible, and engaging for each staff member.

The easy-to-use Custom Content feature on Typsy has also allowed Steamboat to easily film and upload their own operational training. By combining their training videos with the expert-led Typsy training, Steamboat was able to provide the professional and accessible solution they were looking for.

Typsy has worked together with Steamboat to curate customized training playlists incorporating over 88 video lessons to help upskill and cross-skill staff.

With the user-friendly Manager features on the Typsy platform, the Steamboat team have easily organized their staff members into groups and teams. This has enabled role-specific training to be assigned with ease and results tracked on the Typsy Manager dashboard and reports.

With such a large portion of the seasonal staff being new employees, Typsy has been able to streamline the onboarding process for Steamboat. This has resulted in saving the company time and money by allowing them to automate highly curated, professional online training from industry experts. Steamboat now have a solution that enables staff to hit the ground running from Day 1.

Steamboat have seen very positive results with the online training improvements in their onboarding process since joining Typsy. Staff are now trained consistently in a method that allows them to learn and test skills at their own pace. The use of Typsy's Custom Content feature has also enabled faster venue-specific skills acquisition and application for new starters. This has allowed Steamboat staff to become competent, confident, and engaged employees who are ready to deliver exceptional customer experiences sooner.

“Olivia, we just wanted to say, thank you so much for our Typsy journey! We are lucky to have been partnered with you and appreciate the fantastic customer service!”

Rachel, Kathy, Christina, Kelsey & the Steamboat team.