championing allergen awareness at baxterstorey.
Mindboost support BaxterStorey with their ambition to set the standard for having the most inclusive culture in hospitality
As a business who create exciting hospitality experiences, allergen awareness is an extremely important topic for BaxterStorey. It’s crucial that all team members handling food understand the importance of allergen awareness and feel confident in carrying out allergen safety procedures. Not only do BaxterStorey’s audit results depend on it, the safety of their customers and team members does, too.
the challenge
During the pandemic, BaxterStorey’s allergen training rapidly transformed from a face-to-face experience to a digital one. A few years later, BaxterStorey approached Mindboost with an ambition to improve their digital allergen awareness training, ensuring that it’s targeted to the needs of their team members as well as areas of improvement identified by a recent audit.
In line with their ambition, BaxterStorey hoped to be accredited for this learning offering by the Royal Society of Public Health (RSPH).
the solution
BaxterStorey worked with Mindboost to create two digital learning modules. The first empowers food handlers in carrying out the correct allergen safety procedures at their site. The second is for ‘allergen champions’ who act as allergen experts for both customers and their team at BaxterStorey locations. The digital learning modules feature engaging interactions on modern scolling pages, interactive video, and work across devices.
Positive feeling
BaxterStorey want their people to feel confident, empowered and proud when it comes to food safety procedures, rather than fearful and confused. To achieve this, Mindboost use positive messaging, stories and tone of voice to create a positive feeling that encourages learners to carry out the safety procedures correctly – not just because they’re being told to, but because they feel good about doing it.
The feeling of positivity is realised through a series of videos that feature throughout the training. One ‘split screen’ style video shows the positive impact of allergen awareness on a colleague navigating their allergy during a meal with friends on their birthday. In another video we hear the value of allergy champions from a customer perspective, and in another we hear the benefits of being an allergy champion from the champions themselves.
Make it personal
There’s plenty of generic allergen awareness training out there, but Mindboost knew they could make this learning experience more impactful if it feels personal for BaxterStorey’s people. Throughout the design phase of the project, we focussed on how to make the content really relevant to learners and how carrying out safety procedures can benefit them personally. To make the content feel more personal, learners reflect on their own experience of allergies – themselves, friends, family – throughout the experience, as well as their own confidence around the subject.
A chance to practice
As well as raising awareness of the importance of allergy safety, the two modules clearly present the actions both food handlers and allergy champions are expected to take in the real-life situations, which could be anything from answering a customer question about ingredients, to labelling and storing food correctly, to dealing with allergy emergencies.
In dealing with these potentially high-risk situations, learners need to feel confident they know what to do. So, we gave them a safe environment to practice in. Mindboost created realistic scenario-based questions for learners that allowed them to test out their knowledge before putting it into practice in real life. We used interactive video to create immersive customer conversations where learners could watch the impact of their choices play out.
the impact
After saying goodbye to their face-to-face training offering, BaxterStorey had an opportunity to reach more people, more quickly and to impact audit results. BaxterStorey now have a modern digital learning experience that builds competence and confidence in their people.
The cherry on top? BaxterStorey achieved their ambition of receiving accreditation for both modules – Allergen Awareness and Allergy Champions.
