Adam Minahan
Instructional Designer / e-Learning Developer
Needs Assessment
(Mexican Restaurant)

O V E R V I E W
My Role: Co-Investigator
As a graduate student, my team and I volunteered to conduct a needs assessment for a real Mexican restaurant in Oaxaca, Mexico. The client came to us with concerns over the restaurant's turnover rate and asked us to investigate why employees were ending their employment with the restaurant willingly. We collected data via interviews and surveys using several performance improvement frameworks to uncover the issue. After analyzing the data, we recommended seven interventions to the client that may possibly increase employee satisfaction and lower the turnover rate.
My Role: Co-Investigator
As a graduate student, my team and I volunteered to conduct a needs assessment for a real Mexican restaurant in Oaxaca, Mexico. The client came to us with concerns over the restaurant's turnover rate and asked us to investigate why employees were ending their employment with the restaurant willingly. We collected data via interviews and surveys using several performance improvement frameworks to uncover the issue. After analyzing the data, we recommended seven interventions to the client that may possibly increase employee satisfaction and lower the turnover rate.
O V E R V I E W
C H A L L E N G E
Tlayuda Querida (a pseudonym) is a traditional Mexican restaurant located in Oaxaca, Mexico, a city internationally renowned for its culinary scene. The owner came to us after having operated the restaurant for nine months. He did not have previous experience in the restaurant industry, but he had extensive experience owning and running cafes. When the project began in September 2023, the restaurant employed 13 members on staff, including an assistant manager, a chef, three cooks, three servers, two baristas, one bartender, one shopper/maintenance person, and one host.
The owner asked us to investigate the cause of the restaurant's high turnover rate. The monthly turnover rate, accounting solely for employees who left the restaurant willingly, was 8.62%. Extrapolated from the nine months of restaurant operations, the annual turnover rate was 103.47%. The owner desired the annual rate to be 15-20%.
The owner was dissatisied with the turnover rate because it impacted his business in several ways, which include:
-
Lost investment of time and money training employees who leave.
-
Insurance is paid for employees for a week after they leave.
-
Time and money to hire new employees, onboard and train them.
-
In the case of newly hired cooks, a lot of ingredients are wasted during training and the first months of work. In turn, inconsistent food makes customers unsatisfied.
-
New cooks and bartenders are much slower in preparing food and drinks, making customers unsatisfied.
-
When a new chef is hired, the menu has to be redone.
We conducted the needs assessment to uncover the causes of the high turnover rate and to suggest interventions to lower it.
F I N A L R E P O R T
F I N A L R E P O R T
Reproduced from The Nine boxes model. (2020, October 15). RummlerBrache.com.
https://www.rummlerbrache.com/nine-boxes-model
We decided to employ Chevalier’s Updated Behavior Engineering Model (BEM) to get a deeper understanding of how the restaurant was performing at the individual level than we felt that the Nine Boxes Model could give us from its "performer" row. The BEM was also used to scan the restaurant's internal environment and its impact on employee satisfaction. Traditionally, this model tries to find out if employees have the information, resources, incentives, knowledge and skills, capacity, and motives to perform their duties as expected. We utilized the model to see if the prescence or lack of these factors contributed to employee satisfaction or lack thereof.
Reproduced from Chevalier, R. (2003). Updating the behavior engineering model. Performance Improvement, 42(5), 8–14.
Finally, we looked at the external environment using Judith Hale’s Dynamics of Performance to identify any political, social, economic, infrastructural, competitive, and environmental factors that may have been negatively impacting the attrition rate and also to see if they would help or hinder any possible interventions.
Reproduced from Boise State OPWL. (2020, October 6). Useful questions for starting a project and conducting an environmental scan [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMHT5U9HwmE
A B O U T
A B O U T
O T H E R P R O J E C T S
R E F L E C T I O N S
The project had some limitations that hindered it from reaching its full potential and delivering the most value to the client. The biggest was the lack of extant data from the organization. Primarily, we would have liked to get the concrete monetary costs of the high turnover rate. Additionally, we couldn't find data on average turnover rates at restaurants in Oaxaca, Mexico. If we had data for these two things, we would have been able to present a concrete gap that we could close and might have been able to demonstrate how much money we could have helped the restaurant save.
Another major limitation was that one other group member and I conducted the interviews with employees in Spanish, which is not our first language. This was the first time either of us did professional interviews in a second language. This made it difficult to grasp all the nuances of the interviewee responses and to ask high quality follow-up questions. Given that my immediate future involves working in a second language (Romanian) during my Peace Corps service, this experience has given me ideas for how to more effectively conduct interviews in a second language.
Finally, this project had some tensions due to conflicting personalities and busy schedules. It taught me how to handle disagreements and how to persuade people to see my point of view. Given that I will return to working in the international sphere after graduation, this is a skill that will be necessary to have as cross-cultural communication can often come with misunderstandings and conflicting perspectives.
Tlayuda Querida (a pseudonym) is a traditional Mexican restaurant located in Oaxaca, Mexico, a city internationally renowned for its culinary scene. The owner came to us after having operated the restaurant for nine months. He did not have previous experience in the restaurant industry, but he had extensive experience owning and running cafes. When the project began in September 2023, the restaurant employed 13 members on staff, including an assistant manager, a chef, three cooks, three servers, two baristas, one bartender, one shopper/maintenance person, and one host.
The owner asked us to investigate the cause of the restaurant's high turnover rate. The monthly turnover rate, accounting solely for employees who left the restaurant willingly, was 8.62%. Extrapolated from the nine months of restaurant operations, the annual turnover rate was 103.47%. The owner desired the annual rate to be 15-20%.
The owner was dissatisied with the turnover rate because it impacted his business in several ways, which include:
-
Lost investment of time and money training employees who leave.
-
Insurance is paid for employees for a week after they leave.
-
Time and money to hire new employees, onboard and train them.
-
In the case of newly hired cooks, a lot of ingredients are wasted during training and the first months of work. In turn, inconsistent food makes customers unsatisfied.
-
New cooks and bartenders are much slower in preparing food and drinks, making customers unsatisfied.
-
When a new chef is hired, the menu has to be redone.
-
When an assistant manager leaves, there is a lot of associated staff turnover. In the nine months of operation, there had been three assistant managers.
We conducted the needs assessment to uncover the causes of the high turnover rate and to suggest interventions to lower it.
C H A L L E N G E
R E F E R E N C E S
Boise State OPWL. (2020, October 6). Useful questions for starting a project and conducting an environmental scan [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMHT5U9HwmE
Chevalier, R. (2003). Updating the behavior engineering model. Performance Improvement, 42(5), 8–14.
Harless, J. H. (1973). An Analysis of Front-End Analysis. Harless Performance Guild, Inc.
The Nine boxes model. (2020, October 15). RummlerBrache.com. https://www.rummlerbrache.com/nine-boxes-model
Van Tiem, D., Moseley, J. L., & Dessinger, J. C. (2012). Fundamentals of performance improvement: Optimizing Results through People, Process, and Organizations. John Wiley & Sons.
Watkins, R., Meiers, M. W., & Visser, Y. (2012). A guide to assessing needs: Essential Tools for Collecting Information, Making Decisions, and Achieving Development Results. World Bank Publications.
P O R T F O L I O
O T H E R
P R O J E C T S
W O R K
E X P E R I E N C E
May 2023 - Present
Graduate Teaching Assistant
Boise State University
Boise, Idaho (Remote)
May 2023 - Present
Learning Designer (Volunteer)
Rumie Learn
Virtual
October 2022 - April 2023
English (ESL) Instructor
Open English / Latin hire
Virtual
Summers of 2021 and 2022
Quality Assurance Team Lead/Trainer
OBI Seafoods
Egegik, Alaska
August 2013 - August 2019
English (ESL) Instructor
Various Employers
Seoul, Republic of Korea
August 2022 - Present
Master's of Science - Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning (In progress, graduate 2024);
Certificate - Workplace Instructional Design (May 2023)
Boise State University
Boise, Idaho
August 2011 - June 2013
Bachelor's of Art - English Literature
San Francisco State University
San Francisco, California
E D U C A T I O N
Personal Attributes
-
Exceptional writing skills
-
Creative problem solver
-
Self-motivated learner
-
Adaptable
-
Culturally competent
-
Collaborative team player
Technical Competencies
-
Articulate Storyline and Rise
-
Camtasia
-
Microsoft Office Suite
-
Vyond, VideoScribe
-
Canva
Languages
-
English (Native)
-
Spanish (Proficient)
S K I L L S &
E X P E R T I S E
M E T H O D S
We conducted interviews with the owner and employees to help us learn the causes of employee satisfaction and dissatisfaction. We used several performance improvement frameworks to guide our investigation. These tools gave us the ability to scan the organization and its environment to see if they were optimized for facilitating good employee performance and high satisfaction, and how they promoted or obstructed possible interventions.
The first framework that guided our work was Harless’ Front End/Cause Analysis (1973). This framework asked a series of questions at both the front and back-end of the needs assessment to help us better understand the gap. These included:
-
Do we have a problem?
-
How will we know if the problem is fixed?
-
What are some possible causes?
-
What evidence bears on each possibility?
-
What is the most probable cause?
To answer these questions, we used Rummler & Brache's Nine Boxes Model to examine three areas within the organization and its processes: goals, design and management. Using the first two rows of this model, we were able to uncover several performance gaps at the organization and process levels of the restaurant. Please note that we did not utilize the "performers" row from this model because we were able to gather more robust data using the following model for this area.
C A U S E S
After interviewing the owner and seven employees (five current and two former), we were able to identify several contributing factors to the high turnover rate, which were:
-
Lack of onboarding training
-
Poor team communication and coordination
-
A poor assistant manager who created a toxic work environment
-
Lack of knowledge about possible promotions and raises
-
Lack of direction during downtime, leading to being unprepared during peak hours
Additionally, we identified that the owner did not keep track of increased costs related to turnover vs costs during steady states of employment, so it was difficult to set realistic expectations for bridging gaps.
R E C O M M E N E D
I N T E R V E N T I O N S
After collecting and analyzing our data, we used a SWOT Analysis to categorize it into strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. With this information, we were able identify which weaknesses needed addressing and which threats would be detrimental to the feasibility of any possible interventions. The strengths and opportunities gave us some ideas of ways to address the causes of the high turnover. Here are the seven interventions we felt were necessary:
-
Onboarding and/or periodic training (includes disaster/safety, roles and expectations, a guided tour, introductions) so employees have the opportunity for improvement and know that the restaurant is investing in them
-
New approach to hiring/monitoring managers (behavioral interview techniques and/or hiring from within, 360 feedback system on manager performance) so that managers maintain a healthy work environment
-
Regular team meetings with After Action Reports to improve communication and coordination
-
Establish and clarify performance achievements and time milestones that lead to raises/bonuses so employees know that their efforts are rewarded fairly
-
Offer professional development opportunities based on roles and make them consistent (50% paid English lessons, training for chefs to make new dishes, cross-train during downtime) to incentivize employees to remain employed with the restaurant
-
A team lead or a checklist (that must be initialed as tasks are completed) during downtime to make sure people know what they should be doing
-
Encourage ownership to keep track of increased costs related to turnover vs costs during steady states of employment so that realistic expectations can be set for bridging gaps and setting goals
Before recommending our interventions, we decided to analyze our interventions using a Multicriteria Analysis (Van Tiem et al., 2012). We rated each intervention on their necessity, potential efficacy, affordability, and feasibility. Then we conducted a final interview with the owner and the assistant manager and distributed a survey to the employees with the intent to more accurately rate the interventions on these criteria. We adjusted our ratings according to these new findings.
Finally, after rating our interventions on each criterion, we arrived at their average scores. These scores helped us prioritize the interventions. Our Intervention Priority Chart (Watkins et al., 2012) identified interventions that address the causes of the high turnover rate and explained each intervention type, why the interventions were relevant, and their strengths and weaknesses that informed our Multicriteria Analysis.
Our top three interventions were:
-
A team lead or a checklist (that must be initialed as tasks are completed) during downtime to make sure people know what they should be doing
-
Rationale: Several employees stated that many people do not do anything during downtime, which is time that should be used productively. A checklist during downtime that staff would need to initial as they complete tasks would help provide structure and productivity to downtime. It could help with the high turnover rate, as this issue was a common complaint among staff.
-
Intervention type: This intervention falls under the “Design”category, more specifically under “interventions that standardize.”
-
Strength: It would not require much financially and would be simple to implement as the owner had already made some lists for some departments. It just needed to be done everywhere and used more consistently. In addition, since the employees overwhelmingly see each other as family, they may be intrinsically motivated to help out their “family.”
-
Weakness: The ongoing need to enforce it. It would take time for it to become a standard.
-
-
New approach to hiring/monitoring managers (behavioral interview techniques and/or hiring from within, 360 feedback system on manager performance) so that managers maintain a healthy work environment
-
Rationale: Poor management was a cause of several employees leaving the restaurant (or otherwise feeling that the work environment was toxic under her leadership). We felt it was necessary since several employees enjoyed working at the restaurant and felt incentivized and motivated but were demoralized by the poor management at the time that they quit.
-
Intervention type: It is both a “Design” intervention and a “Capacity and Capabilities” intervention. It suggests designing a model for manager selection to make sure that they have the capacity to manage employees without creating a toxic work environment that contributes to a high turnover rate.
-
Strength: It could create a more positive work environment.
-
Weaknesses: People show their best faces when interviewing, so it might not be able to identify toxic personalities easily. It also doesn’t account for the dynamics between individuals that have yet to meet each other.
-
-
Onboarding and/or periodic training (includes disaster/safety, roles and expectations, a guided tour, introductions) so employees have the opportunity for improvement and know that the restaurant is investing in them
-
Rationale: Most employees stated that they received no formal training when they started working at the restaurant and one employee indicated a lack of safety training. Many employees also indicated that there is confusion about roles and expectations.
-
Intervention type: This intervention falls under the “Information” category. It is relevant because an onboarding process would help to define roles and expectations, make new employees feel welcome, and ensure that employees stay safe while working.
-
Strengths: It could be a very effective way to target most of the “information” issues at the restaurant. It could also prevent employee injuries and protect the restaurant from lawsuits related to employee safety. In addition, employees would appreciate knowing that management is investing in them, which may positively impact attrition.
-
Weakness: Time and monetary costs - no onboarding existed, so materials would need to be created, and someone woud need to be trained to help onboard employees. Additionally, time would need to be spent onboarding all future employees.
-
Finally, we presented our findings to the restaurant owner and they found the information to be revelatory. In December 2023, they were considering implementing some of the interventions.
Mexican Restaurant
Needs Assessment
