The role of a Certified Peer Trainer goes far beyond simply teaching tasks. It is about guiding, mentoring, and inspiring. You are often the first real human connection a New Hire makes at Truett's. That first impression shapes everything that comes after.

Think about your own first week. You probably remember how it felt more than what you were taught. Did someone make you feel like you belonged? Did someone take the time to explain the why behind what they were showing you? Or did you feel like you were figuring it out on your own?

Your primary goal is to give every New Hire something better. Provide structure, support, and encouragement during those first weeks so they can grow into confident, capable contributors to the team.

What CPT Means in Practice

• You own your trainee's experience from the moment they walk in
• You do not leave them to figure things out — you stay close, coach in the moment, and follow up
• You model the standard every single shift, whether you are assigned to a New Hire or not
• You give feedback — real, specific, kind, and consistent feedback
• You communicate to your trainee's learning style, not just your own comfort zone

What a CPT is NOT

You are a leader — but not in the formal leadership structure. You are not expected to handle money, approve discounts, manage team conflicts, or issue refunds. Those responsibilities belong to Team Leaders, Supervisors, and Directors.

Your influence is different but equally important. The habits, standards, and confidence you build in a New Hire in their first week will follow them for as long as they are on this team.

The Reality of This Role

Being a CPT is not always easy. You will train people who learn slowly. You will train during rushes and short-staffed shifts. There will be moments when you have to choose between getting the job done fast and doing the job of training well. Choose training. Every time.

The Bottom Line

You have been entrusted with something foundational to this business. You are not only appreciated — you are indispensable.

Rate yourself honestly on each item. 1 = Never  |  3 = Sometimes  |  5 = Always. Tap a number to select your score.

These are the most common ways new CPTs unintentionally undermine their own training and their trainees' success.

These questions move in one direction: from your past experience as a New Hire toward the trainer you are actively choosing to become. Do not rush through them. The quality of your answers here reflects the quality of your self-awareness — and self-awareness is the foundation of everything in this role.

Simon Sinek's Golden Circle is the foundation of how great trainers communicate. People do not buy what you do — they buy why you do it. And they will not remember what you teach them unless you teach them the why behind it first.

Sinek's Golden Circle has three layers: Why — How — What. Most people communicate from the outside in. Great trainers communicate from the inside out — starting with Why.

If you ask the average team member why they ask clarifying questions, the answer is "because my manager told me to." That is compliance, not ownership. Compliance fades the moment no one is watching.

But if a team member understands that a clarifying question prevents a wrong order, which prevents a frustrated guest, which protects the flagship experience — now they own it.

The Mission as the Master Why

Examples in Action

• Pickle placement: Two pickles, close but not overlapping — so the guest gets a bite of pickle in every bite. Intentional flavor consistency.
• Ice dream portioning: Precise portions every time — when a guest comes back and their cone looks smaller, they notice. Consistency builds trust.
• Calling out chicken: Every drop, every time — one missed callout can back up the entire kitchen and make a guest wait 10 minutes for an order placed 5 minutes ago.
• Labeling pans with time and temp: Every pan, no exceptions — food safety is not optional. One pan held too long is a liability and a brand failure.

Once your trainee understands the why, you move into the how. This is not just a model — it is the only real way humans build lasting skill.

Step 1: Demonstration

You do the task. You narrate every step. You explain the why behind each one. A good demonstration includes showing the correct sequence, naming what you are doing as you do it, explaining why that step exists, pointing out common mistakes before they make them, and checking for understanding before moving on.

Step 2: Imitation

Now they do it. You watch. The shake will splatter. The cone will tip. The order will come out wrong. That is the point. Your job is to be close enough to catch errors before they become habits, but far enough away that the trainee is actually doing the work.

The goal of imitation is to instill healthy habits now so you are not trying to break bad ones later. Bad habits are exponentially harder to correct than gaps in knowledge.

Step 3: Repetition

Mastery does not happen in one shift. Keep going until they can perform correctly, consistently, and confidently — not just on an easy order, but on a complicated one during a rush.

When a Trainee Is Not Getting It

Before you repeat yourself louder or give up, ask: am I teaching to their learning style or mine?

• Visual: They need to see it. Show them again. Pull up Pathway. Draw it out.
• Auditory: They need to talk through it. Ask them to explain the steps back to you and fill in the gaps.
• Kinesthetic: They need to do it. Give them a practice run with no pressure — no guests, no stakes.

If none of those are working, try creating a memory hook — an acronym, a comparison, a visual cue. Think outside the box. That is what makes an incredible trainer.

This week's homework is built around the core skill of Week 2 — teaching with intention, not just doing with competence. Every question pushes you from knowing to teaching.

Lab 1 is a live, hands-on session with your Trainer Coach. Schedule your 30-minute slot below before moving on to the lab content.

Reading about Start With Why is one thing. Doing it under pressure — quickly, clearly, confidently — is something else entirely. This lab moves the concept from your head into your mouth.

Time: 30 minutes total

Format: Each trainer draws a task slip. You have 30 seconds to demonstrate the task, state the why, and connect it to guest experience, CEM, brand trust, or food safety.

Scoring Criteria

• Clarity — Could a brand new team member follow that explanation?
• Confidence — Did you own it, or did you sound like you were guessing?
• Accuracy — Was the why actually correct?
• Emotional tone — Did you sound like a leader who cares, or someone just reciting?
• Connection — Did you tie it back to the guest, the brand, food safety, or the mission?

This is your reference list for Lab 1. Your Trainer Coach will assign tasks from this list during the lab. For each task assigned, your job is to demonstrate it, explain the why in 20–30 seconds, and connect it to guest experience, CEM, consistency, or brand trust.

Same format for BOH tasks. For each task your Trainer Coach assigns, demonstrate it, explain the why, and connect it to food safety, brand protection, guest trust, or speed through accuracy.

Your Trainer Coach will assign tasks to you during this lab. Each time you are given a task, log it below. Record what was assigned, how you executed it, the coaching you received, and what you are taking away from that rep.

This is your record of the lab. Be specific. Vague notes do not help you grow.

Lab 2 is a live, hands-on session with your Trainer Coach. Schedule your slot below before moving on to the lab content.

Knowing how to do something and knowing how to teach it are two completely different skills. This lab is designed to close that gap. You will rotate through stations and demonstrate tasks the way you would teach them to a New Hire.

Time: 45 minutes

Key rule: You are not being scored on whether you can do the task. You are being scored on whether you can teach it.

Scoring Criteria

• Sequencing — Steps in the correct order with no skips
• Narration — You explain what you are doing as you do it, including the why
• Common mistakes — You proactively name what goes wrong and why it matters
• Confidence — Your trainee would feel like they are learning from someone who owns this
• Accuracy — The procedure itself is correct per Pathway standard

You can demonstrate perfectly. You can explain every why. But if you cannot give feedback that actually changes behavior, the training does not stick. Feedback is the bridge between watching someone do something and watching them do it well.

Feedback can be verbal or nonverbal. It can be positive or corrective. It can even be unintentional. The facial expression you make when a trainee drops an ice cream cone is feedback. The silence you give when they nail a complicated order is also feedback. You are always communicating something — the question is whether it is what you intend.

What Feedback Actually Does

• It gives team members a clear picture of where they stand
• It builds confidence when it is specific and positive
• It creates a culture where growth is expected, not feared
• It protects the guest experience by correcting problems before they become habits
• It protects the team member — they deserve to know what success looks like before they are evaluated on it

The Cost of Avoiding Feedback

When you avoid giving corrective feedback, you are not protecting the team member — you are allowing a bad habit to harden. And the longer a bad habit exists, the harder it is to break.

If a team member is making the same mistake every shift for two months and you have never told them, what does it say when you finally bring it up? It tells them either that you were not paying attention, or that you did not care enough to help them sooner.

Why A Fails

Our brains are wired to scan for threats. The moment they hear criticism — even buried in a compliment — they go into defense mode. The positive feedback disappears. All they hear is the correction, and it lands like an attack. Also notice: Example A lists three separate corrections at once. A team member cannot fix three things simultaneously.

Why B Works

• Specific positive first: Not "you are doing well" but WHY — the energy, the CORE 4, the speed. Concrete and genuine.
• No "but": The word "but" erases everything before it. Replace it with "and" or "for this next order" or "let's focus on..."
• One correction, clearly stated: Not three things — one. Make it specific and actionable.
• Forward-facing language: "I want to see you..." is about the future, not the failure.

For more formal feedback — a sit-down conversation, a sign-off debrief, or a recurring issue — use the three-part model.

Example — Order Accuracy

This TEDx talk by Joy Mayer is about how people receive feedback — and what your instinctive reaction says about your readiness to grow. As a CPT you will be giving feedback constantly, but you will also be receiving it from your Trainer Coach. How you handle that feedback will shape how fast you develop.

Before you train your first New Hire, you need to be fully set up in the Training Passport system. Schedule a 30-minute meeting with Olivia to get access and a full walkthrough of how it works.

A Trainer Sign-Off is one of the most important things you will do as a CPT. It is not a formality. It is your professional declaration that a New Hire is — or is not — ready to move forward.

When you sign off on someone who is not ready, you are not doing them a favor. You are setting them up to struggle in operations and potentially cost the team. One more training shift is always easier to recover from than an under-prepared team member in a solo position.

Scoring Standards

Stepping in during a sign-off does not automatically fail the trainee. A 15-milkshake screen during a rush is an extenuating circumstance. Use your judgment and document what you observed and why you stepped in. All sign-offs end with a meeting with the Training Director — come prepared with specific notes.

These three frameworks are the foundation of how Truett's treats every guest, every day. As a CPT, you are responsible for modeling them so consistently that your trainees absorb them without being told.

CORE 4 — The Non-Negotiable Standard

• Create eye contact — Not a glance. Real, intentional eye contact that communicates "you have my attention."
• Share a smile — Genuine, not performative. A guest can feel the difference.
• Speak with a friendly tone — Warm, clear, and energetic — even on the 200th order of the shift.
• Always say My Pleasure — But only if it means something. A flat My Pleasure with zero eye contact is worse than nothing.

The Second Mile — Creating Moments

CORE 4 is the floor. The Second Mile is what takes an interaction from transactional to memorable.

• Offer a warm welcome and a fond farewell
• Personalize with the guest's name — use it naturally, not awkwardly
• Check in with the guest proactively — before they have to ask
• Find the little things that spread joy — a straw offered before asked, a refill before the cup is empty

HEARD — When Things Go Wrong

HEARD is not reserved for big disasters or managers only. It is for any moment when a guest is disappointed — whether the mistake was yours, your trainee's, or no one's fault.

• H — Hear: Focus entirely on the guest. Listen to understand, not to respond. Clarify before jumping to a solution.
• E — Empathize: Validate what they are feeling. Show through your body language that their frustration is reasonable.
• A — Apologize: A real apology — not "I'm sorry you feel that way." Take ownership.
• R — Resolve: Own the problem and solve it. Do not pass it off. Thank the guest for the chance to make it right.
• D — Delight: End on a genuine, personal note. Leave them better than you found them.

As a CPT, there will be moments when your trainee creates a guest problem and you have to use HEARD in real time — in front of them. Model it well. Those are the most teachable moments you will ever have.

Once a New Hire completes sign-offs, they graduate into operations. But your work as their trainer does not disappear. The 30-Day Evaluation is a formal check-in that measures how well they were prepared — and part of that evaluation is feedback on you.

What the 30-Day Meeting Covers

• A self-evaluation by the New Hire — how confident do they feel? Where do they still feel lost?
• A director evaluation of their performance in operations since training ended
• Areas they feel strong in and areas they want to improve
• Feedback on their training experience — how connected they felt with their trainers and whether they felt set up to succeed

What This Means for You

How a New Hire describes their training experience is a direct reflection of your work. Not whether they liked you — whether they felt supported, informed, and prepared.

The goal of training is not a perfect score on a sign-off sheet. The goal is a team member who walks into their first solo shift feeling capable, clear on the standards, and connected to the team.

As a CPT, your job was to build a New Hire's confidence and competence. As a Brand Protection Trainer, your job expands — you are now responsible for protecting the standard itself. That means noticing what others walk past, holding the line when it is inconvenient, and understanding that every shift you work either reinforces the brand or quietly erodes it.

This is a higher accountability role. A CPT teaches a task. A BPT asks: is this task being done the same way, every time, by everyone, even when no one is watching?

Where BPT Fits

• Certified Peer Trainer (CPT) — entry trainer role, focused on New Hires
• Brand Protection Trainer (BPT) — higher accountability and standards, protects consistency across the whole team
• Senior Trainer — leadership feeder role
• Trainer Coach — Level 4, develops trainers and leaders

What Changes at This Level

You are no longer only responsible for the person you are actively training. You are responsible for what you see across the whole floor — a wrong sequence, a missed time/temp label, a team member cutting a corner because it's busy. Silence in those moments is a choice, and it is the wrong one.

Accountability gets a bad reputation because people confuse it with punishment. Real accountability is not about catching people doing wrong — it's about making sure everyone knows the standard, sees it modeled, and gets corrected with respect when they miss it.

What Accountability Culture Looks Like

• Standards are named out loud, not assumed
• Feedback happens in the moment, not saved up for later
• The same standard applies to everyone — including you, especially when it's inconvenient
• Correcting someone is treated as an act of care, not conflict
• Good execution gets noticed and named just as often as mistakes

What Kills Accountability Culture

These are the standards a BPT is expected to notice, model, and correct — not just for New Hires, but across the whole shift.

You learned the Food Safety 5 as a CPT. As a BPT, your job is not just knowing them — it's catching when they slip, explaining why they matter well enough that people actually change behavior, and never letting "we're slammed" become an excuse to skip one.

Notice the pattern — almost every food safety failure isn't a knowledge gap. It's a pressure moment where someone chose speed over the standard, and nobody stopped them.

A BPT should be able to explain time and temperature standards without hesitating, and should be the person on shift who is watching labels, not just trusting that someone else is.

Why This Matters Beyond the Line

An unlabeled pan is not just a paperwork problem — it's a guest safety risk and a brand liability at the same time. If something goes wrong and there's no way to know how long product sat out, that's not a small miss. That's the kind of gap that shows up in a health inspection or, worse, an actual guest illness.

Deep clean is not the same as "wiped down." A BPT should know the difference and be able to spot-check it without a checklist in hand.

Second Mile Service means going beyond what a guest expects, without being asked. It's easy to say and hard to actually do consistently, because it requires noticing a need before it becomes a complaint.

First Mile vs. Second Mile

Jeff Noel spent 30 years at Disney and made his name teaching "Second Mile"-style service. In this TEDx talk, he pushes back on his own idea — arguing that "going the extra mile" as an occasional grand gesture is the wrong goal, and that "going the extra inch," consistently, every single interaction, is what actually builds trust.

You know the HEARD model. As a BPT, the goal is to use it as a tool for genuine recovery — not a script to get a guest to stop being upset so you can move on.

The BPT's Job in Recovery

A CPT can run HEARD for their own trainee's mistake. A BPT should be comfortable stepping in on any recovery situation across the floor, coaching a team member through it in real time, and following up afterward to close the diagnose step — which is the step almost everyone skips.

Work through these two real-world scenarios the way you would coach a team member through them in the moment.

This is the single most important diagnostic tool you'll use as a BPT. Before you coach anyone on anything, you have to know which kind of problem you're actually looking at — because the fix is completely different for each one.

Why This Matters

Coaching a person issue like it's a training issue wastes everyone's time and teaches the team that standards are negotiable. Coaching a training issue like it's a person issue is unfair and destroys trust. Diagnosing correctly first is what makes you effective instead of just busy.

You've used Observe, Engage, Reinforce for skills coaching. As a BPT, apply the same model to standards — not just tasks.

Cognitive psychologist LeeAnn Renninger studied what actually separates feedback that lands from feedback that gets ignored or resented. Her four-part formula gives you a repeatable structure to lean on right before you have the hard conversation in the next section — especially useful when you're nervous about how to open.

Eventually, you will need to correct someone who is tenured, well-liked, or older than you. This is the moment most new BPTs avoid — and avoiding it is how standards quietly die.

Why the Second Version Works

• It states what was observed, not a judgment about the person
• It assumes competence rather than assuming carelessness
• It's clear about what needs to happen, not vague ("do better")
• Offering to do it together removes ego from the correction

The Standards Walk is a live, hands-on session with your Trainer Coach or Director. You'll walk the full restaurant — FOH and BOH — and practice observing, engaging, and reinforcing brand standards in real time. Schedule your session below.

This lab moves Brand Protection from theory into practice. You'll walk the restaurant with your Trainer Coach the same way you'll be expected to walk it on a real shift — watching for what's on standard, what's slipping, and what needs to be coached in the moment.

Time: 45 minutes

Format: A full FOH and BOH walk. At each stop, you'll identify what's on standard, what's off, and practice the Observe/Engage/Reinforce conversation out loud — as if the team member were really there.

Scoring Criteria

• Observation — Did you catch things a less-trained eye would miss?
• Diagnosis — Did you correctly identify training vs. process vs. person issues?
• Engagement — Was your practice correction specific, respectful, and clear?
• Consistency — Did you apply the same standard everywhere, not just where it was easy?
• Follow-through — Did you name a real reinforcement plan, not just a one-time fix?

Log each stop on your walk below. Record what you observed, how you engaged (what you actually said), and your reinforcement plan.

This is your record of the lab. Specific beats vague — write exactly what you'd say to a real team member.

As a CPT, you trained one New Hire at a time. As a BPT, you protected the standard across the whole floor. As a Senior Trainer, your job changes again: you own training results for an area or shift, and you develop the trainers who do the training.

This is a leadership feeder role. The people who grow into Team Leaders usually come through this seat.

Where Senior Trainer Fits

• Certified Peer Trainer (CPT) — trains New Hires shift by shift
• Brand Protection Trainer (BPT) — protects the standard across every station
• Senior Trainer — owns training for an area or shift and develops Peer Trainers
• Trainer Coach — Level 4, develops the whole trainer bench

What Changes at This Level

• You plan the training, not just deliver it
• You coach trainers, not just trainees
• You bring problems to leaders with a suggested fix, not just the problem
• Your consistency becomes the example the whole trainer bench copies

What You Own

• Build the weekly training plan and assign trainers
• Observe Peer Trainers and give feedback
• Sort issues: training, process, or person
• Run 30/60/90-day check-ins with New Hires

What Good Looks Like

• Every New Hire has a named trainer and a plan
• Trainer feedback uses what you observed, not opinions
• Problems reach leaders with a suggested fix

Bring In a Leader When

• It is a person issue
• It is a policy question
• A trainer needs more than coaching

Ready to Move Up When

You run training plans on your own, and leaders trust you to coach other trainers.

A training plan is a promise to a New Hire: here is who will teach you, what you'll learn, and what you'll be able to do by the end of the day. Without a plan, New Hires get whoever is free, and they learn three different versions of the same job.

The Rules of a Good Plan

• One trainer, one focus, one goal for every training day
• Same trainer on a station until it's signed off. Switching trainers mid-station is how New Hires end up learning three versions of the job.
• Day 1 is welcome, tour, safety and food safety basics, and shadowing
• Day 5 is a practice shift: the trainer stays nearby and the New Hire leads
• The New Hire gets a copy, so they know what to expect

Trainers drift. Not because they don't care, but because nobody watches them train after they're certified. Small shortcuts slowly become "the way we do it."

Your fix is simple: observe every certified trainer once a month. Watch for 15 minutes during a real training shift. Write down what you saw, not how you felt about it.

The Six Behaviors You're Watching For

• Stays beside the trainee — the trainee is never left alone on an untrained task
• Teaches in steps — explains, shows, lets them try, then reviews
• Checks understanding — asks the trainee to show or explain, not just "got it?"
• Gives specific feedback — names what was right and exactly what to adjust
• Models the standard — their own work matches every standard they teach
• Tone and patience — calm, encouraging, and respectful, even during a rush

The most important observation skill is separating what you saw from what you think. Facts are actions, words, and results. Opinions are labels.

Facts are fair, they're hard to argue with, and they tell the trainer exactly what to repeat or change.

Coach trainers the same way they coach New Hires: Observe, Coach, Reinforce. Every observation ends with two things, and only two:

• Keep doing — one specific thing they did well, and why it matters
• One thing to try next — never more than one. Three corrections at once means none of them stick.

Rules That Keep It Kind

• Coach the behavior, not the person
• Step aside. Never correct a trainer in front of their trainee or a guest.
• In the moment, keep it under 60 seconds. Save the full debrief for after the shift.
• Set a follow-up date, then actually come back

In BPT, you learned the difference between a training, process, and person issue. As a Senior Trainer, you're the one who makes the call and decides what happens next. Before you coach anyone, ask these three questions, in this order.

Why the Order Matters

Coaching a process problem frustrates good people. Re-training a person problem wastes everyone's time. Asking in order keeps you fair.

Decide what type each issue is and what should happen next. Then tap to check your answer.

Senior Trainers don't just report problems. They bring the facts and a suggested fix. That's what makes leaders trust you with more.

Most New Hires decide whether to stay within their first 90 days. A 10-minute check-in at each milestone shows them someone is paying attention. As a Senior Trainer, you run these.

How to Run a Check-In

• Private, about 10 minutes, and never in the middle of a rush
• Ask, then actually listen. Don't defend or explain.
• Write down what they said, in their words
• End with one action you'll take, and when
• Follow through, then tell them you did

Some answers can't wait for the next check-in. Bring these to a leader the same day:

• They mention quitting
• They say they never got trained on something
• Schedule conflicts keep coming up
• They can't name anyone who has helped them

Pick a New Hire who is close to their first 30 days. Scripts sound like scripts, so make the questions yours before you sit down.

This lab is scheduled directly with Olivia. Message her to book a time when a Peer Trainer is training a New Hire on the floor, so you can observe a real session.

This lab moves you from training people to developing trainers. You'll observe a Peer Trainer during a real training shift while Olivia observes you.

Time: 45 minutes

Format: 15 minutes observing the Peer Trainer and scoring the six behaviors. 5 minutes leading the debrief with the trainer. Then a debrief of your own with Olivia.

Scoring Criteria

• Observation — Did you write facts, not opinions?
• Accuracy — Do your scores match what actually happened?
• Feedback — One specific "Keep doing" and one specific "Thing to try"?
• Tone — Did the trainer leave feeling supported, not policed?
• Follow-up — Did you set a real follow-up date?

Fill these out during and right after your observation. Specific beats vague.