Bob Johnston, president and chief operating officer of Tampa, Fla.-based The Melting Pot, attributes the fondue chain’s half-decade of sturdy growth to strong operations and training, particularly a program that coaches front-line employees to recognize and respond to guests’ special occasions.

The company’s comparable-store sales have dipped slightly and that led R&I to ask Johnston:

Q: Has the challenging economic climate changed The Melting Pot’s employee-training strategies, and if so, how?

A: I can’t say that [training] is any more important than it was before. It is certainly not less important. There is a direct relationship between the quality of the execution of your training program and the guest experience.

We are getting more involved with long-distance learning than we have been in the past. We’re producing a lot more training videos that can be downloaded from our extranet site. It’s less for front-line employees and more for management. It’s really helpful when you’re operating coast to coast, in different time zones, with managers who are very busy with day-to-day operations. We make [Webinars] available to be replayed at their convenience. Where we use [Webinars] is in rollouts of new menu or beverage initiatives or operational changes. When we have to be nimble and implement a change, we don’t want to wait for the next face-to-face meeting. But nothing can take the place of a face-to-face workshop. For the franchisees, we do it once a year, and for management staff, we [also] do it once a year.