IHOP

Michele Lange leads Learning and Development for the IHOP brand, bringing over 20 years of experience across companies like Habit Burger, Chipotle and Del Taco. She is passionate about empowering people and driving organizational growth through modern, effective learning solu-tions. A dedicated industry leader, she has served as past president and board member of CHART and as past chair and current board member of the California Restaurant Foundation. She lives in Southern California with her husband, Jack, and their German Shepherd, Cali, and enjoys traveling and exploring classic restaurants.

Shifting Focus from Knowledge to Behavior

Knowledge doesn’t change performance; changing behavior does. Too often, L&D is asked to create training for new programs or initiatives without clearly defining the behavior that needs to change.

Traditional L&D prioritizes content completion rather than tracking actionable behavior change. The result? ‘Pencil whipping’ training completion rates. How many times have you reviewed LMS reports only to see everyone completed a tenminute course in one minute? Your team members may know more, but they may not apply the knowledge or act differently. A course with a 95% completion rate and zero behavior change is not a success; it’s a cost. And over time, it erodes L&D’s credibility as a driver of business results.

Measuring Learning through Business Outcomes

If we want training to matter, we have to redefine what success looks like. As L&D leaders, our role is to help our team members improve their performance and give them the confidence to do their job. Training must connect directly to observable behaviors that tie to your business metrics. High- performing L&D teams measure success through business impact—sales, speed and the guest experience.

Specific to restaurants and hotels, you can tie behavior change to the following metrics:

• Sales: Upselling and attach rates

• Speed: Increased table turns, reduced ticket times

• Service: Positive Google ratings and NGC scores

Reinforcing Learning through Practice and Coaching

Behavior change requires reinforcement over time. To make your training successful, you need to build in two key elements:

• Practice through simulations and role play. Use real-life scenarios within your organization or restaurants, which can dramatically increase retention. Use guest feedback as the basis.

• Reinforce the new behavior through coaching and feedback loops

Learning sticks when it happens in the flow of work, not from watching a 20-minute course in the corner of a restaurant.

AI can accelerate this shift when used intentionally. Instead of simply creating content faster, AI can personalize learning, provide real-time coaching, and reinforce behaviors in the flow of work. But most organizations stop at AI awareness training—teaching tools instead of changing how work gets done. The real opportunity is using AI to drive behavior change at scale.

Positioning L&D as a Strategic Business Partner

If you are not focused on building content that creates a behavior change, start making the shift now. Move from content building to building capability, completion rates to application and learning metrics to business metrics. L&D is a strategic partner in organizations that drives results, not a support function. Partner early with your cross-functional teams to dig into what behavior needs to be changed, how success will be measured and how to support and sustain it.

Stop asking, “What should we train?” Start asking, “What must people do differently, and how will we prove it?” Because in today’s environment, L&D isn’t measured by what people know. It’s measured by what they do. So, start getting down to business and drive behavior change.