Pollo Tropical

Samantha Rubino is a dedicated Training Director with a passion for empowering teams to reach their full potential. With a focus on service and success, Rubino fosters growth, collaboration and continuous learning, helping individuals and organizations thrive through tailored training solutions and effective leadership strategies.

Samantha’s Professional Background

My professional career began with a startup brand and a leadership team that believed in my skills and abilities. Being in a startup environment is the greatest place for growth and innovation. This experience prepared me for my current role with Pollo Tropical as the Director of Training and Communications, where I lead a team of field trainers and corporate support staff to ensure our training programs meet the expectations of today’s learners.

Staying Updated with Emerging Tools and Technologies

Just like any other sector of Technology, its always evolving, there is always something new coming to the market.

• First, build relationships with your current providers.

• Talk to everyone!! Not everyone is in the training industry, but everyone is a learner!

• As far as resources and networks, LinkedIn is the best for staying connected to those in your industry.

Aligning Training Programs with Organizational Goals

In order to design training programs that are aligned with the overarching goals and vision of the organization, you have to build strong partnerships with ALL the departments within your organization. This is the fun and magic of Training, we get to be a valuable resource for all brand initiatives. Even if it’s something like a push from the Marketing Department, in Training we can most certainly design a micro learning or workshop that will help the investment in marketing! As an example, your marketing department is pouring money into 3^rd party dispatch companies to increase sales during the slower parts of the day. In training, we enhanced our training materials to explain why it is important to provide the same experience to our guests during all operating hours. This includes a high focus on quality, item availability and order accuracy!

“Focus on impact, not activity. It’s easy to get caught up in delivering training sessions or developing tons of content, but the true value lies in the impact you create.”

Facilitating Effective Communication Across Departments

Effective communication across various levels and departments within an organization has its challenges. Was the communication clear and concise? Did we include the right people? Did we send it too early or too late? Is there such thing as overcommunicating? Here are some go-to practices!

• Include the right people

• Leave off the fluff! Keep it clear and concise

• Tag action items and put a name!

• Include goals or the why behind communications

• Your best practice to ensure effective communication is going to be the follow up.

With today’s expectations on technology, direct line of communication via text messaging has been a game changer!

Strategies for Encouraging Employee Participation in Training Programs

Encouraging Team Member participation and engagement in training programs requires a combination of relevance, motivation and accessibility. Here are some strategies to take into consideration that I have found effective.

• Role Specific Learning Paths

• Skill Level Adaption or Skill Stacking

• Multi-Training Methods

• Scenario-based training

• Mentorships

• Leadership Involvement

• Recognition is by far the #1 driver of engagement.

• Always explain the why behind the training, aligning it with the cultural language of the organization.

• Create a feedback loop to gather input from participants.

Addressing Resistance to Change

Change is uncomfortable, we get caught up in a closed mindset because “that’s how it’s always been done”.

Addressing resistance to change, especially when introducing new training initiatives, requires a combination of empathy, communication and a structured approach. 

• Understand the root of their resistance by understanding the underlying concerns.

• Get input early on: Running pilot tests to gather feedback from those who will be impacted.

• Explain the why and keep an open dialogue

• Share the quick wins: Highlight the pilot test groups’ feedback.

• Lead by example

• Provide support during the transition

Future Impact of Technology on Training and Communication Strategies

In the next 3-5 years, advancements in technology are set to significantly transform training and communication strategy, driving more personalization, immersive and efficient learning experiences.

• Microlearning: Attention spans are shrinking by the day and so is the increasing demand on time. Developing bite sized learnings that is short, sweet and to the point.

• Community based learning: leveraging social learning where teams can collaborate, share resources and engage in discussions.

• Data driven training: The use of data to track and optimize team performance and learning will become more prominent.

• Automation: Learning bots will take a greater role in delivering quick answers, micro learning content or FAQs. Our new virtual trainers!

Advice for the Aspiring Professionals               

To the emerging training, development or communication professional:

Focus on impact, not activity. It’s easy to get caught up in delivering training sessions or developing tons of content, but the true value lies in the impact you create. Keep your focus on meaningful outcomes like how are you making the lives of the teams you serve better? How are you making their jobs easier to understand, how are you building them to feel successful?

Think of our roles as a bridge between leadership and the teams. We serve as a link between leadership’s vision and the team members day to day experiences. This is a big job, having the ability to translate high level strategy into actionable, relevant training programs helps ensure that both sides of the bridge are aligned