Save Time, Run Smarter: AI for Hospitality Owners
Running a hospitality business in Aotearoa is a constant balancing act. Between staff rosters, supplier emails, marketing, and customer service, there are never enough hours in the day. That’s why we’re launching a 12-week series on AI Time Savers for Hospo — practical tips and real-world examples of how artificial intelligence can help you reclaim time, reduce admin, and keep your focus on what matters most: your guests.
Each week we’ll spotlight one small, practical way you can use AI in your business — no jargon, no big budgets, just tools and ideas you can start using straight away.
Week 4 – Your AI training coordinator: staff communication made simple
Turn AI into your staff training and communication assistant
We’ve covered customer communications in previous AI tips, but what about the other side of your business — keeping your team informed, trained, and on the same page? Whether it’s explaining new procedures, helping to create training materials, or communicating policy changes, clear staff communication is crucial but time-consuming.
AI can help you create consistent, clear internal staff communications that save you hours each week and ensure nothing gets lost in translation.
Three staff communications AI can streamline right now
- Policy update comms – When you need to communicate about internal policy updates – changes to uniforms, break policies, or other operational requirements – AI can help put together some comms on the updates in a way that’s clear and covers all the important points.
- Training guidance – Turn your existing knowledge into step-by-step training materials. AI can take your verbal instructions, or bullet points and turn them into written guidance your team can actually follow.
- Shift briefings – Create consistent daily or weekly briefings for your team. AI can help you structure important information — from specials and allergen updates to maintenance issues — into concise, actionable communications.
Try this week: The “Explain Like They’re New” method
Pick one procedure or policy your team needs to understand better and try this prompt:
“Explain [procedure/policy] to a new hospitality worker. Make it clear and step-by-step, covering the key points: [your main points]. Keep it practical and friendly, around 150 words.”
For example: “Explain our end-of-shift cleaning checklist to a new hospitality worker. Make it clear and step-by-step, covering: sanitising stations, restocking, equipment checks, cash handling. Keep it practical and friendly, around 150 words.”
The Result? A training document that would take you 30 minutes to write, delivered in 30 seconds — and written in plain English your team will actually understand and follow.
Bonus tip: Once you have the basic structure, you can ask AI to adapt it for different experience levels or create quiz questions to check understanding.
More reading:
Training: Take a deeper dive on this topic – Prompting AI to Work Smarter in Hospitality.
What Is AI (and Why Should You Care)? – week 1
Your AI Writing Assistant: Customer Communications Made Easy – week 2
Menu Engineering Made Simple: Let AI Optimize Your Offerings – week 3
Your AI training coordinator: staff communication made simple – week 4
Your AI recruitment partner: smarter hiring in a tight market – week 5
Smarter supplier and invoice management with AI – week 6
AI help for smarter rostering – week 7
Teaching AI Your Business: the secret to better AI results – week 8