Hosted by Jeff Walter, Founder and CEO of LatitudeLearning
In this episode of the Training Impact Podcast, Jeff Walter is joined by Lindsey Halson, Senior Director of Training and Development at Bojangles, to explore how the brand designs, delivers, and scales training for its field teams.
From the opening moments of the conversation, it is clear this is not a discussion about content libraries or one-time onboarding events. Instead, Lindsey describes a fundamental shift in how Bojangles thinks about training itself. The goal is not simply to ensure people know how to do their jobs, but to help them want to do their jobs, continue growing in them, and understand how their behavior directly impacts team performance, hospitality, retention, and profitability.
When Lindsey joined Bojangles, much of the training function was focused on task execution. Did team members know how to make menu items? Did they understand basic hospitality standards? Did leaders have a general sense of what good leadership should look like?
What was missing was an underlying learning strategy. There was no shared pedagogy, no consistent way to measure whether learning was actually happening, and no framework to connect training to outcomes in the field. Trainers often relied on repetition and demonstration, hoping knowledge would stick.
Lindsey explains that hope is not a strategy. Training had to evolve from showing people how to do something into helping them understand why behaviors mattered and how to coach those behaviors in real time.
One of the most powerful themes in the episode is Lindsey’s insistence on making leadership observable and objective.
At Bojangles, leadership during a shift is no longer evaluated based on vague impressions. Instead, leaders are coached on a small, focused set of behaviors: drive-thru times, food hold standards, hospitality cues, headset awareness, and how often they are actively coaching their team. By narrowing the focus to four or five critical behaviors, leaders can direct their attention where it matters most.
This approach removes subjectivity. Leaders are not told to “be better.” They are shown exactly what “being better” looks like, how it is measured, and how it impacts the guest experience.
Lindsey draws on her background in education to explain how Bojangles conducts peak-period observations. During the busiest parts of a shift, leaders are observed using a one-page framework that tracks what they are listening for, what they are monitoring, and how often they coach.
A common breakdown occurs when shift leaders stay locked into a single station, focusing only on order accuracy. While accuracy matters, leadership requires lifting your head, scanning the environment, listening to the flow of the operation, and supporting the team in real time.
These observations give leaders concrete feedback and allow them to choose specific behaviors to improve, making coaching collaborative rather than corrective.
Another key insight from the episode centers on how quickly learners should be allowed to practice.
Historically, training followed a rigid sequence: read the manual, watch videos, observe a trainer, then finally perform the task. Lindsey describes how this delayed hands-on experience slowed learning and limited confidence. At Bojangles, learners now get their hands on the work much sooner, with trainers stepping back and intervening only when necessary.
Mistakes are not treated as failures. They are treated as learning moments. Just like in sports, you cannot prevent every bad play. You can only coach what happens next.
As Bojangles scaled its leadership development efforts, it became clear that a single leadership class could not serve every role. What a shift leader needs to know and do is different from what a general manager or area director needs.
The training team responded by breaking leadership foundations into multiple competency levels, aligned to specific roles. The same core topics exist across levels, but the expectations and behaviors change based on responsibility. This allows development to feel relevant and appropriately challenging at every stage.
One of the clearest indicators of success for Bojangles’ training strategy has been retention. As leadership development improved, turnover declined. As turnover declined, sales and profitability increased. Lindsey describes these outcomes as inseparable. You cannot sustain high performance while constantly rebuilding your workforce.
In fact, foundational leadership classes that were once held monthly are now delivered only twice a year because most leaders have already progressed to the next level.
Rather than releasing the entire curriculum at once, Bojangles rolls out training in stages. New classes are tested internally, refined based on impact, and only then extended to franchise locations. Franchise teams typically receive training six to twelve months after corporate rollout, ensuring content is proven and field-ready.
This deliberate pace reinforces trust and ensures training supports operations instead of overwhelming them.
One of the more subtle but impactful shifts Lindsey describes is how Bojangles has redefined the role of trainers themselves. In many organizations, trainers unintentionally become a safety net. When something goes wrong, leaders look for the trainer to step in, correct the issue, or take over execution. Over time, this creates dependency instead of capability.
At Bojangles, the goal is the opposite. Training is designed to build confidence in leaders so they trust their own judgment, their observations, and their ability to coach in the moment. Trainers are there to model behaviors, ask better questions, and create the conditions for learning—but not to run the shift for them.
This distinction matters because confidence is what allows leaders to lift their heads during peak periods instead of staying locked into tasks. When leaders feel uncertain, they often retreat to what feels safe: doing the work themselves. When they feel prepared, they can step back, observe patterns, listen for breakdowns, and coach proactively.
By defining expectations clearly and reinforcing them through observation and feedback, Bojangles helps leaders understand that being “in charge” does not mean doing everything. It means seeing the whole operation and guiding the team through it.
Another benefit of Bojangles’ approach is how it changes the emotional tone of feedback. In many organizations, coaching conversations feel personal, subjective, or even judgmental. Leaders may hear feedback as criticism rather than support, which can trigger defensiveness or disengagement.
By grounding coaching in observable behaviors, Bojangles removes much of that friction. Feedback is no longer about personality or intent. It is about what was seen, what was heard, and what impact it had on the shift. This makes conversations easier to receive and easier to act on.
Leaders are encouraged to choose one or two behaviors to focus on rather than trying to improve everything at once. This sense of agency matters. When people feel they have control over their development path, they are more likely to engage with it and follow through.
Over time, this creates a shared language for leadership. Everyone knows what good looks like. Everyone knows how it is measured. And everyone understands how small behavior changes can compound into better performance.
As Bojangles continues to grow, scalability remains a constant consideration. Lindsey is clear that scale does not come from adding more classes or more content. It comes from designing systems that work consistently, even as complexity increases.
That is why Bojangles focuses so heavily on clarity, repetition, and reinforcement in the flow of work. Training is not something that happens apart from operations. It is embedded in daily shifts, peak periods, and real decisions leaders make under pressure.
By aligning training design with how the business actually runs, Bojangles avoids a common trap: building programs that look good on paper but break down in practice. Instead, training evolves alongside operations, informed by data, observation, and feedback from the field.
This approach allows Bojangles to grow without losing what makes the brand work. Leaders develop faster. Teams stay longer. And training becomes a stabilizing force rather than a reactive fix.
This episode highlights what happens when training is treated as a system of behaviors, observations, and feedback loops rather than a collection of courses.
Bojangles’ approach shows that meaningful training does not rely on motivation alone. It relies on clarity, consistency, and measurement. By defining leadership behaviors, observing them objectively, and coaching in the flow of work, the brand has built a training program that drives retention, performance, and growth.
To learn more about Bojangles and its commitment to operational excellence, visit https://www.bojangles.com.