Training sign-off sheet template: one page per station, signed by trainer and trainee

"She's trained on the bar" can mean anything from "watched someone make a latte once" to "has opened the bar alone for a month." A sign-off sheet makes it mean one thing: a trainer watched this person do each part of the station to your standard, on a date, and both of them signed.

Our role posts list what to teach: the line cook's stations, the barista's first week, and the structure of a new hire's first week. This post is the record: the sheet that goes with each station, how to write the competencies on it, and the team matrix that shows at a glance who can work where.

This is general information, not legal advice. Your state may have its own training, certification and youth employment rules.

Why bother writing it down

• It decides the schedule. You can't put someone alone on the grill on Saturday unless you know they're signed off on it.
• It's the evidence. The FDA Food Code makes the person in charge responsible for ensuring that "EMPLOYEES are properly trained in FOOD safety, including FOOD allergy awareness, as it relates to their assigned duties" (§2-103.11(O), 2022 FDA Food Code; the 2026 edition keeps it). A signed sheet per station is how you show that, station by station.
• It makes promotions fair. "Signed off on every station" is a clear line for a shift lead promotion.

How to write a competency

Write each line as something the trainer can watch the trainee do, with the standard in it. Not "knows the espresso machine", but "pulls a double shot in 25 to 30 seconds, three times in a row, without help."

Use your own numbers: the 25 to 30 seconds is whatever your recipe card says.

The three levels

Each line on the sheet moves through three levels, with a date and the trainer's initials at each:

1. Shown: the trainer showed it and explained why.
2. Done with help: the trainee did it with the trainer next to them.
3. Signed off: the trainee did it to standard, alone, on a real shift, more than once.

Only level 3 counts for the schedule. A line can sit at level 2 for a week; that's fine, as long as everyone knows it.

The sign-off sheet

Print one per station per person.

Station ________ Trainee ________ Trainer ________ Start date ________ Location ________

Every station sheet includes these lines: handwashing at the right sink and the right times; the station's temperatures and what to do when one is off; the allergens on the station's items; the station's chemicals, where the SDS is, and the protective equipment for them; the station's close.

Final sign-off

A filled example: espresso bar

Line 4 isn't signed off yet, so this barista isn't on the bar alone on Saturday morning.

The team training matrix

One page per location, on the office wall or in your files, built from the sheets. S = signed off, H = done with help, blank = not started.

Check it when you build the schedule: every shift needs at least one S on every station it opens. A column with only one S is a call-out away from a problem; train a second person on it next.

When a sign-off has to be redone

• The recipe, equipment or procedure changed. A new espresso machine or a new menu item resets the lines it affects.
• Something went wrong that the sheet says they could do: a temperature not taken, an allergen question answered wrong.
• Long gap. Someone who hasn't worked a station in months gets a refresher shift before they're back on it alone.
• A teen turns 16 or 18. Some stations open up at those ages (below).

Training time is paid time

Federal rules count training as work time unless four conditions are all met: "(a) Attendance is outside of the employee's regular working hours; (b) Attendance is in fact voluntary; (c) The course, lecture, or meeting is not directly related to the employee's job; and (d) The employee does not perform any productive work during such attendance" (29 CFR 785.27). And "Attendance is not voluntary, of course, if it is required by the employer" (29 CFR 785.28). Station training fails at least the third condition, so schedule it and pay it.

Teens: some stations can't be signed off

Write the age limits on the station's sheet, so nobody signs off a station the law doesn't allow:

• 14 and 15: cooking is limited to "electric or gas grills which does not involve cooking over an open flame" and "deep fryers that are equipped with and utilize a device which automatically lowers the baskets into the hot oil or grease and automatically raises the baskets" (29 CFR 570.34(c)).
• Under 18: no operating or cleaning power-driven meat slicers, grinders or patty formers, "regardless of the product being processed by these machines" (29 CFR 570.61(a)(4)).

States often add their own limits. Our minors pages, starting with Florida's, cover them state by state.

Where Mays fits

• The sign-off as a form. Build a custom form under Tasks → Types called, say, Bar sign-off: an Employee field for the trainee, a Section header per group of lines, a Single choice field per competency (Shown, With help, Signed off), a Date / time field, and Signature fields for the trainee and the trainer. The trainer fills it in the Mays app, and Export CSV on its Task Data page lists every sign-off. Send it as a one-off task to the trainer when training starts. See Custom form task types and One-off tasks.
• The knowledge part. In Learning, an admin builds a module from your knowledge base articles (the recipe cards, the allergen chart) and the AI drafts a quiz to review and edit before it's published, with a passing score of 80% unless you change it. Assign it to a location, a role, a department or a person. A module marked compliance-critical issues a certificate when someone passes. See Create learning modules.
• Ages on the position. With Labor law compliance on, a position can carry a Minimum age and the tasks it involves, like a meat or deli slicer or cooking other than on a grill or an automatic fryer, and Mays warns you when someone too young is scheduled in it at a location with minors' rules on. See Positions and wages.

What Mays doesn't do yet: there's no sign-off record per station per person, and no training matrix, so the schedule can't tell you who's cleared for the grill; keep the matrix from your forms. Learning modules are built and assigned by admins only, and a quiz score is not a sign-off: it tells you they know it, not that they can do it.

Sign it, then schedule it

Write competencies you can watch, sign each line at three levels, keep a matrix from the sheets, and schedule people alone only where they're signed off. It's a page per station, and it settles every "is she trained on that?" for good.

Start your free trial: 30 days, every module, no card needed. Or book a walkthrough and we'll build your first sign-off form with you.