When you are the manager of a restaurant that uses employees in several shifts, you may have a difficult time keeping things straight. Keeping employee needs written down on a calendar schedule can be confusing to both you and the employees involved, especially if you allow employees to trade shifts when it is convenient for them. On the other side of the equation, you need to be able to populate your shifts in accord with customer demand. A failure to do so could mean sending employees home when you are overstaffed, or frantically trying to find people to fill slots when you are understaffed. Shift scheduling software helps you to predict need based on history, and fill slots from available resources as needed in plenty of time.
No matter what kind of business you manage, shift scheduling software has several advantages over keeping track of employee hours and changes according to both business needs and individual employee needs. The foremost benefit, of course, is to you. Since the software can automatically detect and avoid conflicts as well as automatically schedule individual employees according to their availability, your work flow is far more streamlined so that you can concentrate on other important issues. The secondary benefit is to the employees. Many managers disallow last-minute shift-changes or employees letting others “cover” their shift due to the headache it can cause. Employees can wind up with not enough hours, or doing unauthorized overtime. It’s easier just to lay down the law and make employees change their personal schedules rather than the business suffer, even if it is bad for morale and you wind up with lackluster employees who do not want to be there.
Using a shift scheduling software tool to ensure that these kinds of conflicts do not occur makes it easy to be more flexible and meet employees personal needs without worrying about being understaffed or overstaffed, or having to pay overtime. Moreover, depending on the program you purchase, you can designate certain employees to work in roles at which they excel, rather than finding yourself in a situation where a cook has to wash dishes or worse, where the dishwasher is forced to cook. Designating specific back-ups for emergency situations is another benefit as well.
Finally, no one has to rely on a printed sheet posted in the break room to find out hours for the following week. No more phone calls or drop-bys disrupting work-flow. All shifts and changes can be send immediately to the cell phones via text or email of those to whom they apply, which makes shift scheduling software an advantage in communication as well.
Hotschedules.com is an Austin-based online software resource with shift scheduling software available for the restaurant and hospitality industries. We provide efficient and powerful restaurant management software and online tools to make food labor management more efficient, easier and profitable. The benefits for both employers and employees are numerous. Visit us online for more information at http://www.hotschedules.com/ or contact our sales department at 877-539-5156.
