Case Study: Restaurant Schedule Management

restaurant employee scheduling system

Contact SwipeClock LLC for information regarding Workforce Management SuiteSwipeClock LLC helps restaurant transform schedule management, control expenses, and maintain a loyal workforce.

Coat and Thai is a tony Thai restaurant whose owners are planning to open a second location with hopes of franchising in the future. It copes with the challenges common to the restaurant industry; service peaks, specialized staff, and high employee turnover.

Overwhelming Workforce Management Challenges

Coat and Thai’s lone manager was the only one doing the hiring, scheduling, and time tracking, creating a bottleneck that soon became an overwhelming burden. She was administering employee time, attendance, and scheduling with a 90’s era punch clock, Excel spreadsheets, and a small dry erase board hung in the kitchen. The restaurant has team members working from 5:00 a.m. until 2:00 a.m., seven days a week, further complicating the logistics of scheduling.

Additional obstacles included maintaining adequate staffing for every shift, adapting schedules to sudden surges in business, managing schedule requests, tracking worker meal breaks, and keeping skilled chefs and experienced servers from jumping ship to newer restaurants opening in the neighborhood; a sour prospect for any business.

Workforce Management Suite Sweetens the Sour

Coat and Thai determined that the first order of business was automating employee time and attendance. TimeWorksPlus allows staff members to clock in/out from their mobile devices, eliminating the need to swamp the kitchen during critical shift changes, and allowing team members to transition in and out of shifts with increased efficiency.

Patrons are experiencing better service, and Coat and Thai has done away with costly guesswork and back-dating when congestion forced team members to skip clocking in. Mobile clock also permits their head chef to clock in off site when buying produce at local farmer’s markets, saving time and reducing time card errors, something both management and employees appreciate.

Reduced Labor Costs

Coat and Thai has seen a reduction in labor costs as a result of incorporating integrated clock in/out features for unpaid meal times and breaks. Before Workforce Management Suite, associates often punched out for a meal and forgot to punch back in, creating problematic back-filling and costly guesswork. With Workforce Management Suite PunchLogic, busy team members are only given logical options when accessing the clock in system to reduce mistakes, compile better records, and streamline payroll.

healthcare employee scheduling system South JordanFilling holes in the schedule has become far less complicated with the TimeSimplicity Virtual Trade Board. Previously, the manager would circulate shift change requests to the staff, and then re-circulate when options were proposed. Now, team members simply enter requests on the Virtual Trade Board. Managers can rapidly view, monitor and authorize shift request changes online. Once a shift trade is confirmed, TimeSimplicity automatically informs the appropriate employees. Since the system conversion, the restaurant has rarely been caught shorthanded. Job codes and pre-set requirements make scheduling easy so classifications such as the age requirement to serve alcohol don’t get missed during shift swaps or replacements.

SOLUTION — Workforce Management Suite

  • TimeSimplicity for streamlined restaurant scheduling and mobile coordination.
  • TimeWorksPlus for integrated time and attendance tracking.
  • Mobile access provides employee access and management control.

The employees love the Virtual Trade Board because it has dramatically reduced the time it takes to manage work schedules and submit time cards. Many team members are college students whose schedules change each semester. Adapting schedules to better provide staff flexibility has dramatically improved worker morale and minimized turnover.

Positioned for Growth

The owners of Coat and Thai are better prepared for intended expansion into new venues and franchising. With a handle on the challenges of crew scheduling, and seamless integration with payroll, owners and management can now focus on service and growth. Custom templates make schedule replication quick and easy, and centralized reporting allows the organization to monitor and accommodate changes while minimizing costly overtime, scheduling conflicts, and peak service emergencies.

Most importantly; staff members are excited to participate in the growth of the organization and share their enthusiasm with their increasingly satisfied guests.

Contact SwipeClock LLC for information regarding Workforce Management SuiteUPGRADE TODAY

SwipeClock LLC offers Workforce Management Suite, the powerful, fully-integrated Workforce Management Suite that makes it easy to optimize the performance of your managers, employees, and company.

Workforce Management Suite includes TimeWorksPlus, TimeSimplicity, and TimeWorksPlus Mobile. Workforce Management Suite is established for busy employers like you who need to streamline scheduling, automate time and attendance tracking, maintain regulatory compliance, and reduce labor costs.

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We can get you up and running with Workforce Management Suite in minutes. Contact us today to book a demo.