Improve Your Restaurant Scheduling in 4 Simple Ways
Proper scheduling is one of the most important aspects of a successful and profitable restaurant. Having the right workers — in the right places, at the right times — is essential to ensuring high levels of quality and service in all aspects of your restaurant. When employees are happy with their work schedule and working the shifts they can and want to work, they are generally more productive and deliver a higher quality of work. Happy workers yield happy customers.
As a restaurant owner or manager, ensuring proper scheduling will keep employee morale high and customers coming back. While there is no question that appropriate scheduling is essential to keeping your restaurant running smoothly, creating the schedule can often be tedious and tricky.
Check out our list below of 4 simple ways to improve your restaurant scheduling.
1. Understand your restaurant’s business trends.
The first step in creating a proper schedule for your restaurant is understanding trends in its business cycle. It is essential to have a thorough grasp of projected business to properly schedule your employees. The schedule should allow for the correct amount of labor hours to deliver the appropriate level of service at all times. Know the times at which your restaurant is busy and when things are slower, and schedule your staff accordingly. Make sure to take into account seasonal fluctuations in business, whether they are related to holidays or other events taking place in your area. Use data from past weeks, months and years to forecast future sales, and base your schedule around those predictions.
2. Understand what your employees need from their schedules.
If your employees are happy with their schedules, they will be more productive and deliver a higher level of quality in their service. Understanding what they need when it comes to their schedules will keep morale high. Make sure you know when your employees can and cannot work. Work availability should be discussed in initial interviews to ensure you can accommodate their needs and they can accommodate yours.
3. Make communication about scheduling easy.
As with many things, communication is key when ensuring proper restaurant scheduling. Put systems in place to make it as easy as possible for your employees to communicate with you regarding their schedules. Modern restaurant technology allows for quick and easy communication with your employees, so be sure to put it to work for you.
4. Have scheduling systems in place and stick to them.
Schedules should come out at the same time each week. Make sure you have a scheduling system in place and stick to it. This way your employees know what is expected of them (deadlines for requests for time off, etc.) and what they can expect from you. Don’t wait until the day before to put out the next week’s schedule. Respect your employee’s time and give them proper notice of their next week’s schedule.
If you would like to learn more ways to improve your restaurant’s scheduling, reach out to me for some additional information.
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