Are you finding yourself getting caught up in staff scheduling conflicts? Are the notices just piling up on your desk? You may appear to have everything under control, when in fact, you're screaming inside! Here are five employee scheduling tips that will help make your restaurant function smoothly:
1. Establish Your Expectations From The Start
In order to prevent your employees from flaking out on you at the last moment, make your scheduling expectations clear from the moment you hire them. This entails letting future employees know that you need advance notice of scheduling conflicts or time off that they know ahead of time about. Make sure to set some ground rules and let all of your staff members know what you may see as scheduling abuse. For some, it may mean constantly having a weekend off or faking an emergency to get out of work! In any case, laying down the law of the land at the beginning will eliminate problems further down the line.
2. Know Every Aspect Of Your Business
Before you can effectively schedule your staff for work, make sure you take the time to actually understand every aspect of your own business. Take note of the busiest times during the day and when holidays pick up. Before committing to a staff schedule, knowing when your business turns the most profit will enable you to accommodate the needs of your employees. Having a clear idea of the restaurant's peak hours will allow you to provide better service during the times when most consumers are present.
3. Turn To Digital Scheduling
It is important that your staff members have access to a clear, well thought out, and legible schedule they can keep an eye on. You know you've done things wrong if your schedule is taped to the kitchen wall and notes are scribbled in random ink.
The best course of action to take is to do your scheduling digitally. Try this schedule maker from Tracktime24. It will ensure that all of your staff members are aware of any changes made in real-time, and if there are any discrepancies that need to get fixed, you can do so without confusing everyone. You can choose to share schedules via text, downloadable documents, email or social media-- just make sure that everyone has access to the same digital schedule!
4. Make Communication Seamless
In order to ensure that your restaurant is running smoothly and remains profitable, make sure that you keep open lines of communication between you and your staff members. It's crucial to know what goes on in your establishment and this is especially the case if your scheduling is complex! Overstaffing may mean that employees are angry at your lack of ability and foresight to schedule for the circumstances. On the other hand, understaffing is detrimental to your business during peak hours as you can anger staff and consumers alike.
You can avoid either scenario by simply openly communicating with your employees using a common platform such as Basecamp or Slack. They can both make scheduling a breeze while allowing you to interact with your staff as needed.
5. Use Smart Scheduling To Your Advantage
You can streamline the scheduling process even further by putting your faith in modern technology. A great software such as Track Time 24 can take the guesswork out of scheduling conflicts and make it easy to handle the needs of your restaurant on-the-go. Most importantly, this software was created specifically for restaurant use, which means it will properly help you build, decline or approve scheduling changes and manage your reputation. What's more, you can directly reach out to your staff via text or email using this platform and avoid scheduling conflicts well before they take hold.
Read more: 6 Common Questions People Ask About Grants