Welcome to the Accurate Data Payroll Processing blog. Today’s post addresses restaurant scheduling best practices. We have helped many restaurant owners improve and simplify their employee scheduling with TimeSimplicity, the leading scheduling system for the hospitality industry.

Extend Your Scheduling Forecast

If you make schedules available two weeks or more in advance, it demonstrates to your workforce that you care about their lives outside of work. The more notice you give, the easier it is for them to arrange childcare, schedule appointments, or take care of other responsibilities. It doesn’t cost you anything, but it goes a long way to inspire a devoted crew. Even it some tweaking needs to be done after a schedule is designed, you can have most shifts in place, especially if you have some staff members with a set schedule.

Predictive scheduling regulations are gaining momentum and may affect you sometime in the near future. If you have these procedures already in place before you are obligated legally, you will have a competitive advantage. Besides, it makes good business sense to create a supportive work environment where employees are valued and respected.

Cross-Train for Increased Schedule Flexibility

When you bring on a new employee, be frank about the fact that servers have to bus tables once in a while and prep cooks have to sling dishes. The entry-level team members will be eager to extend their abilities and your workforce will be better able to respond to fluctuating customer levels on the fly.

Be Flexible

If you hire competent employees, why does it matter if they trade shifts? Many restaurant owners who have loosened up shift trade policies have seen an increase in accountability because their workers don’t want to lose the benefit. When hiring help, find out what shifts they want to work and how many hours they want to work per week. This sounds like an obvious detail, but you would be surprised at how many employers miss these essential questions and then are frustrated when all of their employees want the same hours. When analyzing competing job candidates with similar qualifications, schedule preferences could be a deciding factor.

Create Rules for Schedulers

If you are not the only one who makes schedules, establish rules for any supervisors or team leads who share the task. Use job codes to keep track of each employee’s skills and certifications and make sure you update them when necessary. Don’t assume the other schedule makers have the institutional knowledge you’ve acquired. Preserve practical information about schedule-making and other processes that have been refined over time.

Use TimeSimplicity for Scheduling Best Practices

If you are serious about adopting these methods, you need TimeSimplicity, the most powerful Workforce Management system for the hospitality industry. TimeSimplicity has dedicated tools that simplify restaurant employee scheduling. Call Accurate Data Payroll Processing today for a demo.

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Accurate Data Payroll Processing offers WorkforceHUB, the unified Human Resources portal that makes it easy to optimize the performance of your managers, employees, and business.

WorkforceHUB includes TimeWorksPlus, TimeSimplicity, TimeWorks Mobile, and ApplicantStack. We’ve just added recruitment, onboarding, benefits enrollment, performance reviews, and employee engagement! WorkforceHUB is created for busy employers like you who need to reduce cost-per-hire, streamline scheduling, automate time tracking, maintain regulatory compliance, and decrease labor costs.

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