COVID-19 has caused upheaval around the world in too many ways to name. Aside from the toll on human life, it has hammered economies and several industries. In came the best restaurant scheduling software to save the day!
Restaurants across North America struggled to run their business when they either operated at 50% capacity or restricted indoor seating altogether. Thankfully, people still need to eat, and there’s been an enormous desire to shop locally and either order delivery or curbside pickup.
Running a restaurant was always challenging, but during COVID-19, it’s considerably more demanding. That’s why efficiency matters more than ever, and one of the tools driving efficiency in today’s restaurants is restaurant scheduling software.
What is Restaurant Scheduling Software?
Restaurant scheduling software is a helpful tool that restaurant managers use to organize shifts, track employee availability and manage labour costs. It simplifies the process while ensuring the restaurant operates efficiently.
Here are some of its features:
- Schedule shifts: The best restaurant scheduling software helps managers schedule shifts by creating and assigning them to employees. They can assign shifts based on availability and role. This ensures adequate coverage during busy and slow times.
- Employee availability tracking: even the best restaurant scheduling software helps employees submit their vacation requests, availability or time off needs. This helps make it easier for managers to build an efficient and fair schedule.
- Swapping shifts: through this software, employees can request to swap shifts with each other and the manager simply must approve or deny these requests. All of this can be done with the software.
- Managing labour costs: some restaurants scheduling software integrated payroll systems to track work hours and labour costs. This helps restaurants stay within budget and comply with labour laws.
- Real-time updates: If schedules change, employees can receive instant notification to always ensure they’re aware of the shifts.
- Better communication: the restaurant’s scheduling software allows team members to communicate important updates, schedules, and shift changes, thereby reducing miscommunication.
- Reporting and analytics: managers can access reports that show employee hours, labour costs, or scheduling trends. This is useful in making data-driven decisions.
All in all, restaurant scheduling software is useful in making a huge difference in the way restaurants function. Read till the end to know about the best restaurant scheduling software you can use.
Benefits of Using The Best Restaurant Scheduling Software
If you’re wondering if it is helpful at all, here are some of the benefits to help convince you:
Better Schedules in Less Time:
By using automated technology and inputs effortlessly gathered from your teams, restaurant scheduling software can produce responsive schedules in up to 80% less time than it would otherwise take. Not only do these schedules meet all your employees’ needs, but the time it saves reduces your labour costs by as much as 3%.
Given that labour costs are one of a restaurant’s most significant financial challenges, this technology delivers an important win. Efficiency is all about keeping your employees working where they’re most effective — preparing food and serving customers.
Why pay employees to sit around and struggle to arrange a schedule when you can automate the process and let them work where they’re needed?
Streamline Communications:
Restaurant scheduling software has messaging features that keep everybody connected in a way that’s natural and simple. Imagine a scenario where a manager needs to find a replacement for a shift on short notice.
With restaurant scheduling software, they can simply post a message to the group whose team needs replacement. They’ll see the message because everyone will receive an email notification.
Whoever is free and able to take the shift can let the group know, and in this way, the situation is resolved before it has time to snowball into a crisis. You can also use these communication tools to celebrate staff achievements, provide new workplace policies, inform teams about events or new specials, or anything else going on in your restaurant.
Manager Log Books:
Restaurant scheduling software also keeps managers informed in real time about labour costs, sales, and a whole range of other important metrics. Whether you have one location or a chain across the continent, decision-makers will have all the knowledge they need at their fingertips.
If your manager logbooks suggest your business could use a boost, check out this guide to adding your restaurant to Google Maps to help drive traffic from the online world to your business. With so many people ordering food, having a prominent presence on Google is essential for any restaurant.
5 Best restaurant scheduling software
#5 ZoomShift
Zoom shift is a cloud-based scheduling platform that helps managers streamline employees’ scheduling, track hours and stay organized.
The software allows you to simply dragon Rock shift schedules, time clock for tracking employee hours, and gives you labor cost control. The software also features time off and availability management along with forecasting tools and has a mobile app for employees to access schedules and manage their shifts.
It is an affordable and straightforward software which is ideal for small to mid-sized restaurants.
#4 When I work
An easy-to-use scheduling software this one makes it to number 4 of the best restaurant scheduling software list. When I work, I allow managers to schedule employee ships quickly. It is best suited for smaller restaurants or even businesses.
It is an intuitive, simple scheduling interface that also allows time and attendance tracking. The software is great for employee shift swapping and availability management. Like other scheduling software it has a mobile app for on-the-go access and communication tools for updates and shift reminders.
It is a user-friendly software that is great for smaller operations, however, it has limited labour forecasting and reporting features.
#3 Sling
The versatile scheduling app Sling is great for various industries including restaurants. The third one, from Best Restaurant’s scheduling software, offers free and paid versions, which makes it accessible for small and large teams.
The software features drag-and-drop functionality for employee scheduling, shift swapping and availability management.
This software features task assignments and team communication tools and provides labour cost control. The free version allows you to use the basic scheduling features.
You can get great value with the free version which acts as a powerful scheduling tool. However, it may have features which are basic in comparison to specialized restaurant tools.
#2 HotSchedules
A popular scheduling and workforce management platform that helps streamline employee management. It features automated shift scheduling and mobile access for employees to view and swap shifts. It is also great for task management and has compliance tools.
Apart from being one of the best restaurants’ scheduling software it is also highly customizable and includes a wide array of workforce management tools.
#1 7Shifts
Now it’s down to the best restaurant scheduling software that is specifically great for reducing labour costs, managing staff availability and simplifying shift scheduling.
It features drag-and-drop scheduling, labour cost tracking and forecasting, employee availability management and time off requests. It is a great tool for communication and features payroll systems like Gusto, and ADP among others.
Dine In!
Everybody is trying to stay safe and keep a positive frame of mind as the pandemic’s effect is still apparent. For restaurants, that means staying resourceful and determined to operate in difficult conditions that keep changing. If you’re looking for a tool to help drive efficiency in your business in the pandemic and beyond, check out the best restaurant scheduling software.
Read Also:
