Article

Going digital: How 1 Arkansas chain controls hiring, training, scheduling

MarketPlace Grill uses Red Book Connect solutions to track training, hiring and scheduling.

December 19, 2013 by Cherryh Cansler — Editor, FastCasual.com

Arkansas's MarketPlace Grill employees never have to call the restaurant to ask for their schedules; nor does management have to guess how many employees are needed to staff the restaurant. Instead of relying on guess work, the four-location chain relies on a solution from Red Book Connect that not only uses scheduling software that corresponds with sales forecasts to help managers design an accurate schedule, but it also includes team messaging capabilities and a custom social eLearning solution for training.

"In general, MarketPlace Concepts is a believer in technology to help managers focus on what they need to be focused on – the guests," said Dave Strong, VP of Operations at MarketPlace Concepts, which operates the chain's three full service units and one fast casual location. The chain began using the scheduling aspect of the solution more than five years ago and recently added the training and hiring solutions which operate within the same platform.

"One of the key areas we appreciate the most is the single sign-on aspect of the tools we are using from Red Book Connect," Strong said. "Rather than having to log into five or six separate tools, we now have our applicant tracking, onboarding, eVerify, training, scheduling, and company-wide communications solutions all from one, single-sign-on console. It really does save my managers time and hassle."

Training and hiring

The training solution, Schoox, delivers all of the restaurant's curricula and courses and allows employees to log in and view only the content that is relevant to them. Managers can track employees' progress as they go through each course and exam. All of this can be done via smartphone, Strong said.

"If you use a cell phone or a tablet and can navigate Facebook, none of these applications are much more difficult," he said. "They can do the courses and exams from anywhere, so they arrive to work ready to go," he said.

Employees appreciate the tools just as much as management, especially at the Conway, Ark., location, where 95 percent of the staff are college students.

"They are on their mobile phones all the time, Strong said. " As soon as the schedule comes out, they are checking it to see how many hours they got and what shifts they have. Managers really appreciate how much easier it is to produce an accurate schedule."

Marketplace also uses Red Book's hiring and onboarding solution, which includes eVerify and frees up managers from having to deal with the typical new-hire paperwork. Candidates and new hires also find the application and onboarding processes easy to use, Strong said.

ROI

Marketplace paid a one-time activation fee per location and also pays a monthly fee for each service it uses. Although Strong couldn't share the exact fees, he said the company has seen a reduction in labor costs, which he attributes to the solution's analytics.

"We have also greatly reduced the amount of overtime we were scheduling. Also, we spend 20-30 minutes less time onboarding new hires now that all that paperwork is handled online."

Read more about staffing and training.

About Cherryh Cansler

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Cherryh Cansler is VP of Events for Networld Media Group and publisher of FastCasual.com. She has been covering the restaurant industry since 2012. Her byline has appeared in Forbes, The Kansas City Star and American Fitness magazine, among many others.

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