Blog
4 must-haves for productive labor management
Eric Cox, VP of product strategy at CrunchTime Information Systems, shares how to create a more productive labor operation.
January 27, 2020 by Erik Cox — VP Product Strategy, CrunchTime!
Today's labor challenges are keeping restaurant managers up at night, but there are steps you can take to ease those worries. Rising wages and historically high turnover rates have put tremendous pressure on operators in the QSR and fast casual space, where speed and efficiency — in addition to profits — are so critical. Labor inefficiencies are costly, but following these four best practices can help you create a more productive labor operation. Ultimately, this will optimize your labor costs.
1. Schedule the right people, at the right place, at the right time.
This is the basic foundation of restaurant labor management. While it sounds simple, it's become increasingly difficult to put into practice as restaurant operations are more complex than ever. Guest preferences have evolved and today they expect more options, customizable experiences, and the ability to consume their meals whenever they want and wherever they want. As your guests have new needs, you have to determine who the best people are to satisfy those needs.
Although these needs are in a constant state of flux, a system designed to identify the best people for each need doesn't have to change. As is the case with most back office operations, data is the key. Managers should have the means to collect information about each employee at every shift and use that information to determine who the best people are for every need. That allows the manager to quantify who the “right” people are and build this knowledge into an automated scheduling program.
2. Make it easier for your team members to know when they're working.
No one benefits when employees don't show up to work when they're scheduled. In some cases, no call, no show incidents stem from the employee simply not knowing they were on the schedule. And the reason they don't know is because finding out is such a hassle. The best thing managers can do is remove that hassle.
Empowering team members to check their schedules, swap shifts, and manage their availability with the convenience of their mobile devices makes it easier for them to know when they are supposed to work. What's more, because things like shift requests and availability updates can be done quickly and easily, it makes it easier for managers to only schedule employees when they are available. Ultimately, this alleviates the risk of employees not showing up to work.
3. Stay complaint with labor laws and company standards.
Non-compliance with labor laws can be an expensive problem. In 2019, a number of prominent brands found themselves in legal trouble over labor law violations. And with new regulations like Predictive Scheduling expanding to more parts of the country in 2020, it's important to work with a labor management solution provider that stays on top of the latest changes.
Configurability is key. Your labor management system should allow you to configure any relevant local, state, and federal laws at every location and prompt managers with alerts when their schedule violates any of those laws. Building this configuration into automated scheduling helps managers create schedules with greater ease (thus saving time and money) without violating any laws.
Your labor management system should allow you to configure any relevant local, state, and federal laws at every location and prompt managers with alerts when their schedule violates any of those laws.
4. Maintain a thorough training program.
Training is a critical component of a successful restaurant, and consistent training produces consistent results. Given the high turnover rates that are being felt throughout the industry, it's likely that managers will spend a lot of time training new hires in 2020.
In order for training to not take up too much of the manager's time and resonate with new hires, the materials should be treated the same way most content is treated today — make it readily available to consume at any time on-demand. As long as you're using a back of house operations platform to facilitate many of your restaurant's critical functions, it should come with a training component that requires no travel or dependency on a live instructor. This not only frees up the manager's time for other important tasks, it ensures that all trainees learn best practices based on defined brand standards. So when they step out of the training room and onto the floor, they can hit the ground running and become more productive employees.
About Erik Cox
Erik is the Vice President of Product Strategy at Crunch Time. After spending two decades as a restaurant operator, Erik joined CrunchTime in 2008 to help build the tools he wished he had during his time in the restaurant industry. Today he leads the strategic planning and development of systems designed to innovate restaurant operations. For more than 20 years, Crunch Time has helped some of the world's top restaurant brands streamline back office operations, optimize food and labor costs, and increase profitability.
Related Media
Subscribe
Get the latest news and resources from Fast Casual.
