The Tech Boost Everyone in Your Restaurant Need in 2024

Technology has produced wonders for consumers, but it’s also given businesses across industries the means to tighten and streamline their operations. Employee scheduling software is designed specifically for the restaurant industry and is already in use in restaurants across North America.

Employee scheduling software creates important benefits for workers, managers, and restaurant owners alike. Let’s take a look at some of the ways this new software gives your restaurant a boost.

Less Time Creating Schedules

As its name suggests, employee scheduling software’s primary purpose is creating work schedules that satisfy both the personal needs of employees and the restaurant’s requirements. Not only are the schedules it makes actually better, but it trims off a significant amount of time taken to create them

In fact, an industry leader like 7shifts helps schedule your shifts in up to 80% less time than it would otherwise take. This spares your employees from a mundane weekly task that’s frustrating and time-consuming, plus the amount of time it frees up for your employees amounts to a 1-3% reduction in labor costs.

Manually creating a schedule each week with so many moving pieces is challenging, but this headache is avoided altogether with software that harnesses the power of automation.

Better Schedules

Apart from the time saved, employee scheduling software creates schedules that better satisfy the personal needs of each worker as well as the professional needs of the restaurant. Each staff member is able to remotely relay to their manager when they can and cannot work, so the software’s automation takes manual inputs into account.

The staff doesn’t need to wait until they see their manager keep them informed. This means that, for example, the instant they receive a wedding invitation in the mail, they can block that section of time off work.

They don’t need to remember to ask for the time off; they can request it right away, and managers can also give their approval remotely. The drag and drop functionality will be instantly familiar to anybody who has used Microsoft Excel, or even just a pen and paper.

Seamless Communication

As you can find on Nogentech, modern technology is expected to keep people connected, and employee scheduling software does so in a way that saves everybody time. If a manager needs to simply let their staff know about a daily special or a new combo, all they have to do is send a one-way message to the employees who need to be informed.

No employee will ever have to be bothered needlessly. And since these types of messages can’t be responded to, there won’t be a string of unnecessary replies which take a long time to read and may actually distract employees from reading the original message.

On the flip side, if the dialogue is required, the software can create a group chat in whatever configuration is necessary. Imagine a scenario where a manager needs to find a replacement for a shift in an emergency.

All they’d need to do is send a group message to whatever team or group required a replacement. Each employee is likely to receive such a message because they’ll get a notification via email. Whoever is free to take the shift can tell the group that it’s covered.

A replacement can be found in as little time as possible, and everyone remains on the same page. Such smart communication tools keep staff connected in an intelligent way that saves them time and headaches.

Powerful Data Presented Clearly

It’s an information age, but data needs to be understood to be useful. Employee scheduling software has manager logbooks which break all the data down clearly, in ways that are easy to compare against past data.

Vital economic indicators are all there, such as:

• Labor costs
• Percentage of labor
• Total sales
• The weather (which matters a lot for seasonal restaurants)

The software can also track custom stats managers decided are uniquely important for their restaurant.

Managers and restaurant owners can check the total economic health of the restaurant easily from anywhere since the information is stored on the cloud, which also means it’s updated in real-time and can never be lost.

In addition to all the vital statistics, the logbooks also store daily notes, important shift details, and follow-up tasks all in one convenient location. Whenever a new entry is made, all other managers receive an email notification, so no time or effort is wasted keeping everybody up to speed.

No matter how complex and sprawling your restaurant business, decision-makers will have all the information they need at their fingertips to easily keep managers on the same page.

Time-Clock Makes Labor Compliance Easy

With restaurant scheduling software, the humble time-clock has received a very modern update, so employees can punch-in and punch-out securely and easily. Even if you have locations in different states or provinces, restaurants can use the time-clock feature to receive break reminders, overtime alerts, and other features that make it easy to comply with local labor laws.

The modern time-clock unlocks productivity insights from your whole team. Rather than simply punch “in” or “out,” restaurants can make custom breaks as needed, such as “lunch” or “coffee.” This way, managers get a more accurate understanding of what employees are doing on the job.

Finally, employee scheduling software’s time-clock can prevent unauthorized punch-ins and can punch-out any employee who hasn’t done so after a certain amount of time. This way, restaurants can tightly control their payroll and make sure they’re only paying for the labor that was agreed upon in the schedule.

The restaurant industry has always been ultra-competitive, and restaurants across North America are facing new challenges. From the explosion of food trucks, delectable new restaurants, experimental chefs blending culinary traditions or creating new ones and ride-share companies delivering meals, operating a restaurant today require navigating a complex and constantly changing landscape. Software designed to streamline operations, keep employees connected efficiently, and gives managers all the vital data they need at their fingertips is a solution every employee in your restaurant will love.