Fast casual restaurants can be a challenging labor management environment. Figuring out how many employees it takes to staff a fast casual restaurant can be a difficult task. Restaurant managers must ensure that enough staff are on hand to meet customer needs, but also must take care to not have too many staff on hand. With a busy restaurant, managers don’t have the time to babysit the time clock and must often rely on employees to clock in at the right time. Clocking in early or clocking out late will cost the business extra money – money that could be allocated for other uses. (When done intentionally, this is known as “riding the clock“.) Fortunately, employee scheduling software can help in fast casual restaurants.
Why fast casual restaurants need employee scheduling software
Staff scheduling in fast casual restaurants can be difficult for managers for a few reasons. One reason is that the menu is typically more limited than at traditional sit-down restaurants, so managers have to make sure that they have enough staff on hand to prepare all of the items that are popular with customers. Another reason is that fast casual restaurants are usually busier than traditional quick service restaurants, so it can be more difficult to find a time when everyone is available to work. Finally, many fast casual restaurants are open for lunch and dinner, which can make it more difficult to find staff who are available to work during both shifts.
In a fast casual concept, many staff members perform more than one job while at work; they may have another job with another business as well. Cross training and constant communications about the schedule are key to labor scheduling success.
Other labor management problems include:
- Fluctuating school schedules
- Continuous availability changes
- Young / inexperienced staff members
- Buddy punching
- And more
Over scheduling the restaurant could drain away profits. Under scheduling staff might drain away your customers. Skillful scheduling of staff members for your business isn’t easy – it can be tedious and time consuming. Luckily, it doesn’t have to be hard. TimeForge turns labor scheduling and attendance monitoring into a simple management task, giving you back your weekends and increasing profits. Don’t believe us? Try it out for free – you’ve got nothing to lose!
