Relevant in every restaurant establishment imaginable, from upscale restaurants and wineries to nightclubs and quick service restaurants, Dinerware truly fits the restaurateur’s needs. One Dinerware user says, “Dinerware is the most user friendly system we have worked with.”

With TimeForge’s AutoScheduler, you don’t waste hours confirming that every shift has the correct staff member scheduled. The AutoScheduler comprehends the myriad of guidelines such as minimum and maximum hours for employees, whether or not employees can work doubles, labor costs, skill levels of employees, and employee availabilities and requests. With this knowledge and without a bit of exertion on your part, TimeForge automatically schedules the correct workers in the correct shifts.

TimeForge’s Daily Templates make labor scheduling a cinch! Each Daily Template can have shifts which are already given to salaried employees, or they can be given to part-time laborers when you put together the current schedule. Many TimeForge customers have Templates for every day of the week, and extra Templates for holidays, special events, and other occasions. To build Templates, navigate to the Schedules tab, and then choose “Templates”.

The TimeForge Availability and Request system helps rapidly put together streamlined schedules that agree with staff members’ requests and availability. TimeForge automatically presumes that all staff members are available, so workers need only to enter the times that they are unavailable to work. Requests can be a one-time thing, such as “I need Friday off”, or reoccurring, such as “I cannot work every 2nd Sunday or Monday starting next week.” Requests entered by workers can be required to be approved by a member of management before the request appears on the schedule.

Keep in mind, TimeForge needs no contracts and no long-term commitments. There are no no per-call or per-hour support fees, supplementary service contracts, and you can cancel TimeForge at will, no matter what the reason is. The monthly fee includes upgrades, and we handle the data backups. Best yet, setup is free!

Are you ready to go home early? It should take less than 5 minutes to make the employee labor schedule for your business! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor expenses through effective employee labor management at your business, bar, club, restaurant, office, or store? Sign up for a 100% no risk free trial today!

In July of 2009, Jim Laube wrote a wonderful article called Fairy Tales! The Top 10 Myths of Restaurant Profitability. Myth 5 and Myth 6 of this list focus on labor and labor costs, and we’ll take a close look at them here.

Paying Higher Wages Increases Labor Costs: Myth 5

Jim explains that every business has its overachievers. A staff member that can accomplish at least twice the amount of work as any other employee. A busboy who can keep the whole store clean without any help. A cook that can cook more than anyone else. A cashier who can run two lines. These fine staff members are working their tales off, and therefore should have a higher salary than an employee who just does the least work possible.

Despite what you may think, paying these overachievers more than their apathetic co-workers doesn’t raise labor costs , it frequently lowers them. Which situation would you rather have, assuming that both are able to serve an equal amount of customers?

Scenario 1:
Two bartenders making $8.50 / hour, working a 5 hour shift?
Total wages: $8.50 per hour * 2 employees * 5 hours = $85

Scenario 2:
One bartender making $12.00 / hour, working a 5 hour shift?
Total wages: $12.00 per hour * 1 employee * 5 hours = $60

A stellar bartender (Scenario 2) can outwork two so-so bartenders for an overall lower price.

Part of the difficulty in managing is locating these phenomenal employees. However, if you can locate them and promote them, your business will benefit, and so will your bottom line.

Paying Overtime is a Sign of Bad Management or Poor Scheduling: Myth 6

In most restaurants, there is an operational mandate to guarantee that part-time personnel works less than 35 or 40 hours per week. This is to avoid paying overtime, which is generally 50% costlier (time and a half), or even 100% costlier in some cases (double time). It’s an awesome idea from an hours and cost point of view, but this mandate does leave out an important key factor , the worker.

Frequently, staff members who are working part-time need additional hours to make ends meet. These employees, who may be pivotal to the establishment, have specific economic requirements and occasionally need to pick up extra hours to meet these requirements. By refusing to let these employees work additional hours (perhaps 45 to 50 hours) sometimes, they may look for a new job somewhere else , therefore increasing turnover, and costing the business in lost business, turnover, and hiring while looking for a replacement.

If even remotely possible, make an effort to accommodate personnel needs, be it with the intermittent added overtime hours, or building the employee schedule so that staff work on particular days to work around a second job or other availability. Employees are less likely to quit if all of their needs can be met at one specific place of employment.

TimeForge employee scheduling software is used by managers and operators of independent restaurants and retailers, as well as franchises and chains of companies in the hospitality, food-service, retail, and other service-oriented industries. TimeForge will increase profitability, reduce turnover, and improve retention at your business! Try it free!

Employee scheduling is the process of assigning a schedule to employees based on the needs of both the company and the workers. A systematic approach to scheduling is the workforce analyst in the human resource department. This is often the one responsible for ensuring that no business hour has fewer workers than needed. To aid the workforce analyst in this job, an employee scheduling software is highly recommended.

In a business like hotels, restaurants, and retail stores, employee scheduling plays a vital role in ensuring that every employee is on the right track to providing excellent customer service. For instance, a restaurant that has workers coming in right on schedule means any customer who comes early will be attended right away. But if you have several workers who are on vacation leave during the peak season you’ll have less people handling your guests that you may end up unable to provide good customer service.

With the use of an employee scheduling software, scheduling your ten, twenty, or even thirty employees will take you no more than fifteen minutes. You can then assure that your employees leave requests are followed and your company’s workforce needs are satisfied.

Good customer service goes a long way. So if your company is interested in customer retention, then investing in a technology like an employee scheduling software is a great option for you!

TimeForge can save you time and money. Sign up for a free trial now!

It’s boring and endless. After you’ve gone over all the various factors and built a roster, you have to notify all the officers, face endless questions about next week’s schedule, and then rework the roster to allow for an illness or unexpected time off request, then re-notify all the officers… and probably do it all over again.

Great labor management used to be tedious and time-consuming. If it takes you hours, you are not alone. Luckily, TimeForge helps scheduling officers cut scheduling and attendance monitoring time from literally hours to minutes. With TimeForge, you can monitor your labor costs and overtime in real-time, and more accurately forecast future payroll costs and overtime.

Your officers are going to love it!
With TimeForge, you can inform officers of schedules, meetings, trainings, and any schedule updates by text message or email. They can check the password-protected employee portal 24/7 to view work schedules, view time cards, request time off, change their upcoming availability, swap shifts with other employees, and set up daily schedule alerts via text messaging or email.

You are going to love it!
You can create an officer schedule (no matter how complicated) in minutes (literally), easily try out several “what-if” scheduling scenarios (and return to your saved schedule without redoing it), and securely monitor attendance on site or remotely, using the web, a cell phone, or even Facebook.

If you’re still not convinced, read what other TimeForge users say about the time and money they’ve saved with this easy to use staff scheduling software… or sign up today for your free trial and experience TimeForge for yourself!

Read more about TimeForge Scheduling, TimeForge Attendance, and TimeForge Daily Log.

Rumpf’s close and friendly relationship with its customers enables an intimate understanding of the functioning of each customer’s business. Rumpf can handle every aspect of your company’s technology needs. The capabilities of Rumpf are seemingly endless and include purchasing, support, strategic development, project management, and everything else imaginable that is technology related. The company prides itself on being experienced enough to “handle the entire gamut of technology in your business from start to finish”.

Backed by Restaurant Report, the Running Restaurants website’s tag line is “Helping restaurants to be more profitable!” and the page publishes one of the industry’s leading e-mail newsletters, “Just One Thing”. With endless positive reviews, subscribers love Running Restaurants. In fact, one subscriber says, “It is the first place we go to when an obstacle presents itself.”

Having worked as a manager in a retail environment, I know how difficult it can be to manage employee requests and availability. At the store where I worked, everyone’s schedule was pretty much the same from week to week, including mine. Scheduling should have been a breeze right?

The company I worked for had a requirement that there always be two employees in the store, I managed a fairly small store with a small number of staff members. This could make the two employee requirement difficult to achieve. As a manager, often, I was the second person on the schedule. So what happens when I need to take time off?

That two person rule was most difficult on Fridays. I was taking the weekend off to visit family out of town. I got someone to cover for me on Friday, so things were golden. I flew off to see the family and was having a great time. Then it hit me! I hadn’t gotten someone to cover for me on Monday afternoon when I AM the second person. I had a great team and they probably realized about the same time I did what had happened and worked together to get my shift covered on Monday afternoon.

I wish I had had a tool like TimeForge back then. When I put in my request, it would have let me know that I was going to be short staffed that Monday afternoon. Also, when I was looking at the Daily View of the schedule, I would have seen on the lovely bar graph that I had a gap in coverage in the middle of the day. I would have gotten someone to cover for me and would have avoided a mildly panicked call from my staff and the eventual verbal warning I got from my supervisor.

TimeForge provides over 30 unique reports, enabling you to follow labor costs in real-time and predict future labor costs accurately.

TimeForge can also reduce your paperwork time from hours to minutes by streamlining the labor management process through our automated software. Creating a correctional officer duty roster can be a hassle. You coordinate 24/7 shifts, multiple employees, required skill sets, major and minor shift, each officer’s availability, accrued PTO, and meal breaks. While juggling this officer information, you also need to ensure that all posts are adequately covered, but also minimize overtime. Once you are finished, an officer or employee will inevitably request unexpected time off or a shift swap, so you’ll need to restart the entire process.

Without the right tools, notifying everyone about the finished schedule (and any schedule changes that arise) can be frustrating for everyone involved. Failure to communicate effectively can lead to staff shortages when an officer or employee misses a shift, which unfairly encroaches on the personal time of other employees who unexpectedly need to cover that shift. Unexpected schedule changes (like fills for missed shifts) lead to negative job satisfaction and increased turnover.   TimeForge addresses high turnover at the source: miscommunication. You can notify officers about the schedule and any changes through TimeForge text message, email, or social media (like Facebook). TimeForge can even send these messages automatically.

Much like communicating the schedule, attendance monitoring is often dreaded by correctional facility managers. Monitoring attendance is a hassle. It can feel like you’re babysitting your employees, and requires a lot of your time. However,   it is absolutely necessary in order to control labor costs. TimeForge can help with your attendance monitoring needs by preventing early clock ins or late clock outs, preventing staff from buddy punching, and equipping you with the power to see who is (and who is not) clocked in… whether you’re on site or at a remote location. You can monitor attendance through your TimeForge website account, from your smartphone, or through a social networking account (like Facebook).

TimeForge is an essential (and easy-to-use) labor management software for correctional facilities, but if you are still not convinced, read what TimeForge users are saying here.

Read more about TimeForge Scheduling, TimeForge Attendance, TimeForge Human Resources, and TimeForge Daily Log.

At the end of the week, employee attendance and times worked will be complied to determine payroll and wages for the usual “work week”. A side-by-side analysis of the actual labor schedule (time and attendance values) and the theoretical labor schedule will show numerous metrics that can be used to manage the staff. This process of comparing the actual schedule against the theoretical labor schedule is generally called “Actual vs Theoretical” or “AvT”. Using an AvT, you can analyze data such as:

• Which workers consistently show up for their shifts on time? Consistently dependable staff members are valued employees, showing up at work on time, and are the genuine workhorses of the company. Be certain to reward them for their hard work.

• Which workers are constantly tardy for their shifts? This can cause a labor shortage during shift changes, and can cause disarray among other staff members. These workers may need to experience corrective action to avoid continued habitual lateness.

• Which workers are constantly early for their shifts? This raises the payroll cost, lowering profit for the company. Preventative actions may be necessary with these staff members for the reduction of your labor costs.

• Which workers neglect show up for their shifts, or regularly call in? These staff members may need to be informed that they risk being let go, as they are fickle in their work habits and reduce morale for other employees and managers.

• Which workers are always free when another worker fails to show up? These staff members are willing to come in on their days off – and should be rewarded for their hard work to keep the establishment running.

• Which positions tend to have higher turnover? Turnover is immensely costly to a business, and pinpointing areas with high turnover is the first step to take to lower turnover and improve the bottom line.
  

• Which employees are most tenured? Tenured staff are devoted team members and should be rewarded for their hard work. Every effort should be made to boost the tenure of reliable employees while lowering turnover and raising profits.

• Which is more expensive, the theoretical or actual schedule? How much difference is there between the two?
  • If the theoretical schedule is costlier, management is over-scheduling the work force and may be letting employees off early without reason. This frequently leads to exasperated workers and much higher turnover – lowering profit for the company.
  • If the actual schedule is costlier, management is not scheduling enough work beforehand, and is then forced to call staff members on their days off. This scenario can also create exasperated workers and higher turnover. It frequently results in gratuitous over-time costs and reduced profit.
    

The perfect work environment has a 0% AvT ratio – staff members worked when they were scheduled and management precisely identified the establishment’s needs.

Labor, particularly in hospitality and retail industries, is the greatest expense which companies personally control. Analyzing metrics such as Actual vs. Theoretical labor costs gives management the ability to keep control of the business, therefore boosting profit. Very basic metrics can be analyzed manually using Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, but advanced scheduling software such as TimeForge can determine advanced metrics swiftly and smoothly.

Are complicated employee scheduling practices taking up precious time at your business? Are you making the best possible labor schedule? How much turnover is created because of bad or late schedules? Did you know that TimeForge can reduce turnover, improve retention, and increase profits at your business? Sign up today for a no risk free trial!