In many businesses, employees are perceived as a required evil – payroll is a liability that is necessary to be in business. Unfortunately, in many service oriented industries (such as retail, food-service, and hospitality industries), this attitude harms the business by increasing turnover, deflating morale, complicating legitimate hiring practices, and increasing employee training costs. These problems are systemic in many organizations, creating dissension between salaried managers and non-salaried employees and increasing turnover. Another, better, way to view employees is as assets to the business.
All new employees, even experienced hires, must be trained appropriately. Employees should be trained in the corporate vision, customer service, and the details of their specific job. Duties that each employee is responsible for performing will need to be demonstrated by a competent manager or trainer, and then must be repeated by the newly hired staff member. Training entry-level workers can often take more than a week of management time, and properly training salaried managers may occupy several months. In addition to the management time utilized training employees, new hires must be paid during their training. Make sure that training is streamlined and hiring practices are refined to reduce the cost associated with hiring. Consider Internet based tools to assist staff training, where appropriate.
Employees are expected to learn new skills while working, often referred to as “on-the-job training”. Most work-related skills can be learned on-the-job, including new equipment skills, customer service skills, and business skills. These new skills are passed to employees through interaction with managers and other employees at the business, and is the foundation of many promotions. Hourly wage workers can grow into Assistant Managers. Assistant Managers can climb the ladder to become General Managers. General Managers become District Managers, or Vice Presidents. Each employee becomes a trusted asset, and finding a replacement for an employee that leaves the business will always cost more than the direct salary of that employee. In addition to training costs, there is an obvious and direct cost when employees are absent and customers are not adequately served.
When scheduling employees, managers should remember that employees are assets necessary to help the business grow and profit. Employees that excel at certain job duties should be scheduled where their talents can improve business profitability. Employee requests for time off, changes to the work schedule, and holidays should be honored where possible – and the business should establish rules and regulations to facilitate constant communication between employees and managers.
Turnover is not cheap. Indeed most managers under-estimate its cost and the learning curve of working in a new restaurant. Approximately 70% of the cost of turnover is the loss of productivity before an employee leaves, as the employee’s attitude toward the business becomes detached and fewer customers are served. Turnover in most hospitality-related industries (restaurants, bars, clubs, hotels) averages around 100% annually – meaning that a store with 30 employees has hired 30 employees in the last twelve months! Using a cost of $2,000 per staff member, that is an annual turnover expense of more than $60,000! Reducing turnover should b e a primary concern for any business.
Internet-based scheduling tools, such as TimeForge, can assist managers when building and maintaining labor schedules. These tools can allocate labor appropriately for your business, track employee availability and time off, meal and break periods, and alert employees when their scheduling needs are, or are not, met. Your business will not always be able to cater to your employee’s needs, but constant communication between salaried managers and hourly-wage employees will reduce turnover at your business and preserve the value of your employee assets. Payroll may be a liability, but employees are business assets.
New and existing TimeForge users received a major upgrade on Thursday night, as the TimeForge system was updated to provide more flexible scheduling, new time and attendance functionality, and brand new Communication Log features! Some of the new features include:
As always, feedback on the new TimeForge functionality is always appreciated!
During economic booms, such as those witnessed during the last few years, many businesses focused on increasing sales while their operations lagged behind. Operational aspects such as inventory control, portion sizing, reducing turnover, improving employee retention, and training are all import details of hospitality and retail businesses that can be swept under the rug in good times.
Jim Sullivan, the chief executive of Sullivision.com recently penned “In hard times, control costs instead of hiding your inefficiencies by just pumping up volume” at Nation’s Restaurant News. Although his article is meant for restaurants, it is also applicable to retailers, hotels, and other similar businesses. Jim covers a number of issues, including one aspect of running a business that is often forgotten in the day to day operations:
Remember, all money is not created equal: $100 in sales is $100 less taxes and expenses; $100 in savings is $100. Here are some fiscal fundamentals to review and execute with your team in both tough times and boom times.
Now is an excellent time to revisit your business’s operational procedures, making them be more efficient and cost conscience - immediately improving profit at your business. A variety of tools, including TimeForge, are designed to improve cost controls at your business - producing schedules in minutes instead of not hours.
Can you build a schedule in less than 10 minutes? How many thousands of dollars do you spend making schedules every year? Did you know that TimeForge can minimize costs and increase profits through effective employee scheduling at your restaurant, pizzeria, hotel, club, bar, or retail business. Sign up today for a free trial!
We just got back from four full days in sunny Houston, TX. We exhibited at the 2008 Southwest Food Expo, hosted by the Texas Restaurant Association. TimeForge occupied booth 1546 right next to the franchise pavilion and we had a great time in Houston! Throughout the show we became friends with many of our neighbors, dined on wonderful food, and spoke to a number of restaurateurs, hotel and retail owners – most need help with employee scheduling.
We really enjoyed spending time with our neighbors from Del Mar College and Ctuit.
Next to us was the Franchise Pavilion, and it included reps from Boston’s Pizza Restaurants, Pollo Campero, Which Which, Dunkin Donuts, Baskin Robbins, Huddle House, and Franchise Times. It seemed to be a tough show for finding franchisees, but many of them kept the show very entertaining for us. If they (or their franchisees) need labor scheduling, they’ll know TimeForge can help!
Lance, Mike, and the rest of the Focus POS crew were on site, dressed down in their bright orange brand and ready to help restaurant owners find the right Point of Sale system. Of all of the Point of Sale vendors, Focus POS has one of the most full-featured labor scheduling systems. They understand that employee scheduling is hard - and try to make it easy for operators to build schedules. It was good to see them again.
Gary Peek, president of Intura stopped by and spoke with us about TimeForge and its applicability in international markets. I spent some time in the Intura booth on Tuesday learning about their mapping software and their ability to do sales analytics based on geographical sales locations. Very cool technology!
More TRA Expo highlights coming ….
How long does it take to make a labor schedule for your workforce? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can improve profits and minimize costs through effective employee scheduling at your restaurant, hotel, bank, school, bar, club, or retail business.
We are previewing several brand new TimeForge features at this years Texas Restaurant Association Expo in Houston, Texas. The show is June 22 - 24, 2008. Some of the new items (now already in TimeForge) include our Daily Log (a very powerful Manager’s Log – similar to a Red Book, Kitchen Log, Bar Log, etc…), Biometric Capabilities (employees can clock in and out using their fingerprints), and payroll exports, among others!
We are also debuting TempForge, a time and temperature tool that complies with Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) programs – making sure that temperature sensitive products are kept safe at restaurants, hotels, bars, clubs, and other hospitality related businesses. If you are interesting in seeing what this amazing product has to offer, please drop us a line at info@TimeForge.com.
Come join us at the George R Brown Convention Center, booth #1546, directly across from Ctuit – above store reporting and back-office software, and right next to the Franchise Pavilion.
How long does it take to make a labor schedule for your workforce? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can improve profits and minimize costs through effective employee scheduling at your restaurant, hotel, bank, school, bar, club, or retail business.
Not too long ago, I helped a user (Big Biscuit) with an inventory related question on the Foodservice Forums located at www.foodservicei.com
His questions (paraphrased) were:
What an interesting question! This question isn’t specific to the hospitality / food-service industry, and could easily apply to a car dealership (average price of a vehicle), retail store, or plumbing repair shop. Without getting too deep into statistical analysis, the general answer to an anomaly in inventory is “it depends”, as the problem could be related to:
To illustrate this particular problem, let’s assume we have two stores:
Store A and Store B sell the same “stuff” (menu items), and each store has sales of $1,000 per day.
Store A is located in a place where only “locals” would know about it, and most of the locals order burgers, which run $5 gross, but have a food cost of $1 (20%). The patrons also occasionally purchase steaks, at a gross of $20, but with a higher food cost of $10 (50%).
In this case, Store A has a product mix of 20 steaks ($400 gross, $200 in food cost), and 120 burgers ($600 gross, $120 in food cost). Total food cost is $320, or 32% ($320 / $1000) food cost, and each of the 140 clients spent an average of $7.14
Now, let’s say that Store B is located on the boardwalk, and sells more steaks than burgers. With 40 steaks ($800 in gross, and $400 in food cost), and 40 hamburgers ($200 gross, $40 in food cost), Store B’s product mix has an average food cost of 44% ($400 + $40 / $1000), and each of the 80 patrons at this store spent an average of $12.50
In this case, Store B has a 12% higher food cost than Store A. Interestingly enough, Store B only served 80 patrons, compared to the 140 clients that Store A was able to serve - another excellent indicator for tracking shrinkage. What is the average of the two stores? 38% food cost and $9.82 per person on an average check. Both stores are 6% away from the “average”.
As illustrated by the above example, varying product mix can certainly cause food costs to fluctuate, and one should be very careful when comparing averages against each other.
How do you compare product mix at your location?
How long does it take to make an employee schedule? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that labor costs could be as much as 30% of your expenses? TimeForge can help streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your restaurant, bar, or club.
TimeForge contains a very powerful and flexible Time and Attendance Module that can be used to track when employees are actually working at your business. The Time and Attendance Module is designed to ease payroll preparation for restaurants, cafes, catering companies, retail businesses … your business!
Using the Time and Attendance Module is extremely simple, requiring that employees simply click “Clock In” and “Clock Out” to clock-in and out of the TimeForge system. Some of the functionalities of the TimeForge Time and Attendance Module include:
Start using the TimeForge Time and Attendance Module today, and stop using punch cards and time clocks!
How long does it take to make your employee labor schedule? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your retail business, restaurant, bar, club, or hotel?
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Some of the TimeForge staff will be at the upcoming International Restaurant Show in Las Vegas, Nevada. This hospitality trade show is co-located with three other large events, including:
The trade show starts February 24, 2008 and wraps up on February 27, 2008 with more than 300 exhibiting companies in attendance. Companies serving the hospitality and food-service industries will be in attendance.
So who should attend? Independent and chain managers, owners, and operators of restaurants, hotels, casinos, resorts, and nightclubs.
Where will we be? Our team will be walking the trade show floor, looking for innovative products and outstanding partners. We intend to meet with a number of vendors at the show, but will also be sitting in several of the educational programs that are being held.
Some of the seminars you might find us in include:
If you are a vendor who will be at the show, a consultant, or an operator who would like to talk with us about our solutions to employee and labor scheduling. temperature monitoring (and HACCP systems), or our patented table management solution …. please contact us!
How long does it take to make your employee labor schedule? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee scheduling at your retail business, restaurant, bar, club, or hotel?
As we discussed before, RunningRestaurants.com recently featured TimeForge.com in their People & Staffing section. However, RunningRestaurants.com is a member-only site and is brought to you by the minds behind RestaurantReport.com and Sante … so you know it’s worthwhile!
However, because the article is part of a member-only website, it will only be removed from the general public in a few weeks, and you’ll need to be a member to purchase it. We do suggest becoming a member, but in the meantime, the article is re-published below for your convenience:
TimeForge offers a web-based employee scheduling system for restaurants. We spoke with Anthony Presley, the Founder of TimeForge about his business and some of the potential ways it benefits restaurant operators today.
RR: Paper schedules have worked for a long, long time — why web based labor scheduling?
AP: Because paper schedules are difficult and time consuming. Building a paper schedule requires that the manager building the schedule consider many different factors including employee abilities / skills, anticipated sales, individual work habits, food preparation, employee availability, individual work requests, certifications required for handling alcohol, and overall labor costs. If any one of those factors is incorrect, the establishment can lose sales, personnel, or be fined. It’s a tedious and time-consuming task that few operators enjoy doing.
Web based labor scheduling allows managers to input many of the scheduling factors into an easy to manipulate format, and the software remembers - forever - everything that the managers (or employees) input. If “John” asked for Monday off, and the manager agreed, then John is not available to be scheduled on Monday.
RR: What do employees think of the system?
AP: Employees LOVE the system. We recently began entering data for a client in Connecticut, and as part of our data entry, we setup all of his employees to be able to login into TimeForge. Our setup process can take between 2 and 4 days, and by the time the owner was using TimeForge, his employees had already submitted more than 40 requests for time off, had been receiving daily email and text message alerts about their schedules, and told him that it was “Very Cool!”
RR: The notification aspect of your system seems like a neat feature — talk about this a bit.
AP: Notifications keep employees “in the loop” anytime a schedule is created, a request is approved or denied, or a shift swap is approved by management. More specifically, with TimeForge, employees can input their email address and/or their cell phone numbers to allow TimeForge to contact them. Of course, employees can check the status of upcoming schedules, shift swaps, or request / availability changes at any time by logging into the website.
When schedules are published or modified by management, employees are sent an email with the updated schedule. Employees receive schedule emails on a “rolling” basis - meaning that they receive an email every day, which includes that day’s schedule, and the next several days (up to 30) worth of schedules. Additionally, employees can receive text messages before their shift. These messages go straight to their cell phone, and can be setup by the employee to ring up to 24 hours in advance of the beginning of the shift.
The notifications keep employees informed, which makes them happy, which reduces turnover. A win-win for the business!
RR: So, have you seen the system positively effect employee turnover?
AP: Yes, yes we have. Many of our users have seen a 5% - 8% reduction in turnover after using our system. Why? Because requests are tracked, employee schedule preferences are tracked and both requests and preferences appear on the schedules every time. Employees are notified when they need to work. Schedules can be printed, emailed, and sent via text message. Employees stay happy, because they always know what is going on, and don’t have to wait for management to post the schedule on Sunday night to see who works on Monday morning.
RR: If a restaurant operator says “tell me in 15 seconds why your product is a good idea”, how do you respond?
AP: We have a simple pitch…it is designed to be simple, because our software is simple. The response is always: “Can you make a schedule in 30 seconds? Our software can, which means you can be doing something else with your time.” I don’t know many operators, even with only a few employees, who can build a schedule in 30 seconds.
Once the restaurant operators digests the fact that TimeForge can, in fact, build a complete schedule in 30 seconds…then we start talking about employee notifications, shift swapping, overlapping schedule capabilities (kitchen, dining room, patio, catering, etc.), multiple locations, strength/skill level ranking, multiple position tracking, reduction in turnover, etc.
RR: How much time does a typical owner/manger have to spend with the scheduling system on a weekly basis? And how have you seen that differ from what they experience with their existing scheduling system?
AP: Most of our users are able to pick up the basics of the system within minutes. We have several tutorials, as well as more than 100 FAQ questions and embedded help screens to assist our users.
However, once fully proficient with the software, the typical managerial user can expect to spend about 3 - 5 minutes per day with the software. This time is used to print out the daily schedule, review any employee requests that are outstanding, and approve or deny employee shift swaps. Additionally, when it is time to make the schedule, managers can expect to spend another 5 - 10 minutes creating the schedule for a medium-sized restaurant. When they are happy with the schedule, they just click “Post”, and all of the employees on the schedule can see the schedule. That’s it!
Comparatively, scheduling with excel (or by hand) or a POS system requires that the manager first locate the request book, the availability sheets, the notes that were taken outside of either of those documents, a separate sheet for each individual’s labor costs, and they will need to keep track of several other factors in their head (such as employee skill sets, and min/max hours per employee). Once they’re done (a process which could take between 2 and 6 hours per week), they need to make sure the employees are notified. This probably means going into their email system, copying the schedule, and emailing it to their employees. A lot more work, a lot more than can go wrong.
How long does it take to make your employee schedules? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor expenses through effective employee labor management at your business, bar, club, or restaurant.
Entitled A Look Into the Leading Chains of the Casual, Fast Casual, Quick Serve, and Family Restaurant Segments, Chain Store Guide (CSGIS) recently published an whitepaper describing Point of Sale (POS) systems currently being used by various national restaurant chains.
There is some interesting information in the whitepaper, which is an examination of the data that Chain Store Guide has been collecting for years, and makes available in some of their products. The paper looks at the average age of POS hardware and POS software in use at the top five restaurants for several segments of the hospitality industry, including:
According to their data:
You can read the full Chain Store Guide report here.
How long does it take you to make an employee work schedule? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can streamline and minimize labor costs through effective employee labor management at your business, bar, club, grocery, convenience store, or restaurant.
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