Labor Management. NOW Simple. » Labor Management for Restaurants and Retail

Starbucks Employee Scheduling

apresley — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 02:31:04 +0000

According to the Wall Street Journal, the largest coffee retailer, Starbucks, is changing its scheduling system to have fewer employees work longer hours at its various locations. The goal of the new scheduling program is to reduce labor costs for the chain, while improving sales through customer familiarization with the on duty staff members.

Will the plan work? It’s very possible. With smart and accurate labor scheduling, Starbucks should be able to reduce turnover and keep employees happy while lowering their labor costs. However, if Starbucks begins over scheduling employees, the plan may actually backfire on them — creating higher levels of turnover, decreased profits, and lowering sales.

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 free trial!

Reduce Turnover with Shift Scheduling Software

apresley — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 04:44:18 +0000

Do you own or operate a retail or restaurant company? Perhaps your store sells collectibles, health food products, cell phone accessories or curtains and rugs. Regardless of the goods being offered, tightly controlling your labor expenses in the current economic climate is crucial to generate a profit. Relevant employee expenses including payroll costs, training, and turnover should be properly managed. With the proper procedures and a set of tools to assist with the complex chore of managing labor, your business can increase profitability.

One key to managing a labor force properly is to schedule part-time and full-time employees before they are needed for work (a theoretical work schedule), and then track the scheduled work against when employees clock-in and clock-out (the actual worked hours), a process known actual vs. theoretical, or AvT. Good managers reduce the difference (variance) between the Actual hours worked and the Theoretical schedule, while maximizing the sales for the business.

Improper labor scheduling will lead to one of two circumstances for your business:

Too many employees are scheduled to work, increasing payroll costs, and reducing profits. Alternatively, employees are sent home (or cut from the schedule) without working hours they were promised on the schedule.
Too few employees are scheduled to work, decreasing the number of sales that are made, and reducing profits.

Neither option is desirable, and the key to avoiding both situations is to monitor and refine the AvT at your business.

Smart managers constantly balance employee satisfaction against the needs of the business in an effort to keep payroll costs down, reduce turnover, and increase profits. Turnover is extremely expensive, and a 2004 study by the Employment Policy Foundation found that the average turnover cost of a single full-time employee is $13,355. To recover from the effects of the turnover of a single full-time employee, a retail store would need to sell more than 3,000 pairs of khakis priced at $35 each. A restaurant would need to sell more than 7,613 children’s combo meals at $2.50 each.

One way to reduce turnover at your store is to implement a labor scheduling tool such as TimeForge, an online employee scheduling solution.

Peter Edwards, owner of Zeb’s General Store in North Conway, New Hampshire knows that proper employee scheduling is key to managing a retail business, especially a seasonal business. Peter chose TimeForge to help him manage full-time and part-time shift labor at his store. reducing employee turnover and lowering labor costs. Peter uses templates in TimeForge to rapidly build schedules for his business, and TimeForge automatically emails and text messages the schedule to his employees on a daily basis , notifying employees of their upcoming work schedule and keeping his staff happy.

Peter had this to say about TimeForge:

I own a retail company. We employ 15 full time employees, and between 5 and 15 part time employees depending upon our season. I signed up for the 90 day trial period and have been using the TimeForge program for about 45 days. I have found the program to be easy to use and it hits the mark with respect to our staff scheduling needs. The email notification aspect of the program is a great feature that I am sure our employees will like.

The most important aspect of TimeForge is the incredible customer support. Responses to the help menu item are emailed within 24 hours, and a live person actually answers the phone to respond to your questions. I look forward to using TimeForge and would be pleased to talk with any prospective user of the scheduling program.

If you would like to see what TimeForge can do for your restaurant, hospitality, or retail business, then please sign up today for a free trial or contact our sales department for more information about TimeForge.

How long does it take to make an employee schedule for your employees? It should take less than 5 minutes! Did you know that TimeForge can minimize costs and increase profits through effective employee scheduling at your pizza, restaurant, hotel, bar, club, or retail business. Sign up today for a free trial!

TimeForge Workforce Scheduling is now listed in FindApps.com

apresley — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 03:52:58 +0000

What is FindApps.com? FindApps is a comprehensive guide to hosted applications (also known as Application Service Providers or ASPs). They currently list several thousand applications which require no installation, no updates, and no service contracts (like our own labor scheduling program). It’s a resource that every business owner should have saved in their Bookmarks.

What kinds of things are on FindApps.com? Although many of the programs listed on FindApps.com are “generic” in nature and apply to anyone who uses a computer, some of their listed programs apply directly to TimeForge.com employee scheduling users.

Some of the categories that you may be interested in reviewing include:

Human Resources (employee reviews, background checks, benefits management)
Utilities (backups and virus scanning)
Accounting and Finance (payroll and online accounting)

TimeForge is posted in the employee scheduling section of FindApps.com

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.

Restaurant Business Article on Workforce Problems

apresley — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 03:54:45 +0000

The Nation Restaurant Association is forecasting a shortage in workers over the next several years, as the growth of the hospitality sector surpasses the available labor force. Instead of hiring new laborers, many growing operators will need to maximize their existing workforce , and supplementing trained workers with advanced technology solutions is a wise decision. Shorter training times, tighter staffing, faster service times, improved accuracy, and more consistent product quality are just a few of the benefits of blending technology and employees.

Restaurant Business, one of the nations leading restaurant and food-service publications, recently featured an article on the topic of “High Tech Takes on Big Labor“, focusing on many relevant technology advancements including:

Pay-at-the-table technology (Faster table turnover which means more sales with fewer employees)
Wireless order taking (Directly enter orders into the POS system, servers can focus on guest satisfaction)
Web-based employee scheduling (Build schedules faster and notify employees of upcoming work, reduces overhead drastically)
Online ordering (labor is not needed to field phone calls, enter orders, or pay customers)

A number of technology vendors were highlighted in the article, including TimeForge.com

Some of the scheduling related vendors mentioned in the article include:

ASI’s Restaurant Manager Labor Scheduling Module that generates staffing rosters and then can be printed, posted to the website, emailed, or sent as text messages.

CrunchTime!’s Labor and Workforce Management tool which is a web-based solution that interfaces with various POS and HR systems.

HotSchedules web-based product which offers enhanced reports, rule-based auto-scheduling and POS integration.

Deterministic’s Labor System is a web-based labor forecasting and management program.

MacromatiX’s Scheduling and Labor Management product is a web-based QSR and fast-casual scheduling program which alerts managers when labor is “over” or “under”.

MICROS Systems has a new mylabor product (part of the mymicros.net suite), offering a web-based labor management tool.

TimeForge.com is a web-based scheduling system designed to keep management on the floor, and reduce turnover by keeping employees “in-the-loop”. The software builds a complete schedule in just a few seconds, and can be manually adjusted to meet specific needs of the business. Employees receive daily reminders about schedule changes, through the website, email, and text messages , and workers can trade shifts online, read messages from management, and request time off (or change their availability).

Standard Disclaimer: Why do we showcase other companies and products that perform similar functionality to TimeForge.com? Because we believe TimeForge.com is a superior scheduling product. Check them out yourself! Go review their products, ask for their free schedule entry services and free trials.

Come back when you’re ready to make scheduling simple!

Simple, Fast Employee Scheduling

apresley — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 03:53:23 +0000

Choosing a simple and easy-to-use labor scheduling program takes time. Someone with buying authority and an operations background in your organization must:

Research the available programs
Contact each vendor
Track down customer references (customer testimonials are available on our website)
Narrow the list of vendors
Evaluate each program (every TimeForge.com user receives a free trial)
Purchase or finance the software (TimeForge.com is affordable, and payment is automatically drafted every month)
Install and configure the software (no software to install with TimeForge.com)
Train all employees (TimeForge.com training is free)
Hope that the software works as promised (no contracts are required with TimeForge.com, and you get a free evaluation / trial of the software)
Pay ongoing maintenance and support fees (no ongoing maintenance or annual support fees with TimeForge.com)

Our team has done the research for you!

In addition to our own TimeForge.com employee scheduling product, ScheduleSimple.com provides a list of many of the software products available for labor scheduling and workforce management in small, medium, and enterprise level organizations. The new scheduling site covers software for the retail, restaurant, food-service, motel, hotel, hospitality, and grocery industries.

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.

Supercharged Scheduling from Nations Restaurant News

apresley — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 03:37:47 +0000

Nation’s Restaurant News published an article entitled “Supercharged Scheduling” on Oct 8, 2007. If, like us, you receive the e-mail newsletter, you probably received the story in a “Tech Trends from NRN-Online” email last week.

The teaser introduction starts: “Why does one restaurant hum along, making schedules with little more than pencil and paper or a spreadsheet, while others see reason to spend tens of thousands of dollars on sophisticated labor optimization technology? Selecting what’s right for a particular operation means making a clear-eyed assessment of the complexity of labor demands and the goals of the business.”

At TimeForge, we believe that every restaurant, bar, club, hotel, motel, or catering business should be using an employee scheduling program. However, we do take issue with the idea that it takes “thousands of dollars” worth of investment to get sophisticated employee scheduling software. In fact, you can get started with TimeForge for $1.50 per month!

The article goes on to discuss four different products, including some “best of breed” and “all in one solutions”. These included:

Radiant Software’s MenuLink featuring their installation at Fazoli’s
Time Management’s TMx featuring their integration with Squirrel POS for Logan’s Roadhouse
Deterministics scheduling package, featuring T.G.I. Friday’s
TDR3′s HotSchedules software, featuring Kona Grill

If you were at FS-TEC this year, you probably saw all four products on the show floor.

Our favorite quote is one we hear from TimeForge users all the time: “It really improved managers’ quality of life and made it easier to write schedules, and [helped] shifts go smoother.”

Employee Scheduling Goes Secure

apresley — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 03:31:29 +0000

In addition to the many, many, updates that TimeForge.com received this week – employee scheduling also became more secure. All of the pages in the TimeForge.com scheduling program are now equipped with the same 128-bit SSL encryption that many banks and credit cards require. You can be certain certain that no one will intercept usernames, passwords, pay rates, or other valuable information while you are on TimeForge.com!

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 costs through effective employee labor management at your business, bar, club, grocery, convenience store, or restaurant.

Labor Management. NOW Simple. » Labor Management for Restaurants and Retail

Starbucks Employee Scheduling

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Reduce Turnover with Shift Scheduling Software

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Simple, Fast Employee Scheduling

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