Successful restaurant scheduling means keeping a lot of balls in the air. You may have employees who always come through and those who tend to need off of work more than others.
You may also have a large party space in your restaurant that requires monitoring. Finally, you need to order supplies to keep the kitchen going. No matter your responsibilities, doubling up on information and careful tracking will help.
1. Double Up On Information
Post a large calendar in your employee gathering area. This can be near a time clock, close to employee lockers, or near the employee coat rack. As soon as you know of a large party, a busy upcoming event or just a weekend that you know will require more staff, get it on the calendar. Make sure you also post work anniversaries, and, with permission, employee birthdays. Ask employees to note their required days off on this calendar.
If you already have an app for restaurant scheduling software, why post a paper calendar? Because writing things down triggers a memory response in the reticular activating center of the brain.
Even if your employees don’t exactly remember what they have going on during a particular stretch of time, the act of writing down their schedule issues will trigger the need to check the scheduling app. You can also build a community with anniversary and birthday notifications.
2. Make Employees Aware Of Their Responsibilities
Very near this calendar, post information on employee responsibilities. If you know that restaurant owners will not allow employees to work more than 40 hours a week and they need to notify you when they get to 35 hours, post it.
If you have rotating clean-up duties when guests are gone, post information about who needs to stay and on what days. Do your best to fairly distribute these hours; employees who live on the tips they earn may resent having to stay more than their fair share.
Should employees have an emergency or a scheduling problem come up, they are responsible to reach out to someone about updating the paper calendar. Do your best to double-check the calendar each day when you come in.
3. Block Out Your Schedule
As you manage the work schedules of your employees, make sure you block out time to do your job. If you need to review your restaurant inventory software on Wednesday morning so you can order products for the upcoming weekend or set the specials for Sunday brunch, you need uninterrupted time on Wednesday morning.
The ability to work from anywhere means that many of us no longer have a door. Get a puffy pair of noise-canceling headphones or just a hat to remind yourself to stay in your office chair until you get this work done.
If your ordering work means that you need to draw information from several locations together, get yourself a bundle of different colored post-it notes. Throughout the week, make notes on these per color any time you notice a difference or a discrepancy. Carry your phone and make notes as soon as you see something that is low or not as you expected.
One of the big challenges that restaurant workers face is that they think they can remember such discrepancies until the right time. However, the nature of the business is interruptions.
If needed, carry a little notebook so you can make notes immediately and address them when you have time. Don’t let interruptions push critical information out of your sight.
4. Reward Those Who Go The Extra Mile
Employees who are willing to go the extra mile need to be rewarded. If you have employees who always seem to come through in the clutch, you may not be able to reward them with more hours.
However, you can reward them with
- fewer set up and clean up shifts
- a private “thank you” or a card
- a small gift certificate or cash reward
We’ve all heard the phrase quiet quitting. We’ve all heard plenty of ways to increase employee engagement. The critical thing to remember is that folks who have always gone the extra mile won’t be willing to do that forever. If all the extra mile gets them is sore feet, you will eventually lose them.
Do your best to keep lines of communication open with all employees. You may have some workers with family responsibilities or other jobs that make it impossible to be flexible.
Keep your eye on their performance when they are scheduled to work and note positive actions. For example, they may be a terrific trainer or be the perfect person to assign to a table that needs more attention.
Managing doesn’t always have to be troubleshooting. From ordering products to scheduling people, you can find activities and behaviors to celebrate for the benefit of your whole team.
5. Build Community
How is community a scheduling hack? If your employees don’t have community, they will be unlikely to back one another up. Of course, sometimes this community may exclude you, but that is often unavoidable. It can also work to your advantage.
If you have an employee going through a rough personal time, you can encourage them to share or ask other employees to step up and help. This is why the paper calendar can be so helpful.
Special events, such as work anniversaries, can be a wonderful way both to celebrate the longevity of a particular employee and to show new employees what is possible when they stay.
Employee retention is one of the best ways to boost your bottom line. Every time someone leaves, the time and money you put into training them to drain away. It may also benefit a competitor.
The restaurant business is pressured from all sides. Costs are rising while citizens have less money to spend. To make sure your restaurant is the one they choose, making sure your staff is well-trained, fully supported, and happy to be there, is critical.
