How can Shifton optimise restaurant operations

Competent organisation of workflow is crucial for the successful operation of a restaurant. The lack of effective schedules for workers can easily lower the level of customer service and increase the risk of staff departure.

This article recommends how the Shifton app can help restaurant owners improve the efficiency of their staff.

How to improve the productivity of restaurant employees?

To always be aware of what is happening in the restaurant, set your work schedules with the Shifton online app. Thanks to its easy-to-use structure, this application can be implemented for tracking of working hours in many catering institutions. Restaurant managers have instant access to all the information regarding schedules, employee shifts, and more since the data is stored in one place.

Modules available in the Shifton app are specially developed for restaurants and allow smart distribution of shifts between employees, taking into account overtime hours. These options significantly save time spent on scheduling and numerous revisions, which directly influences staff productivity.

Moreover, Shifton provides all employees with the option to propose schedule changes and be notified of all the updates in working schedules. For example, if there is a need to replace a sick or absent employee, their colleagues get corresponding notifications about an open shift and can quickly take it over. If necessary, the request for confirmation of the swap is sent to the manager or shift supervisor, which provides full control of all operations with the schedule.

Shifton is the optimal online app for increasing the motivation among employees

When creating a schedule for a restaurant, it is essential to take into account the workload on holidays and other dates with peaks in visitors. The Shifton online app allows you to create schedules with the most optimal staff rotation for the busiest shifts (for example, on Friday evenings or holidays).

Accordingly, each employee will have the opportunity to earn additional income from time to time. Such an approach to scheduling allows you to kill two birds with one stone: keep experienced workers focused and give newcomers a chance to prove themselves.

For effective restaurant management, you can use other methods of employee motivation. For example, the Shifton “Bonuses and Penalties” module displays the relevant information to the managers of the restaurant, and employees can check the amount of their earnings for the current month in their accounts. This awareness allows the employees of the restaurant to effectively control their income.

Summing up

The Shifton online app provides restaurant management with a complete picture of the shifts scheduling. Shifton allows managers to reduce the time spent on creating effective work schedules and focus on other aspects of running a restaurant business.

The Shifton module “Pay rate reports” helps to correctly calculate the salary of employees and keep track of overtime hours. The “Bonuses and Fines” module records all rewards and fines. The “Attendance” module displays the real time when employees start and end their shifts and breaks and summarises this information for statistics.

Moreover, Shifton developers always listen to the requests of customers and are ready to customise the capabilities of the app to suit the needs of your business.

* All original photographs courtesy of DialogMarket call centre. The review of Shifton by Coffee Molly founder Irina Uskova can be found here.

How Shifton Can Enhance Call Centre Performance

Call centre managers need to monitor the workflow and control the implementation of the plan by the operators daily. One of their most important tasks is to create and maintain the call centre schedules.

Since customers can be located all over the world, there should always be operators in the call centre who work according to the subscribers’ local time. Call centre managers should consider the work schedules and the number of operators on each shift when creating their monthly rosters. Otherwise, mistakes with working hours, shifts, and distribution of employees are inevitable.

How Shifton Enhances Call Centre Performance

1. Shifton Supports All Roster Types

• Operators can work in two shifts, 8 hours a day, with a fixed lunch break four hours after the start of the shift.
• This roster format also assumes an 8-hour workday with a fixed start time for a call centre employee.
• Operators can take a lunch break and request breaks at any time during their working day.
• Operators can work in 4/8 hour shifts, determining the start of their working day and taking breaks during shifts.

This type of work roster not only cuts the cost of call centre staff by almost 25% but also significantly improves productivity. Shifton can handle all these types of work rosters, supporting flexible start times, break requests, and time off. With Shifton, call centre managers can create rosters for any number of departments and employees.

2. Shifton Helps Maintain the Working Schedule

A call centre roster must be composed so that breaks, lunches, meetings, and other events do not disrupt the workflow. After the primary setup, Shifton will automatically build your rosters so that operator breaks do not overlap. While several operators take a break, others continue to work. Thus, using the Shifton app helps eliminate downtime and maintain the roster structure.

3. Shifton Allows Instant Schedule Updates

If call centre employees do not feel at least a little freedom, they may lose interest in work over time. With Shifton, managers can distribute shifts so that operators work fewer days a week but with full hours. Additionally, if necessary (e.g., during lockdowns), employees can have flexible start and end times for shifts and even work from home on certain days or full-time.

4. Shifton Tracks and Evaluates Call Centre Performance

Analysing statistics in CRM is essential for proper scheduling in a call centre. Shifton offers powerful reporting tools that display statistics on call centre performance from various perspectives. Customisable modules not only display data in reports but also allow forecasts on costs, hours, and more, helping optimise company processes.

5. Shifton Supports Integration with Other Programs

No matter what software you use for employee management, accounting, and work tracking, Shifton simplifies your life. The Shifton app offers integration capabilities with many popular programs to improve workflows, exchange data, and provide API access for various integrations. Since Shifton integrates with other programs (e.g., Quickbooks), management gains access to all necessary reports—on working hours, shifts, salaries, fines, and bonuses.

Looking for new integrations or features? Tell us about your needs, and Shifton will suggest a suitable solution.

With Shifton, a call centre manager can effectively create rosters for any number of departments and employees with just a few clicks. Shifton’s available features and integrations allow you to use this application as a single program for completing and tracking daily tasks in the call centre.

*All original photographs courtesy of DialogMarket call centre. The review of Shifton by DialogMarket executive manager can be found here.

We bring to your attention another genuine review from one of our early clients – DialogMarket call centre.

Shifton: G’day! Please tell us about the specifics of your company.

Alyona: G’day! My name is Alyona Peshekhonova, and I am the head of the outsourcing call centre DialogMarket, based in Kropyvnytskyi, Ukraine. Our call centre focuses on providing hotline and customer support services. A distinctive feature of DialogMarket is our ability to quickly launch start-ups and increase the number of operators on shift with just one day’s notice.

Shifton: What are your daily responsibilities?

Alyona: My main tasks as a manager include providing instant support to customers and responding to their requests and orders. I also oversee the number of people on each shift and am responsible for the smart distribution of shifts between operators, depending on peak load periods in each project. Operating 24/7, 365 days a year, requires properly and wisely planned schedules, especially as the project size increases.

Shifton: What are the most common challenges you encounter in running a call centre?

Alyona: When managing a project with 40-50 people, we faced challenges in creating schedules that suit both our customers and staff. Now, imagine developing an effective weekly or monthly schedule for 300 people! If someone gets sick, leaves, or can only work certain hours or days, it disrupts everything. It’s like a house of cards—if one employee drops out, everything has to be rebuilt from scratch!

Shifton: How did you get started with Shifton?

Alyona: We chose Shifton after evaluating dozens of scheduling options. You’ve made our lives much easier.

Shifton: What features of Shifton do you consider most useful for daily operations?

Alyona: Employees really appreciate the shift-swapping feature, and most importantly, schedules are now compiled in just a few clicks! We also have no issues tracking sick leave and holidays.

Shifton: How did the workflow in DialogMarket change after starting with Shifton?

Alyona: I always aim to create a clear salary calculation system for employees. Shifton makes this even easier. The Payroll Reports module allows me to maintain transparency in payroll accounting at DialogMarket. Each call centre employee can always know how much they’ve earned in a given month and can plan their expenses in advance.

Shifton: Would you recommend Shifton to other call centres?

Alyona: Absolutely yes! This application is equally useful for both large and small outsourcing call centres and other businesses.

Greetings to our subscribers and everyone who came to the Shifton company page by chance. Today we offer an interview with one of our customers – the owner of a cafe chain, who has been using Shifton online service for quite a long time.

Shifton: Hello. Let’s get acquainted!

Irina: Hello! My name is Irina Uskova, I own and manage a chain of coffee shops called Coffee Molly in Nizhny Novgorod (Russia).

Shifton: Tell us a bit more about your business.

Irina: By the start of 2021, the company had over 20 baristas with varying levels of engagement. Coffee Molly has been operating in the city since 2014, developing the concept of coffee shops for office workers. Today, there are seven coffee houses in Nizhny Novgorod with an annual turnover of 25 million rubles.

Shifton: Why did you decide to partner with Shifton?

Irina: The market’s nature is such that our employees are generally quite young, so they often change jobs. For most of them, it’s their first job. As a result, managing staff takes a significant amount of time and includes selecting candidates, training, mentoring, and professional development.

It’s been long clear to me that this process should be approached with ease, as the main goal is to maintain the core group of baristas – 5-6 people. They help newcomers adapt quickly and easily.

All this lively activity affects the work schedule daily, so it should be closely monitored, and in case of changes, everyone must be notified immediately.

Shifton: How have you dealt with these issues before?

Irina: Previously, we sent updates in a general chat, and sometimes we had to call employees personally to ensure they were aware of the changes. But the more coffee shops we opened, the more we needed to automate the entire routine.

Shifton: Does your company need an automated online scheduling service?

Irina: Absolutely, those who follow the trends are aware that the food services market is increasingly adopting IT technologies. Working on schedules is part of the daily routine for the administrator and senior baristas. Within scheduling, they have to consider employees’ preferences (personal matters, second job, etc.), the efficiency of the bartender at a particular coffee shop, and the specifics of the day (weekend or weekday). Additionally, we need to organise training for new staff, conduct inventory or general cleaning, find replacements for the sick, or split the shift between two employees. And of course, we need to account for all possible delays and overtime.

We had automated this process for a long time, but as the company grew, I wanted something more than just a program to set work schedules. I was searching for partner developers who could make it so the program could also serve as payroll for each employee. There were even more ideas…

Shifton: Did your expectations come true as the cooperation with Shifton expanded?

Irina: Yes, I’m thoroughly satisfied with it! Honestly, when I stumbled upon Shifton, it took me a while to realise how adaptable this product can be.

During the testing phase, I asked many questions about what else is planned to be implemented and what functions Shifton offers, so that employees can be confident in their schedule at any given time and know in advance the amount they will receive at the end of each month. I wanted the payroll to be processed without delays, in real time and accessible to a person on their smartphone at any moment, not just on payday.

Shifton: Did you manage to fulfill your requests? How satisfied are you with the support from Shifton developers?

Irina: All my requests were met, and I also realised the program can be further modernised according to our needs. I had close communication with the developers for 6 months, discussing what we liked and what else we hoped to see. We implemented the program quickly and instantly wanted to use it more and customise it to our needs.

Shifton: Have you succeeded so far?

Irina: We managed to achieve several things: we automated the roster for each employee, accommodating their preferences, assigned baristas to branches, and adjusted the calculation of bonuses and fines. We also eliminated errors in salary calculations, where some shifts were missed or paid for twice. We installed the application on all employees’ smartphones, where they instantly receive updates and payroll notifications. We reduced the time spent on rostering by 10 times, and decreased turnover, as employees see their shifts/salary and can influence them, overall improving the time planning process for all staff.

Shifton: For sure you have more suggestions on the customization of the Shifton tool?

Irina: Yes, certainly. We’re waiting for a more user-friendly interface for making changes to schedules. Currently, not all details can be changed, and to adjust certain settings, you need to recreate everything from scratch. We’re hoping for more flexible options in salary reports for general periods, and the ability to leave comments on work. As for the service functions, we need an option for employees to leave comments and draw up reports on completed tasks in the application. I’m also interested in the automatic calculation of bonuses based on sales figures or KPI fulfilment, and more flexible settings of the application interface for the convenience of employees: what to display on the main screen, which notifications to send, and what to report on.

Shifton: Thank you for your detailed and informative feedback, Irina. Can you recommend the Shifton online service to owners of other companies?

Irina: I already recommend the tool to my clients, whom I help launch their coffee shops, as Shifton helps save money, is easy to use, and my staff enjoy it. Before starting to use Shifton, I thoroughly tested over 10 different applications and programs. By the time I found Shifton, I had already agreed with a developer who was ready to create a similar program for us. And Shifton entirely solved all my issues with scheduling and payroll automation.

Shifton service developers added a feature that allows the dismissal of company employees. This can be done on the Employees page. To fire an employee and remove them from the list of company employees, you must click the «Dismiss» icon in the form of a yellow «x».

When dismissing an employee, you must select the date from which they won’t have access to the company. From the selected date, an employee won’t be able to access their account from any device. However, the system will retain all information about a dismissed employee.

At first, it seems that there is nothing easier than making an employee work schedule. All you have to do is input employee surnames into an Excel document, set a couple of parameters and variables, and press Enter. In reality, things are a bit different. Creating daily work schedules, especially shift work schedules, for some form of enterprise is an arduous and responsible job placed on accountants or HR specialists.

What goals can you achieve with a properly composed employee work schedule?

• Organise employee working hours at the enterprise

• Ensure that certain work obligations are met by workers

• Properly calculate the income of the company

• Determine the average salary of individual workers and the entire enterprise

• And of course, a properly made work timetable means that fewer mistakes will be made on the accountants part when calculating salary and holiday pay

Many businesses can’t successfully provide their services or exist in the first place without the shift work schedule. Convenience stores, hotels, hospitals, rescue services, police departments and confectionery factories – the list of enterprises that depend on it can go on forever, but not many people know which difficulties HR managers face when making progress on shift work schedules. During this process, human resources experts have to renew all of the details in the account, including holidays, sick leaves, public holidays, overtime and many other components. Not to mention that an unforeseen event can happen after the timetable has been approved, and the HR manager will have to hastily start working on the schedule from scratch.

Working on daily work schedules with Shifton

Shifton is an optimal service for easy and fast online employee scheduling that has many advantages. It was created in order to make work easier for CEOs, accountants and HR managers. Here are some of the features the service offers:

• You don’t have to manage the work process all by yourself. Delegating the right to create and edit work timetables to company administrators.

• Shifton service will help you create a shift work schedule for an unlimited number of employees in order to gain the most out of work timetables.

• Shifton features allow tweaking work schedules while bearing in mind such data as the number of shifts, employees, and workdays.

• While creating and editing work schedules, you will be able to allow swapping shifts between users with or without management supervision.

• When unexpected things do happen, you will be able to make quick adjustments to the timetable.

• If you use Shifton, you will be notified about changes in the timetables and new company events.

Shifton service provides free technical support available 24/7. You can contact our operators any time you need and get answers to any questions you might have. Another vital part of the service is the fact that Shifton allows the creation of work schedules for both small enterprises and huge corporations that staff thousands of workers.

Shifton gets regularly updated and tries to keep up with the times. You should also improve yourself. Stop wasting time on manual employee scheduling when there is a convenient and high-quality service that is specifically tailored to save your working time.

We often encounter the idea of planning in our everyday lives. Once a year, we carefully and thoroughly organise our trips, less frequently contemplating switching jobs or celebrating anniversaries and wedding days. Naturally, almost all of us plan our monthly budget and how household finances will be allocated. Regrettably, many business owners and senior employees overlook the need to forecast labour demand. Interestingly, some CEOs do not employ professional HR managers. They conduct interviews and manage staff themselves. This article will try to explain what workforce demand forecasting is and demonstrate that it is an essential and crucial part of running any company.

We all understand that achieving success is harder without qualified personnel than with a team of experts. This is why a CEO or an HR manager must correctly assess workforce demand, select the most efficient calculation methods, and find sources to meet this need before recruiting new employees. But before we reach that point, we need to begin with the basics and understand what forecasting labour demand entails.

Workforce demand forecasting is a component of a larger workforce planning process. Its primary goal is to list the necessary positions and experts that may become vital in growing the company’s business, achieving goals and milestones in the near future.

Workforce planning goals:

• Providing the company with necessary employees while keeping time and financial costs low;

• Supplying the business with proper, professional workers as quickly as possible;

• Workforce demand forecasting allows the reduction of redundant workforce segments or optimisation of their labour

• Proper planning and staff placement ensure the appropriate and highly effective use of any employee’s resources, based on their skills, knowledge, and abilities.

Factors that should be taken into account for proper workforce planning:

• What is your company’s financial situation like, and what is the current general state of the economy?;

• Workforce reorganisation (plans on reducing, terminating or transferring employees to new positions. It is also necessary to consider retirements and maternity leaves);

• Analysing and understanding the situation in the employment market and among your competitors is another crucial point;

• The level of salary in the company;

• Perhaps one of the most significant factors is having strategic plans and goals for the company.

Knowing what stage of development your company is at must be a factor when forecasting labour demand. Effective planning is usually achieved during periods of active growth and when establishing the enterprise.

Before tackling workforce demand forecasting, it is also crucial to understand that it is a series of consecutive, well-thought-out actions and decisions that have clear objectives. The primary goal of planning lies in the notion that any enterprise or successful company directory must hire and employ suitably qualified personnel at all positions so that work is performed in a high-quality and efficient manner.

Types of workforce demand forecasting:

• Strategic or long-term planning;

• Tactical (situational) planning.

When formulating strategic plans, it is critical to develop a program aimed at identifying potential employees who may be needed by the company in the future. This process also involves creating a strategic human resource development program that evaluates the necessity of these resources in the long term.

Tactical planning requires a careful analysis of employee organisation demand during a designated period set by the CEO. For instance, this may involve a month, a quarter, or a year. This necessity will depend on several factors: the rate of employee turnover in a given period, the number of retirements, maternity leaves, as well as staff reductions.

Workforce planning periods

• Short-term planning — planning for up to 2 years;

• Medium-term planning — a strategy for 2 to 5 years;

• Long-term planning — planning for the next 5 years and beyond.

So let’s imagine for a moment that you are a new head of the company or an HR expert. What should you start with first concerning workforce demand forecasting?

First, you must collect information on the results and milestones a company is expected to achieve in the coming quarter or year. If you are an HR expert, obtain that information from your superiors. Then examine all short and long-term enterprise goals, tasks, and plans.

In most cases, accountants and department heads will assist in shaping your understanding of the enterprise you work at and its plans, whether you handle human resources or oversee the place.

Things required for successful planning:

• First, you must thoroughly review employee data. You will need access to personal case files, distribute questionnaires, as well as gather information on worker skills and abilities not related to work done in the enterprise;

• A work timetable or schedule of all company employees;

• Data on the percentage of employee turnover at various positions across departments.

At this stage, an in-depth analysis of workforce demand in the company is conducted for various positions over a defined time period. It’s when you answer numerous critical questions necessary for the planning process: how many employees need to be hired, how qualified they must be, and more importantly, when specific staff will be required to fill particular roles.

During this process, you also make the decision of whether to rely on internal human resources or if retraining existing staff will be a more financially viable option.

Whether you’re a CEO or an HR professional, remember that any process should be systematic, based on well-considered decisions and a structured approach. Once you begin to dedicate yourself a bit more seriously to your role, you will approach any task, even as complex as workforce planning, with ease, enthusiasm, and dedication.

In the previous part of this article, we’ve covered only a portion of the leadership skills any good top manager should have. This part is going to discuss character traits such as a good sense of humour, curiosity, and the ability to negotiate and delegate authority. Let’s crack on.

The ability to negotiate

At first glance, it seems there’s nothing tough about negotiating and conducting business talks. People meet, chat, have a cuppa, show off, and sign piles of papers. This is how a typical negotiation is perceived by an average envious employee. Few realise that conducting negotiations is one of the main leadership skills. The most crucial issues are discussed, multi-million dollar deals are signed, and the most significant decisions are made during these talks and business meetings. That’s why one should never undervalue the worth of proper negotiation skills. By the way, there are loads of books on the subject, with annual and monthly meetings and training sessions dedicated to this important skill. Don’t hesitate to attend these meetings and read a couple of books on the subject. Then, even the most demanding and chaotic negotiation will go as smooth as butter.

Curiosity

Curiosity is another essential leadership trait of a professional boss. If you want your company to grow, you have to be curious in the best sense of the word. We’re not saying you should be interested in your employees’ personal lives, who’s seeing who, and where someone spent their holiday. We’re talking about a different type of curiosity – inquisitiveness even. It’s important that when you become a director, you don’t lose your spark and curiosity, and remain invested in learning about new technology in your industry, attend conferences, exchange experiences with colleagues, and keep progressing.

The ability to delegate authority

When working in an ordinary position, you get used to doing all assignments by yourself. If you want to become the head of a company and learn how to effectively manage staff, you have to learn how to delegate authority. Not only will it save you time but it will also allow you to adjust the company workflow, as all employees will have something to do, and they’ll feel valued and needed. Many people fear distributing tasks among employees or giving important assignments to one of them. Understand that if you do this correctly, a department or a business you run will function like a well-oiled machine.

The ability to set goals and achieve them

Any seasoned director knows that assignments must be appropriately formulated and followed through. If you aimlessly run a business and haphazardly make illogical decisions, no good will come of it. A director with great leadership skills must be balanced, calm, and able to clearly formulate their own and the company’s goals. Then employees will see him as a leader and also strive to achieve the common goal. Objectives have to be understandable, clear, and properly framed. For example, the goal of becoming the best in our industry sounds vague. It’s also unclear why people should strive to achieve it. If you set a goal for your employees such as In the coming year, our income should be double the income of the previous year they will understand what they have to do and will strive towards the desired result. Still, when you set a financial goal for your employees, don’t forget to reward them once it’s achieved.

A good sense of humour

A sense of humour is another valuable leadership trait that characterises a successful boss. However, this trait has one peculiarity – you can’t learn it. You are either born with a good sense of humour or you aren’t. On a more serious note, we’d like to point out that finding a company director with a good sense of humour is a rarity. You’re very fortunate if aside from all the above-mentioned qualities, you’re also able to make intelligent jokes and get jokes told by other people. We must admit that a sense of humour helps us in the most complicated and seemingly unsolvable situations, which you will inevitably encounter regardless of the position you’re holding.

A positive outlook on life

Living in the modern world makes it hard to maintain a positive outlook on life and the world in general. If you wish to become a truly successful company director, you absolutely must look at things as positively as possible. You must understand that you are the head of a company, and your mood, opinion, or view on life influences the mood of all your employees. Each time you come to work, imagine you are the captain of a massive ship. If you radiate negativity, you will become tense and irritated, your ship will sink, or all the sailors and chief engineers will run away while you are left alone in the turbulent business sea. If you don’t want this to happen, try finding joy in the little things and see the best in the world and your work.

Inspiration skills

We’ve left the main leadership skill, essential for working at a top position, for dessert. If you’re uninspired by work you’ve dedicated your daily life to, you won’t be able to inspire employees towards new victories. Any first-class director must know how to inspire people, give them hope, motivate, and unlock their potential. This skill can be easily mastered if you’re truly in love with your work or are passionate about your business. If you’re uninspired yourself, it’s challenging to foster the opposite feeling in someone else. That’s why we advise finding work you love or the one that bothers you the least and provides a good income.

If you master all of these skills, the road to a promotion will be an easy one. Strive, learn, dare, and always improve yourself!