How can Shifton optimise restaurant operations

Competent organisation of workflow is crucial for the successful work 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 suggests how the Shifton app can help restaurant owners improve the efficiency of their staff.

How to improve the productivity of restaurant employees?

In order 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 working hours in many catering establishments. 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 updates in working schedules. For example, if there is a need to replace a sick or absent employee, their colleagues receive a corresponding notification of 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 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 most loaded 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 in 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 shift scheduling. Shifton allows managers to reduce the time spent on the creation of 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 the 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 Improve Call Centre Performance

Call centre managers need to monitor the workflow and control the execution 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 schedules. Otherwise, mistakes with working hours, shifts, and distribution of employees are inevitable.

How Shifton Enhances Call Centre Performance

1. Shifton Supports All Schedule 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 schedule 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 schedule 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 schedules, supporting flexible start times, break requests, and time off. With Shifton, call centre managers can create schedules for any number of departments and employees.

2. Shifton Helps Maintain the Working Schedule

A call centre schedule 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 schedules 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 schedule 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 Programmes

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 programmes to improve workflows, exchange data, and provide API access for various integrations. Since Shifton integrates with other programmes (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 schedules 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 programme 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 draw your attention to another genuine review from one of our first clients – DialogMarket call centre.

Shifton: Hello! Please tell us about the specifics of your company.

Alyona: Hello! 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 unique 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 control 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 designed schedules, especially as the project size increases.

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

Alyona: When managing a project with 40-50 people, we encountered 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 falls 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 leaves and holidays.

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

Alyona: I always aim to create a comprehensible 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: Definitely yes! This application is equally useful for both large and small outsourcing call centres and other businesses.

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

Shifton: Hello. Let’s introduce ourselves!

Irina: Hello! My name is Irina Uskova, I own and manage a chain of coffee shops, 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 bartenders with varying levels of duty. Coffee Molly has been operating in the city since 2014, developing the concept of coffee shops for office workers. Today, there are seven coffee shops in Nizhny Novgorod with a total turnover of 25 million roubles per year.

Shifton: Why did you opt to partner with Shifton?

Irina: The market specificity is such that our employees are quite young people, and therefore they often change jobs. For most of them, it’s their first job. As such, working with personnel takes a lot of time and includes the selection of applicants, training, mentoring, and professional development.

It has long been clear to me that this process should be taken lightly, as the main point is to preserve the main «backbone» of bartenders – 5-6 people. They help newcomers to adapt quickly and easily.

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

Shifton: How did you handle these issues before?

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

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

Irina: Of course, those who keep up with trends are aware that the food services market is adopting IT technologies more and more. Working on schedules is a daily routine for the administrator and senior baristas. As part of scheduling, they must 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). In addition, we need to organise training for newcomers, conduct an inventory or general cleaning, find a replacement for the unwell, or divide the shift between two employees. And of course, we should consider all possible delays and overtime.

We automated this process a long time ago, but as the company continued to grow, I wanted something more than just a programme that would set work schedules. I was looking for partner developers who could make it so that the programme could also work as a payroll for each employee. There were even more ideas…

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

Irina: Yes, I totally feel positive about it! Frankly speaking, when I accidentally found Shifton, it took me some time to notice how flexible this product can be.

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

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

Irina: All my requests were fulfilled, and I also realised that the programme could be modernised further according to our needs. I communicated closely with the developers for 6 months and told them what we liked and what else we expect to see. We implemented the programme quickly and immediately realised that we wanted to use it more and more and customise it for our needs.

Shifton: Have you succeeded so far?

Irina: We have managed to achieve the following: we automated the schedule for each employee, taking into account their preferences, assigned bartenders to branches, and adjusted the calculation of bonuses and fines. We also eliminated errors in salary calculations when some shifts were not taken into account or were paid for twice. We installed the application on all employees’ smartphones, where they instantly receive notifications on updates and payroll. We also reduced the time spent on scheduling tenfold and reduced turnover, as employees see their shifts/salary and can influence them, thus improving the time planning process for all employees overall.

Shifton: Surely you have more suggestions for customising the Shifton tool?

Irina: Yes, of course. We are awaiting a more user-friendly interface for making changes in the schedules. At present, not all details can be changed, and to adjust certain parameters, you have to create everything anew. We are waiting for more flexible settings in salary reports for general periods and the option to leave comments on work. Regarding service functions, we need the option for employees to leave comments and compile reports on the accomplished tasks in the application. I’m also interested in the automatic calculation of bonuses depending on sales indicators or KPI fulfillment and more flexible settings of the application interface for the convenience of employees: what to display on the main screen, what 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 customers, whom I assist in launching their coffee shops, as Shifton helps to save money, it’s easy to use and my employees like it. Before starting to use Shifton, I thoroughly tested more than 10 different applications and programmes. By the time I found Shifton, I’d already agreed with a developer who was ready to create a similar programme for us. And Shifton completely resolved all my issues with scheduling and payroll automation.

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

When dismissing an employee, one must select the date from which they won’t have access to the company. Starting from the selected date, an employee won’t be able to log into their account from any device. With that said, the system will save all information about a dismissed employee.

At first, it seems there is nothing easier than creating a work schedule for employees. All you need to do is input the employees’ surnames into an Excel document, set a few parameters and variables, and press Enter. In reality, things are somewhat different. Creating daily work schedules, especially shift work schedules, for any sort of business is an arduous and responsible task assigned to accountants or HR specialists.

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

• Arrange employee working hours at the business

• Ensure that certain work obligations are fulfilled by workers

• Properly calculate the company’s income

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

• And of course, a properly constructed work timetable means fewer errors will occur on the accountants’ part when calculating salary and holiday pay

Many businesses cannot effectively provide their services or even exist without a shift work schedule. Convenience stores, hotels, hospitals, emergency services, police departments and confectionery factories – the list of enterprises that depend on it can go on indefinitely, yet not many are aware of the difficulties HR managers encounter when creating shift work schedules. During this process, human resources experts have to update all the details in the account, including annual leave, sick leave, public holidays, overtime and many other components. Not to mention that an unforeseen event might occur after the timetable has been approved, requiring the HR manager to quickly start reworking the schedule from scratch.

Working on daily work schedules with Shifton

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

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

• Shifton service will assist you in creating a shift work schedule for an unlimited number of employees to maximise the benefits of work timetables;

• Shifton’s features allow for adjusting work schedules, taking into account such data as the number of shifts, employees, and workdays;

• Whilst creating and editing work schedules, you will be able to permit the swapping of shifts between users with or without managerial supervision;

• When unexpected events occur, you will be able to make quick adjustments to the timetable.

• By using Shifton, you will receive notifications about changes in the timetables and new company events.

Shifton service provides free technical support available 24/7. You can contact our operators at any time for assistance and get answers to any questions you might have. Another crucial part of the service is that Shifton facilitates the creation of work schedules for both small businesses and large corporations employing thousands of workers.

Shifton is regularly updated and aims to keep pace with current times. You should also strive to improve. Stop wasting time on manual employee scheduling when there is a convenient, high-quality service that specifically aims to save you time.

We often encounter the concept of planning in our daily lives. Once a year, we meticulously and thoroughly plan our holidays, less frequently considering changing our workplace or celebrating anniversaries and wedding days. Of course, almost all of us plan how the monthly budget should be spent and how household funds are going to be distributed. Unfortunately, many business owners and senior employees overlook the necessity of predicting labour demand. What’s even more interesting is that there are CEOs who don’t utilise professional HR managers. They conduct interviews and manage employees all by themselves. This article will endeavour to explain what workforce demand forecasting is and demonstrate that this is an essential and crucial part of running any company.

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

Workforce demand forecasting is a part of a larger workforce planning process. Its main aim is to compile a list of necessary positions and experts that can 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;

• Ensuring the business is supplied with the right, professional workers in the shortest possible time;

• Workforce demand forecasting allows the reduction of unnecessary workforce segments or optimises their labour.

• The right planning and employee placement support the proper and highly effective use of any employee’s resources, based on their skills, knowledge, and abilities.

Factors that should be considered for proper workforce planning:

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

• Workforce reorganisation (plans on reducing, dismissing 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 amongst your competitors is another crucial point;

• The level of salary within the company;

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

Knowing at which stage of development your company currently is must be one of the factors to consider when forecasting labour demand. In most cases, effective planning can be achieved during periods of active growth and at the time of establishing the enterprise.

Before you tackle workforce demand forecasting, it is also vital to understand that it is a process of consecutive, thought-through actions and decisions that have clear goals in front of it. The main objective of planning is based on the idea that any enterprise or successful company directory must hire and employ fairly qualified personnel at all positions so that work can be done in a high-quality and effective manner.

Types of workforce demand forecasting:

• Strategic or long-term planning;

• Tactical (situational) planning.

When making strategic plans, it is critical to devise a programme aimed at discovering potential employees who may become required by the company in the future. This process also involves creating a strategic human resource development programme that simultaneously evaluates the necessity of these resources in the long run.

Tactical planning requires a careful analysis of demand in employee organisation during a period defined by the CEO. For instance, it may encompass a month, a quarter or a year. This necessity will depend on several factors: the level of employee turnover in a given period, the number of retirements, maternity leaves, as well as staff cuts.

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 — making plans for the next 5 years and beyond that.

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 in terms of workforce demand forecasting?

First, you must gather information on the results and milestones a company needs to achieve in the coming quarter or year. If you are an HR expert, obtain that information from your higher-ups. Then study all short- and long-term enterprise goals, tasks and plans.

In most cases, accountants and department directors will help clarify your understanding of the enterprise you are working at and its plans, whether you work in human resources or run the place.

Elements required for successful planning:

• First, you must carefully examine employee data. You will need to access personal case files, distribute questionnaires, and collect information concerning worker skills and abilities not related to work done in the enterprise;

• A work timetable or a schedule for all company employees;

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

At this stage, a thorough analysis of workforce demand within the company is conducted for various positions for a certain period. That’s when you address a large number of questions crucial to the planning process: how many employees must be hired, how qualified they must be, and more importantly, when certain workers will be required to fill in particular positions.

During this process, you also decide whether you should bring in internal human resources, or if requalifying existing employees is going to be a more financially sound decision.

It doesn’t matter if you are a CEO or an HR professional. Remember that any process must be consecutive, based on deliberated decisions and a systemic approach. As soon as you start taking the job a bit more seriously, you will be able to approach any task, even as complex as workforce planning, with ease, passion, and enthusiasm.

In the previous section of this article, we’ve discussed only a portion of the leadership skills any competent senior manager should possess. This section is going to cover character traits such as a good sense of humour, curiosity, and the ability to negotiate and delegate authority. Let’s begin.

The ability to negotiate

Initially, it seems that there is nothing difficult in negotiating and conducting business discussions. People meet, talk, drink coffee, show off, and sign piles of papers. This is how a typical negotiation is perceived by an average jealous employee. Few people know that conducting negotiations is one of the main leadership skills. The most important issues are discussed, multi-million-pound deals are signed, and the most crucial decisions are made during these discussions and business meetings. That’s why one must never underestimate the value of effective negotiation skills. Incidentally, there are plenty of books on the subject, with yearly and monthly meetings and training sessions dedicated to this essential skill. Don’t hesitate to attend these meetings and read a couple of books on the subject. Then, even the most demanding and hectic negotiation will go as smooth as butter.

Curiosity

Curiosity is another important leadership trait of a professional boss. If you want your company to grow, you have to be curious in the positive sense of the word. We’re not suggesting you should take an interest in the personal lives of your employees, be curious about who is dating whom and where someone spent their holiday. We’re talking about another type of curiosity, inquisitiveness even. It’s important that when you become a director, you don’t lose your spark and curiosity. Be invested in learning about new technology in your industry, attend conferences, exchange experiences with colleagues, and keep advancing.

The ability to delegate authority

When working in a standard position, you become accustomed to doing all assignments by yourself. If you want to become the head of a company and learn how to manage personnel effectively, you must learn how to delegate authority. Not only will it save you time, but it will also allow you to adjust the company workflow so all employees have something to do, and they will feel valued and needed. Many people fear having to distribute tasks among employees or give important assignments to one of them. Understand that if you do this properly, a department or a business you run will operate like a well-oiled machine.

The ability to set goals and achieve them

Any experienced director knows that one has to properly formulate assignments and follow them through. If you aimlessly run a business and chaotically make illogical decisions, nothing good will come of it. A director with great leadership skills has to be balanced, calm and able to clearly formulate their own and the company’s goals. Then employees will see them as a leader and will also strive to achieve the common goal. Objectives have to be understandable, clear and properly formulated. For example, the goal of becoming the best in our industry sounds vague. It is also unclear why people should strive to achieve it. If you set a goal for your employees that sounds like 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 achieving it. Still, when you set a financial goal for your employees, don’t forget to reward them once it is 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 would like to point out that finding a company director with a good sense of humour is rare. You are very fortunate if, in addition to all the aforementioned qualities, you are also able to make intelligent jokes and understand jokes told by others. 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 your position.

A positive outlook on life

Living in the modern world makes it challenging 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 in the most positive way possible. You have to 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 that you are the captain of a huge ship. If you emit negativity, you will become tense and irritated, your ship will sink or all sailors and chief engineers will abandon ship, leaving you alone in the tumultuous business sea. If you don’t want this to happen, try finding happiness in the little things and see the best in the world and your work.

Inspiration skills

We’ve reserved the main leadership skill, without which there is no point agreeing to work in a senior position, for last. If you are uninspired by work you’ve devoted your daily life too, you won’t be able to inspire employees towards new victories. Any first-rate director must know how to inspire people, give them hope, motivate and uncover their potential. This skill can be easily mastered if you are truly in love with your work or are passionate about your business. If you are uninspired yourself, it is difficult to foster the opposite feeling in someone else. That’s why we advise finding work you love or the one that irritates you the least and brings a good income.

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