How can Shifton optimise restaurant operations

Proper organisation of workflow is crucial for the successful running of a restaurant. The lack of effective schedules for workers can easily diminish the level of customer service and increase the risk of staff leaving.

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?

To always stay informed of what’s 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 the tracking of working hours in many catering establishments. Restaurant managers have instant access to all information regarding schedules, employee shifts, and more since the data is stored in one place.

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

Furthermore, 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 notification about an open shift and can quickly take it over. If necessary, the request for swap confirmation is sent to the manager or shift supervisor, ensuring full control over all operations with the schedule.

Shifton is the ideal online app for increasing employee motivation

When creating a schedule for a restaurant, it is essential to consider the workload on public holidays and other days 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 public holidays).

Accordingly, each employee will have the chance to earn additional income from time to time. Such an approach to scheduling allows you to hit 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 restaurant employees to effectively manage their income.

Summing up

The Shifton online app provides restaurant management with a complete overview of shift 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 “Pay rate reports” module helps to correctly calculate the salary of employees and track overtime hours. The “Bonuses and Fines” module records all rewards and penalties. 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 customer requests and are ready to customise the app’s capabilities 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 Boost Call Centre Performance

Call centre managers need to keep an eye on the workflow and manage the execution of the plan by the operators each day. One of their most critical duties is to create and uphold the call centre schedules.

Since clients can be situated all over the globe, there should always be operators in the call centre who work according to the clients’ local time. Call centre managers ought to consider the work schedules and the number of operators on each shift when drafting their monthly schedules. Otherwise, errors with working hours, shifts, and allocation of employees are bound to occur.

How Shifton Enhances Call Centre Performance

1. Shifton Supports All Schedule Types

• Operators can work in two shifts, 8 hours a day, with a set lunch break four hours into the shift.
• This schedule format also presumes 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, choosing the start of their workday and taking breaks during shifts.

This type of work schedule not only reduces the cost of call centre staff by almost 25% but also significantly boosts productivity. Shifton can manage all these types of work schedules, supporting flexible start times, break requests, and time off. With Shifton, call centre managers can craft schedules for any number of departments and employees.

2. Shifton Helps Maintain the Working Schedule

A call centre schedule must be organised in such a way that breaks, lunches, meetings, and other events do not disrupt the workflow. After the initial setup, Shifton will automatically generate your schedules so that operator breaks do not clash. While some operators take a break, others continue to work. Thus, using the Shifton app helps eliminate downtime and keep the schedule intact.

3. Shifton Allows Instant Schedule Updates

If call centre employees do not feel at least a little freedom, they may become disinterested in work over time. With Shifton, managers can organise shifts so that operators work fewer days a week but with full hours. Additionally, if needed (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 Assesses Call Centre Performance

Analysing statistics in CRM is crucial for proper scheduling in a call centre. Shifton offers robust reporting tools that display statistics on call centre performance from various viewpoints. Customisable modules not only show 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 makes life easier. The Shifton app offers integration abilities with many popular programmes to enhance workflows, exchange data, and provide API access for various integrations. Since Shifton connects 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 would like to bring to your attention 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 startups and increase the number of operators on shift with only 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, necessitates properly and wisely designed schedules, particularly 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 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, resigns, or has specific working hour preferences, 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 with just a few clicks! We also have no issues tracking sick leaves and vacations.

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 popped by the Shifton company page by chance. Today we offer an interview with one of our clients – the owner of a café chain, who has been using Shifton’s online service for quite a while.

Shifton: Good day. Let’s introduce ourselves!

Irina: Howzit! 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 early 2021, the company had over 20 bartenders with varying levels of employment. 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 a total turnover of 25 million rubles per year.

Shifton: Why did you decide to team up with Shifton?

Irina: The market is such that our employees are mostly young people, and therefore they often change jobs. For most of them, it’s their first job. Therefore, much time is spent on personnel work, including applicant selection, training, mentorship, and professional development.

It’s been a long time clear to me that we should handle this process with ease, as the main point is to keep the core team of bartenders – 5-6 people. They help newcomers to adapt quickly and easily.

All this vigorous activity impacts the work schedule daily, so it needs to be promptly monitored, and in case of changes, everyone must be informed straight away.

Shifton: How did you handle these issues previously?

Irina: We used to send updates in a general chat, and sometimes had to phone employees personally to ensure they were aware of the changes. But as we opened more coffee shops, the need to automate the entire routine grew.

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

Irina: Absolutely, those following trends know that the food services market is increasingly adapting IT technologies. Handling schedules is a daily routine for the administrator and senior baristas. In scheduling, they should consider employee preferences (personal matters, second job, etc.), the efficiency of a bartender at a particular outlet, and the specifics of the day (weekend or weekday). Furthermore, we need to organise training for newcomers, conduct inventories or general cleanings, find replacements for the sick, or split shifts between two employees. And of course, we must account for all possible delays and overtime.

We’ve automated this process for a long time, but as the company continued to grow, I wanted something more than just a schedule-setting program. I was looking for partner developers to make it function as payroll for each employee, alongside other ideas…

Shifton: Did your expectations prove true as the cooperation with Shifton grew?

Irina: Definitely, I’m quite happy with it! Honestly, when I incidentally found Shifton, it took me a while to notice how adaptable this product can be.

During the testing phase, I asked many questions about what else is planned to be implemented and what features Shifton offers, so that employees at every minute would be confident about their work schedule and know beforehand how much they would earn at the end of each month. I wanted the payroll to be done without delays, operate in real-time, and be accessible on one’s smartphone anytime, not just on payday.

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

Irina: All my requests were fulfilled, and I also realised that the program can be further modernised according to our needs. I closely communicated with the developers for 6 months, telling them what we liked and what more we expected to see. We implemented the program swiftly and realised straight away that we wanted to use it more and customise it to our needs.

Shifton: Have you been successful so far?

Irina: We’ve managed to accomplish the following: we automated each employee’s schedule according to their preferences, assigned bartenders to branches, and adjusted the calculation of bonuses and fines. We eliminated errors in salary calculations, like unaccounted or double-paid shifts. We installed the application on all employees’ smartphones where they receive instant updates and payroll info. We reduced time spent on scheduling tenfold and reduced turnover, as employees can see and influence their shifts/salaries, essentially improving the overall time planning process for everyone.

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

Irina: Yes indeed. We’re awaiting a more user-friendly interface for schedule modifications. Currently, not all details can be changed; to adjust specific parameters, you often have to start from scratch. We hope for more flexible settings in salary reports for general periods and the option to leave work comments. In terms of service features, we need the option for employees to leave comments and draw up task reports within the app. I’m also interested in the automatic calculation of bonuses based on sales indicators or KPI fulfilment, and having more adaptable settings for the app interface to suit employee convenience: 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. Would you recommend the Shifton online service to other company owners?

Irina: I already recommend this tool to my clients, whom I assist in launching their coffee shops, because Shifton is cost-saving, easy to use and liked by my staff. Before using Shifton, I tested over 10 different applications and programmes. By the time I discovered Shifton, I’d already got an agreement with a developer to create a similar programme for us. Shifton completely resolved all my scheduling and payroll automation needs.

Shifton service developers added a feature that allows you to dismiss company employees. This can be done on the Employees page. To fire an employee and delete 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 enter their account from any device. With that said, the system will save all information about a dismissed employee.

Initially, it seems like there’s nothing simpler than setting up an employee work roster. All you need to do is enter employee surnames into an Excel spreadsheet, set a few parameters and variables, and hit Enter. In reality, it’s a bit more complex. Creating daily work rosters, especially for shifts, at any enterprise is a challenging and important task, often falling on accountants or HR specialists.

What objectives can you achieve with a well-structured employee work roster?

• Organise employee working hours at the company

• Ensure that certain work responsibilities are fulfilled by employees

• Accurately calculate the company’s earnings

• Determine the average remuneration of individual workers and the entire company

• And of course, a properly crafted work roster means fewer errors will be made by accountants when calculating salaries and leave pay

Many businesses cannot effectively offer their services or even exist at all without a shift work roster. Convenience stores, hotels, hospitals, rescue services, police stations, and sweet factories – the list of enterprises dependent on it is endless. However, not many know the challenges HR managers face when preparing shift work schedules. During this process, HR professionals must update all details, including leave, illness, public holidays, overtime, and numerous other factors. Not to mention that unforeseen events might arise after the timetable has been approved, requiring the HR manager to hurriedly redo the schedule from the ground up.

Working on daily work schedules with Shifton

Shifton is a top-notch service for easy and swift online employee scheduling, boasting numerous benefits. It was designed to simplify work for CEOs, accountants, and HR managers. Some of the service’s features include:

• You don’t have to handle the work process all on your own. Delegate the responsibility of creating and modifying work rosters to company administrators;

• Shifton service will assist you in crafting a shift work roster for an unlimited number of employees to maximise work rosters;

• Shifton features allow for the adjustment of work rosters, considering such data as the number of shifts, employees, and workdays;

• While crafting and modifying work rosters, you’ll be able to permit shift swaps between users with or without managerial oversight;

• When unplanned situations do arise, you’ll be able to quickly make changes to the timetable.

• If you use Shifton, you’ll receive notifications about updates to the rosters and new company events.

Shifton service provides free technical support available 24/7. You can reach out to our operators any time you need and get responses to any queries you might have. Another crucial part of the service is that Shifton enables the creation of work rosters for both small enterprises and massive corporations staffed with thousands of workers.

Shifton gets regularly updated and strives to stay current. You should also progress. Quit wasting time on manual employee scheduling when there is a convenient and high-quality service specifically designed to save your working hours.

We frequently encounter the concept of planning in our daily lives. Once a year we plan our trips with great care and attention, less often pondering over changing our job or celebrating anniversaries and wedding days. Almost everyone plans how the monthly budget should be allocated and how family funds are going to be managed. Regrettably, many business owners and senior employees overlook the importance of predicting labour demand. Surprisingly, some CEOs do not make use of professional HR managers. They conduct interviews and manage employees on their own. This article will attempt to explain what workforce demand forecasting is and demonstrate why it is an essential and crucial part of operating any company.

We all understand that achieving success without qualified staff is tougher than with a team of experts. This is why a CEO or an HR manager must accurately assess workforce demand, choose the most efficient calculation methods, and find ways to meet this need before recruiting new employees. But before we get there, we have to begin with the fundamentals and understand what forecasting labour demand means.

Workforce demand forecasting is a part of a larger workforce planning process. Its primary goal is to create a list of necessary positions and experts that can be crucial in growing the company, achieving goals, and milestones in the near future.

Workforce planning goals:

• Supplying the company with necessary employees while minimising time and financial expenses;

• Ensuring the business has proper, professional workers as quickly as possible;

• Workforce demand forecasting enables cutting unnecessary workforce segments or optimising their labour

• Proper planning and employee placement ensures effective and efficient use of any employee’s skills, knowledge, and abilities.

Factors to consider for proper workforce planning:

• What is the financial situation like at your company, and what is the current overall state of the economy?;

• Workforce reorganisation (plans on reductions, layoffs 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 essential point;

• The salary level in the company;

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

Knowing the current stage of development of your company is one of the factors you should be aware of 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 crucial to understand that it is a process of sequential, well-thought-out actions and decisions with clear goals ahead. The main aim of planning is the idea that any enterprise or successful company directory has to hire and employ fairly qualified personnel at all positions so that work can be done in a high-quality and efficient 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 identifying potential employees who may be required by the company in the future. This process also involves creating a strategic human resource development programme that evaluates the necessity of these resources in the long term.

Tactical planning requires careful analysis of the demand in employee organisation during a period established by the CEO. For instance, it may cover a month, a quarter, or a year. This necessity will depend on several factors: the level of employee turnover over that 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 — 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 concerning workforce demand forecasting?

First, you must collect information on the results and milestones a company needs to achieve in the coming quarter or year. If you are an HR expert, get 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 the enterprise you are working at and its plans, whether you work in human resources or run the place.

Things required for successful planning:

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

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

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

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

During this process, you also decide whether to opt for internal human resources or if retraining existing employees is a more financially viable decision.

It doesn’t matter if you are a CEO or an HR professional. Remember that any process has to be sequential, based on informed decisions and a systematic approach. As soon as you start taking the job seriously, you will be able to approach any task, even as complicated as workforce planning, with ease, passion, and dedication.

In the previous part of this article, we spoke about only a portion of leadership skills any good top manager should possess. 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 begin.

The ability to negotiate

At first, it seems that there’s nothing difficult about negotiating and holding business talks. People meet, chat, drink coffee, show off, and sign stacks of papers. This is how a typical negotiation is seen by an average jealous employee. Few people know that conducting negotiations is one of the key leadership skills. The most important issues are discussed, multi-million Rand deals are signed, and critical decisions are made during these talks and business meetings. That’s why one should never underestimate the value of proper negotiation skills. By the way, there’s an abundance of books on the subject, with yearly 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 topic. Then, even the most demanding and hectic negotiation will go as smoothly as butter.

Curiosity

Curiosity is another important leadership trait of a professional boss. If you want your company to grow, you must be curious in a positive sense. We’re not saying you should be interested in the personal lives of your employees, be curious about who is dating whom and where they spent their vacation. We’re talking about another type of curiosity, an inquisitive nature. 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, visit conferences, exchange experiences with colleagues and march onward.

The ability to delegate authority

When working in a run-of-the-mill position, you become accustomed to doing all assignments 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 will also allow you to adjust the company workflow properly as all employees will have something to do, and they will feel appreciated 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 work as a singular mechanism.

The ability to set goals and achieve them

Any experienced director knows that one must properly formulate assignments and see them through. If you aimlessly run a business and chaotically make illogical decisions, nothing good will come out of it. A director with great leadership skills has to be balanced, calm, and able to clearly set their own and the company’s goals. Then employees will view him as a leader and also strive to achieve the common goal. Objectives must be understandable, clear and properly formulated. 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 that sounds something like ‘In the coming year, our income should double that of the previous year’ they will understand what they have to do and will strive towards the desired outcome. Still, when you set a financial goal before 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 characterizes 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’re not. 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 lucky if aside from all the aforementioned qualities, you are also able to make intelligent jokes and appreciate 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 despite the position you hold.

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 in the most positive way possible. You have to understand that you’re the head of a company and your mood, opinion or view on life influences the mood of all of your employees. Each time you come to work, imagine that you’re the captain of a huge ship. If you emanate negativity, you’ll become tense and irritated, your ship will sink or all sailors and chief engineers will run away while you’re left alone in the rumbling business sea. If you don’t want this to happen, try finding happiness in the little things and seeing the best in the world and your work.

Inspiration skills

We’ve kept the main leadership skill, without which there’s no point in agreeing to work at a top position, for last. If you’re uninspired by the 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 uncover 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 hard to foster the opposite feeling in someone else. That’s why we advise finding work you love or one that irritates you the least and brings a good income.

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