FOODSERVICE UPDATES
  • Foodservice Updates
  • Trends
    • Commodities
  • Digital Media
  • Technology
  • Safety
  • Management Tips
  • Free Newsletter
  • Recipes
    • Mains >
      • Handhelds
      • Pasta & Rice
    • Soups & Sauces
    • Salads
    • Appetizers
    • Desserts & Snacks
    • Sides
  • Foodservice CEO

​Scheduling software’s domino effect

11/28/2022

 
scheduling
If you aren’t currently using tech tools to manage your team’s hours, profits are likely hiding in your schedule, since having even one extra person on a shift can make a noticeable impact on your bottom line. In addition to using data-based forecasts to determine ideal staffing levels, scheduling software has the positive ripple effect of reducing the time a new manager needs to spend overseeing staff scheduling and getting it right. This, in turn, demonstrates to staff that you care about maintaining an accurate schedule – so when staff are scheduled, they are needed, and when there are extra shifts available for people to pick up, that is made clear and it’s easy for them to take them on.

How much time do you spend on tasks that can be outsourced to tech?

11/14/2022

 
scheduling
​SpotOn, the restaurant software and payments company, recently announced in its State of Restaurant Tech Report that the top challenges operators are facing in the next six months are rising costs, operational complexity and labor management – all challenges that consume many hours of an operator’s time. Labor management alone, according to the report, takes up more than 16 hours of a manager’s time each week. The time spent can be deceiving: An individual task like verifying staff clock-in may not take up much time on its own, but the hours add up. When you consider your top challenges in the coming months, do you know how much time you’re spending on what? Assess your biggest time eaters – and understand how much each task takes relative to others. There may be an easy tech-driven fix that can help you remove some of the burden from your staff and allow you to focus more time on tasks that drive business and cut costs.

​Managing labor inflation through tech

8/22/2022

 
tech
Restaurants that use robotic chefs to prepare food and AI to take orders tend to generate breathless headlines, but as recent news from McDonald’s implies, operators may best handle the strains of labor inflation with mundane restaurant tech for the time being. McDonald’s CEO Chris Kempczinski acknowledged recently that automation wouldn’t be a “silver bullet” to solve the brand’s problems with labor inflation. (Restaurant Dive reported that its tests of drive-thru voice ordering were only 80 percent accurate, falling short of the 95 percent accuracy it sought.) Instead, the brand is focusing on customer data to make staffing decisions and reduce labor demand in its stores – something well within the reach of brands far smaller than the likes of McDonald’s. If you’re struggling with the challenges of labor inflation, harnessing your data may reveal some low-tech changes you can make to ensure you have the optimal number of staff at a time, as well as the ones who provide the highest levels of guest satisfaction.

​There’s an app for that

12/27/2021

 
app
For most people, a smartphone is like an extra appendage that makes life a bit easier and more convenient. Having your employees manage their schedules via smartphone app is one small way to make their work lives easier and avoid burnout. If you’re not already using team apps and digital scheduling tools to manage your staff’s comings and goings, consider doing so as you get organized for 2022. They can help managers plan optimal scheduling based on sales forecasts and enable employees to check their schedule or swap a shift on the go.

Use tech to wrangle excess labor costs

7/19/2021

 
POS
Amid the labor crunch, restaurants have been facing a lot of upward pressure on their wages lately. As of May, 30 states, the District of Columbia and forty-five localities have set minimum wage rates above the federal level. But at the same time, many restaurants likely are not making best use of the tools they have on hand to better manage their labor costs and gain as much as possible from them. According to research from TouchBistro, 39 percent of restaurant operators are not using their POS to view labor reports. These reports can help you identify when you are overstaffed in your kitchen and dining room, which staff are successfully upselling most frequently and making customers the happiest, and which staff may be stealing from you. All of this can ensure you always have the right number of people on hand for a shift, that you’re rewarding and developing the right people, and that you’re quickly identifying sources of theft. It may even give you some wiggle room to raise your wages.

Use tech to remove the hunches from your scheduling

2/15/2021

 
staff
​Even in more normal times, there is often waste lurking in a restaurant’s labor structure. You might have too many or too few employees on hand to serve customers or close for the night, or simply have too many occasions when your staff have idle minutes between tasks. Using tech to manage your labor isn’t about replacing your people with machines, but about accumulating evidence to demonstrate what labor is required to complete various tasks and then ensuring you deploy the ideal number of people to execute those tasks. You may feel that after many years running a restaurant, you have a good gut feel for how many people you need and when – but you might be surprised by the hidden waste that tech can reveal to you. (Noodles & Company learned recently via the use of HotSchedules, for example, that having five or six employees handle closing-shift duties was taking one hour, while the same duties took just 45 minutes when they scaled the number of closing-shift staff down to four people.)

​Real-time restaurant management

10/12/2020

 
tech tools
If there were ever a year to ditch the paper, this would be it. From your inventory management to your menu to your employee training, tech tools are helping operators eliminate paper processes and their inefficiencies. Perhaps the biggest benefit of making the switch is real-time management: Knowing your inventory shortfalls as they happen can help you adjust your digital menu to substitute an item or promote a new special on the spot. Being able to inform your staff of day-to-day changes in operating procedure electronically – and ensuring compliance in real time – is especially crucial now as COVID-19 infections affect how restaurants can serve guests. Ask Team Four how you can eliminate any paper processes that are holding you back this year.

Where will you invest in consumer-facing tech?

3/23/2020

 
tech
Consumers don’t consider technology to be an eliminator of jobs but rather a means of improving convenience – and restaurants are investing in more of such customer-facing technology solutions this year. These were key tech-related takeaways from the National Restaurant Association’s latest state-of-the-industry report. When it comes to customer-facing tech, kiosks and other self-service technology still pay dividends. Their biggest benefit may be speed – by visibly reducing congestion and automating orders, they expedite the order process and shorten lines – but this technology is also winning consumers over for its ability to customize. The proof is in the payment: The convenience that kiosks provide can lead guests to spend 15 to 20 percent more per order, according to Pymts.com. #restauranttech

The rise of the AI-powered restaurant manager

3/23/2020

 
restaurant tech
What if running a profitable restaurant became less about analyzing databases and spreadsheets and more about following AI-generated directions? That’s increasingly becoming a reality for some restaurants. In a recent roundup from Modern Restaurant Management about major disruptions to expect in the coming decade, AI applications were among the major changes industry insiders expect. David Bloom, chief development and operations officer for Capriotti’s, sees increasing potential for video to work hand-in-hand with AI – using facial recognition to identify guests and connect them with loyalty programs, reducing theft by video monitoring, and improving employee performance by monitoring their actions and providing on-the-spot upselling and service advice. #restauranttech

​AI-informed scheduling has benefits beyond efficiency

3/16/2020

 
AI scheduling
As labor costs escalate, how are you ensuring you have the right number of employees scheduled at the right times? More brands are adopting artificial intelligence-based programs to help with scheduling. Domino’s, for one, has been testing an AI algorithm to help ensure they are using the most efficient number of staff hours in their stores, Restaurant Dive reports. As major cities enact predictive scheduling laws designed to ensure a fair work week for employees – Widget Brain reports that New York, San Francisco and Seattle are among them – finding ways to use AI to forecast labor demand, and then build and fill schedules, can help operators not only maximize labor expenditures but also comply with the law.

    Subscribe to our newsletter

    Picture
    Picture
    Picture

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    5G
    Accounting
    Accuracy
    Agriculture
    Agtech
    Ai
    App
    Association
    Automate
    Backlog
    Blockchain
    Budget
    Camera
    Carry Out
    Cashless
    Cleaning
    Cloud
    Communication
    Composting
    Contingency
    Credit Card
    Crops
    Cross Sell
    Customization
    Cyber Security
    Cyber Threats
    Data
    Debit
    Delivery
    Digital
    Display
    Drive Thru
    Edge-computing
    Efficiencies
    Efficiency
    Email
    Encryption
    Equipment
    Errors
    Face-recognition
    Food-safety
    Food-supply
    Foo-locker
    Forecast
    Fraud
    Geofence
    Ghostkitchen
    Ghost-kitchen
    Gift-cards
    Gmofoods
    Google
    Gps
    Green
    Highefficiency
    Hiring
    Host-kitchen
    Ingredients
    Insurance
    Integration
    Interests
    Internet
    Inventory
    Investment
    It
    Kiosk
    Kitchen
    Kitchendisplaysystem
    Kitchen-display-system
    Labels
    Labor
    Laws
    Link
    Loyalty
    Maintenance
    Manage
    Marketing
    Menu
    Mobileordering
    Mobile Ordering
    Mobileorderingb02c87f4a0
    Monitoring
    Morale
    Network
    Newtech
    On-demand
    Online
    Ordering
    Outdoor
    Packaging
    Partnership
    Payables
    Payday
    Payment
    Personalization
    Photos
    Planning
    Pos
    Predictions
    Pricing
    Processes
    Profit
    Promotions
    Purchases
    Qrcodes
    Qr-codes
    Rebate
    Regulations
    Renegotiate
    Repairs
    Reports
    Reservations
    Reusable
    Rfid
    Robots
    Roi
    Safety
    Scheduling
    Security
    Signage
    Smart
    Smartphone
    Socialdistance
    Special-offers
    Spend
    Staff
    Supper-app
    Supply
    Supplychain
    Systems
    Takeout
    Take-out
    Takeoutfed487ce46
    Technology
    Tech-stack
    Tech Support
    Temperature-control
    Text
    Theft
    Thirdparty
    Touchless
    Traceability
    Tracking
    Training
    Upgrade
    Uses
    Uv-light
    Video
    Virtual
    Voice
    Vra
    Waittimes
    Waste
    Website
    Wifi
    Wi-fi

Get our Free Newsletter
Team Four Foodservice
​Recipes
Corona Virus Resources
Value 4
Quarterly Outlook
​Palette Foodservice
​
Foodservice CEO
© 2023 Team Four Foodservice
  • Foodservice Updates
  • Trends
    • Commodities
  • Digital Media
  • Technology
  • Safety
  • Management Tips
  • Free Newsletter
  • Recipes
    • Mains >
      • Handhelds
      • Pasta & Rice
    • Soups & Sauces
    • Salads
    • Appetizers
    • Desserts & Snacks
    • Sides
  • Foodservice CEO