Getting Over on Over Pours

29 Aug, 2013 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Getting Over on the Over Pours

Getting Over on the Over Pours

Patrons go to your bar to get away from their day-to-day life and be entertained in a number of ways:

  • Enjoying their favorite beverage
  • Chatting with friends and coworkers
  • Playing bar games

And if you’re lucky, you have one or more entertaining bartenders who do more than just pour drinks. They apply style and flair as they turn alcohol and mixers into works of drinkable art. This type of bartender is trained to:

  • Flip glasses behind the back
  • Flip bottles into the air
  • Nest bottles in mixing tins
  • Pour really high—which can also mean pour really long

And here we have the problem. The Long Pour. It’s fun for patrons to watch, and it keeps the crowds coming back for more. But it also costs you money. One long pour every night is nothing to worry about. But if certain bartenders pour long every time they perform crowd-pleasing stunts, then you’ve got a problem.

Eye in the Sky cameras can help resolve the problem to a certain degree, but there’s another way that’s much more effective—using scheduling software.

For example, let’s say that last Saturday night, your bar was packed with happy patrons—eating, drinking, hanging out with friends until you closed the doors at 2 a.m. You expected profits to be high because of the excellent volume of business. But when you figured out your pour costs, you found them to be unexpectedly high. The cost overrun was undoubtedly due to staff members’ long pours, but you had four bartenders on duty that night, so there’s no way to know who was doing what.

Here’s where scheduling software can help—by enabling you to look back at scheduling history. Simply enter the dates when you had high pour costs, map those dates to the employees who worked those nights, and see if any trends exist. If you find that John Doe is behind the bar every time you have high pour costs, then you know where the problem lies.

We know that running a bar is your expertise, and that using scheduling software might feel a bit out of your comfort zone. But when you choose What Time Do I Work online scheduling software, you’ll be amazed at how easy it is to not only create weekly staff schedules, but also compare costs with workers on the floor, as well as control overtime hours.

We offer a comprehensive yet easy-to-use online scheduling solution that provides point-and-click simplicity. By storing all your employee’s names, emails, phone numbers, preferred shifts, and requested time off in one online location, we enable you to create a new schedule by simply moving time slots to the appropriate names on your schedule template. And if you happen to select a name for a time slot that the employee requested off, the software alerts you to the mistake immediately. To correct the error, you simply move the time slot to a different name. It’s just that easy to create a schedule—and it’s equally as easy to create a map of pour costs to on-floor bartenders.

To discover for yourself just how much time and money you can save by using our web scheduling software, you can test drive it for free. There’s no obligation, and no credit card is required to sign up.  For complete information on our web scheduling software, please visit https://www.whattimedoiwork.com/features/.


Seasonal Scheduling Headaches

22 Aug, 2013 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Eliminate Scheduling Headaches with WhatTimeDoIWork.com

Eliminate Scheduling Headaches with WhatTimeDoIWork.com

Each season offers its own kind of fun. In the springtime, everyone gets spring fever and can’t focus on anything but getting outside after months of cabin fever. Summertime is great for lots of things—swimming, traveling, spending time with the kids. In the fall, kids go back to school and we look forward to apple picking and pumpkin pies. And with winter comes the holiday season with too much eating, drinking, and general festivities.

But no matter what the season, you face the same challenge—scheduling your employees’ time off. Even when three of your best waitresses and two hostesses want the same week off to participate in their favorite activities, you have to come up with a workable schedule that won’t compromise your business.

And let’s not forget the way your employees request time off for spring break, summer vacation, Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas shopping—a quick “Oh, by the way, I really need to take vacation next week” called across the kitchen, or dates scribbled on the back of a meal check and pinned to your office door, or a message left on your voicemail. While all these fast-and-easy methods are great for your staff, they make life difficult for you because you have to remember everything from everyone, and then deal with it.

If you’re looking for a sure-fire cure for these seasonal scheduling headaches, why don’t you try a system for online restaurant employee scheduling? When you move from paper schedules to online schedules, you’ll save lots of time, energy, and frustration not just once, but every time you create a schedule.

Here’s how it works. First of all, employee information is stored in the cloud, where it’s available 24×7. You can store names, phone numbers, email addresses, shift preferences, vacation requests—anything you need to know about your staff. And you can update it or add to it whenever you want. Even better, your staff can also see the names, phone numbers, and email addresses for everyone else. So if someone scheduled to work is sick or has an emergency, they can find their own replacement rather than put the burden on you.

Second, online scheduling software is fast, easy and accurate. The software is simple to use and allows you to simply point & click an employee name into a time slot. If that employee has already requested vacation on that day, the online scheduling system alerts you to the mistake immediately so that you can schedule someone else.

And finally, you can post new schedules and schedule changes in the cloud, and automatically deliver them to your staff’s phone or email in seconds. Everyone knows when they have to work—no questions, no excuses, no worries.

The bottom line—online workforce scheduling eliminates schedule conflicts, saves lots of time and frustration, keeps everyone on the same scheduling page, and best of all, cures you from seasonal scheduling headaches.

If you’re ready to learn more about the benefits of online staff scheduling, visit What Time Do I Work today and test drive the free trial software.