Recession weary fast casual restaurant managers are doing everything possible to lower costs and attract (and keep) customers in tumultuous times. The sad fact is that some fast-casual restaurants will drop out of the race. But, savvy restaurant operators know that those who continue to operate will be the ones who can accurately track and forecast their major costs - both inventory expenses, and labor costs. Even in the best economic periods, fast casual operations with lean expenses will profit more than a cost laden competitor.

There is a silver lining: recessions are a great time to improve operation processes - both to save money and to give yourself the time to focus on strategies that will keep your restaurant afloat through trying times.

Depending on the concept, payroll is one of the largest two expenses for your business - the other costly item in your budget will be inventory. And you probably spend hours creating careful staff schedules to ensure that you have the coverage you need at peak time without overspending the payroll budget.

Scheduling employees in the fast casual restaurant industry is never easy. Managers must juggle employees' availability and skill sets, part-time employees (each with their own set of scheduling requests), accrued PTO, multiple shifts, training sessions and/or employee meetings, and sometimes even worry about insurance or labor laws concerning employees who are minors, or staff who drive or serve liquor. You communicate the completed schedule to all the staff, field never ending inquiries about next week's schedule (or worse, scramble to fill a missed shift), deal with late time-off or shift-swap requests, and unexpected illnesses.

And then you must update the schedule and communicate the updated schedule to the employees. Again. And again.

It's tedious and time-consuming, and very important. Over-staffing costs you money. Under-staffing costs you customers.

Luckily, there is a cost-effective and time-saving solution: Online employee scheduling and labor management software. Good labor management software will cut your employee scheduling time from hours to minutes.

And in both profitable and challenging economic times, the ability to manage schedules at one or many locations, schedule those with stronger skills into high volume shifts, and monitor and forecast your labor expenses makes labor management software not just a time-saver but an instant budget booster. In fact, this type of software can increase restaurant profits by 3-5%.

Add in the ability to integrate easily with restaurant Point of Sale (POS) and payroll systems, employee reminders of upcoming schedules, staff notifications for schedule changes by email or text message (and the resultant drop in late or absent employees), and the ability to focus your managerial energies on the urgent manager duties facing a fast casual restaurant manager on any given day (rather than mind-numbing scheduling minutia), you'll find that the time saved in the first week alone pays for the investment in labor management software.



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