Raising the Stakes on your Casino schedule

17 Oct, 2013 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

1084415

Providing entertainment 24×7 for patrons who love to throw the dice, spin the wheel, and play the cards, your casino is always on. And that means your staff must be always on, too. The trick is scheduling the right number of personnel with the right skill sets in each department—every minute of every day. Considering you have to deal with numerous departmental and union rules, creating such a workforce schedule is a complex and often challenging task. In the end, the schedule needs to work not only for your employees, but also for your patrons.

When you sit down to create your staff schedule each week, you must account for a wide range of employee variables—part-time employees and full-time; weekday workers and weekenders; multi-talented staff members and one-dimensional; vacation time, sick time, and overtime.

Now let’s add to the confusion by thinking about scheduling from your casino’s point of view. During the course of a year, you have busy and slow hours, days and seasons. To keep operations moving at peak efficiency, while also tending to your customers’ needs, you need to base your weekly work schedules on historical trends. But even the best-laid plans (and schedules) are meaningless when the unexpected rush occurs. While you look forward to rushes for the extra revenues they create, you dread them for the scheduling headaches. No matter how you created your schedule, rushes mean real-time shifting of employees to meet customers’ needs—whether additional poker dealers or security guards, or fewer attendants at the roulette wheels.

So at the end of the day, you need a solution that enables you to create an effective schedule that accommodates full-time, part-time, weekday and weekend workers; identifies skill sets and training; tracks time-off requests; tracks hours worked and overtime hours; is easily updated; and enables you to run reports and see trends.

Sound like a lot to handle? Not when you use an online employee scheduling solution designed to handle all of the scheduling challenges casino operators face today. With What Time Do I Work.com’s  easy-to-use web scheduling software, you can store all your employees’ names, departments, unions, skillsets, emails, phone numbers, preferred shifts, and requested time off in one online location, accessible from anywhere 24×7. So rather than fumble with a stack of paper requests for time off or vacations, or try to remember who is trained in what department, or determine how many workers you need in each area on a particular date, What Time Do I Work.com will tell you everything you need to know—quickly and easily.

Using the What Time Do I Work online job scheduling software, you can look forward to a wide range of benefits.

Better scheduling communications – All employee schedule calendars are stored in a secure cloud. All your workers have 24×7 access to their work schedules. In addition, schedule changes appear in the cloud immediately, and they are delivered to your employees email or smart phone. All workers know what’s happening, all the time.

No more phone calls – Because every schedule is delivered to workers’ email or smart phone, your employees can see open shifts and volunteer to fill them. Even better, you will no longer receive phone calls from workers, wondering when the weekly schedule will be posted.

Reduced no-shows – Workers receive automatic alerts about their upcoming shifts. Reminders are a great way to ensure workers show up for work on time.

Better shift coverage – You can schedule adequate workers in busier departments and avoid scheduling too many workers in slower departments, based on scheduling reports. In fact, you can save your schedules and re-use them in the future. Best of all you can put ownership of shift coverage back in the employees’ hands, when they have last minute requests for time off.

Improve customer experience – With the optimal number of workers scheduled in every department, your customers will get the service they want and deserve.

Reduce overhead costs – While creating schedules, you are not only alerted to conflicts (reducing the number of times you have to update the schedules), but you also know when certain employees are scheduled for overtime shifts. The program will automatically calculate labor costs for every shifts.

To discover how much time and money you can save by using our web scheduling software, you can try it for free with no obligation for 30 days. No credit card is required to sign up.  To learn more, please visit https://www.whattimedoiwork.com/free-trial/

Follow us on LinkedIn


Updating Staff Scheduling

10 Oct, 2013 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

2589546

Managing the employee schedules of all the workers in your restaurant, hotel, or conference facility is a very complex undertaking. Once you have created a conflict-free work schedule for housekeepers, cooks, wait staff, concierges, and all other employees, your plans can go out the window when you get an unexpected rush in the dining room or a party of 50 walks into the lobby. At times like these, your well-laid plans must make way for on-the-fly changes.

No matter how you created your schedule, you now need to shift around your employees to meet your customers’ needs. But where do you start?

  • The first step is finding out who’s working, in what department, and during what shift.
  • Second, you need to know who’s trained to work in what departments; you can’t move a housekeeper with no waitressing experience to the dining room- That would cause more problems than you have now.
  • Third, you need to alert available workers that there’s a change in their tasks for the day.

All these things need to occur to change a daily schedule based on real-time need, but how do you make that change happen?

  • You could run around your facility, hoping to immediately find the people you need—but that’s not only inefficient, it’s also exhausting.
  • You could ask your assistant managers for help—but that would pull them away from their own jobs, and you’d have to backfill for them, as well.
  • You could call the department heads on the phone and try to coordinate the shift changes—but that method is quite time-consuming, and the rush may have passed by the time you coordinate with everyone.
  • You must also record the scheduling changes so that you can accurately track who worked extra hours or overtime hours, and where/when the rushes occurred so that you can plan for the future.

If you create work schedules by hand or in an Excel spreadsheet, you know how much work is involved. Not only must you manually update your records every week, but you must also keep an up-to-date contact phone list readily available—you never know when you’ll need additional coverage for a rush or when a staff member calls in sick.  If these methods are becoming too time-consuming and frustrating, perhaps you’d be interested in learning about a new type of scheduling solution that can help you streamline not only weekly work schedules, but also daily tasks.

The solution is available from What Time Do I Work.com, its online employee scheduling software.  It will enable you to create all your work schedules in a secure cloud environment.  The What Time Do I Work.com solution saves you time, money, and frustration, while also keeping your workers on track and on task—even during unexpected rushes.

With our easy-to-use web scheduling software, you can store all your employees’ names, departments, skillsets, emails, phone numbers, preferred shifts, and requested time off, in one online location. So when a rush occurs and you need to switch workers around, you’ll know at a glance who is on the floor, and who is qualified to work in what departments.

Using the What Time Do I Work.com online job scheduling software, you can look forward to:

  • Better shift coverage – You can schedule adequate workers in busier departments and avoid scheduling too many workers in slower departments, based on scheduling reports. In fact, you can save your schedules and re-use them in the future.
  • Boost productivity – By scheduling the optimal number of workers in each department every day, depending on varying needs, more work will be accomplished. You can also assign specific tasks to your employees with our workplace scheduling software.
  • Get fast response – Schedule changes are delivered directly to your staff’s email or cell phone—as well as stored in

the cloud. Employees will receive an urgent email when a schedule/task change has occurred, enabling them to respond immediately. If schedules are changed or you have call outs, you can easily contact your entire staff to ensure you have adequate coverage at all times. With a single click, you can send an “SOS” to your staff.

  • Improve customer experience – With the optimal number of workers in each department, your customers will get the service they want and deserve.
  • Reduce overhead costs – When creating schedules, you are not only alerted to conflicts as well as reducing the number of times you have to update the schedules, but you also know when certain employees are scheduled for overtime shifts.

To discover how much time and money you can save by using our web scheduling software, you can try it for free with no obligation for 30 days. No credit card is required to sign up.  To learn more, please visit https://www.whattimedoiwork.com/features/

Follow us on LinkedIn


Keeping Track Of a Changing Staff

03 Oct, 2013 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

5087320

The idea of hiring a new server, Sous Chef or busboy—and having that person remain with your restaurant for years—is an appealing one.  The reality of life in the restaurant industry, however, is quite different. Employee turnover is high, due to workers going back to school, starting a family, finding an office job, suffering from the physical toll, or facing the breakup of a behind-the-bar romance. Whatever the reason, you have to deal with an ever-changing employee roster, and that makes creating weekly work schedules challenging.

Just when you think you’ve got it made—where you know all your workers and their contact information, preferred availability, and time off requests—the inevitable occurs, and you lose a certain percentage of your staff. Forget about the security of knowing who works when and for how much. Stop dreaming about a workable vacation schedule for the next 6 months. Start facing the fact that you have to update all your rosters and call sheets and schedules.

Unless, of course, you throw away your traditional paper-and-pencil schedules and move up to online scheduling software. By storing all information in a secure cloud, it’s quick and easy to add, delete, and update employee information. You also benefit from 24×7 access to everything you need to create schedules—names, preferred shifts, time off requests, hours/week, etc. Better yet, you can run reports on anything you want. You can track each employee’s:

  • Hours worked per week/month
  • Rate of pay
  • Vacation time
  • Sick time
  • Emergency time off
  • Overtime
  • Contact Information

If such a solution sounds like the right fit for your restaurant, you can get it today from WhatTimeDoIWork.com. You can use our advanced yet easy-to-use software to create a clear and accurate picture of each employee’s work history. This type of information will be very valuable when it’s time for giving raises or promotions, or providing extra hours or time off.

To discover for yourself just how much time and energy you can save by using our secure 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/.


Online Restaurant Scheduling Software Saves A Life …Literally!

27 Jun, 2013 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

16992969-professional-burglar-in-black-mask-opened-a-small-safe-holding-hand-gun-and-aimingHundreds of thousands of robberies occur each year, and many of the criminals who commit these crimes target restaurants late at night. A lone manager with maybe a few employees at best, lots of cash, and the darkness of night to slip away into is an alluring temptation for these perpetrators. They enter the building after it’s closed to the public, hold any remaining people at gun point and demand all the cash and valuables that they can forcefully take.

Sometimes they leave without a shot fired, but other times the victims unfortunately turn out to be casualties. whether from being locked in an industrial refrigerator overnight so the criminals can get away unabated, or from violent assaults — through force or weaponry. Either way, it’s no secret to any restaurant manager that working late at night, alone in their business, can be a dangerous situation.

To my surprise, we were recently contacted by one of our clients, wanting to thank us for saving his life. Saving his life — seriously? I’ve always been very happy and proud to know that our online restaurant scheduling software makes our clients’ lives easier, but I never thought it would actually save a life!

He explained that he’s always had to stay at his restaurant all alone until quite late at night to complete the weekly work schedule. He had apparently done this for most of his career — until he signed up for our online restaurant scheduling software.

Two masked intruders, armed with shot guns, recently robbed his restaurant. When he and his owners later looked at the security cameras, they saw the two men violently breaking through doors and smashing everything in sight. At one point, when they were near his office, it appeared that the robbers heard a noise.

One of the men turned quickly and fired a shot.

“I normally would have been there alone, working on my schedule at the time of the robbery. I had only left moments earlier to work on it from home instead,” he told us, with growing emotion in his voice. “Instead of being the victim of a violent crime, I was home with my family because of your software.” At that point his appreciation and thankfulness poured out.

Online restaurant scheduling software not only allows you to create your schedules more efficiently from anywhere you please, but it also changes your life in ways you can’t even imagine.

Sign up for online restaurant scheduling software from www.whattimedoiwork.com today and enjoy the convenience of scheduling whenever and wherever you please. Cause it just might save your life someday!


Restaurant Employee Scheduling Software Proves Who The Real Liar Is!

25 Jun, 2013 | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Employees are constantly challenging their managers — pushing the limits of what they can get away with. They continuously keep managers and owners on their guard for the next scam being sent their way. They can have quite a gift for exaggeration and a flair for the dramatics when going down these paths.  “Trust me!” is something I’ve heard time and time again.

After speaking with a former employee of many years ago, Tony, he mentioned one such incident that has always stuck in my mind — the day that our restaurant employee scheduling software proved he was not a liar.

restaurant employee scheduling softwareHe had a troublesome co-worker who was constantly trying to create a rift between him and his general manager in never-ending ploys to get what she wanted. Time and time again he would be put into frustrating situations when she would blatantly lie about issues that had no proof on either side. Each time these uncomfortable moments would occur, it would leave another scar on Tony’s name, ruining his reputation with his general manager and the owners as well. Even though Tony could not prove that he was telling the truth when explaining his side of the story, he also could not prove that the troublesome employee was lying either. The question would then remain with the general manager and owner as to who was the real liar and who was telling the truth.

One day his general manager approached him angrily, questioning his ability to follow the requests in their restaurant employee scheduling software, and why he had scheduled the troublesome employee for a shift that she had requested off weeks in advance of the schedule being made. Confused and bewildered, he explained that he had acknowledged all the requests that were in the scheduling software, but the general manager replied that he had looked in the system already and saw that the request was in there, but had not been acknowledged.

Of course the employee did not show up to her shift that day because of this apparent mistake, which created a chaotic day for the rest of the staff and management as they struggled to meet the demands of the business in her absense. Feeling that he had made an error, Tony humbly appologized and felt the growing distrust in his reputation. Unfortunately for the troublesome employee, though, the situation resurfaced again under different circumstances.

In the next manager meeting, the owner showed up, also angry with what had occurred. He questioned Tony’s motives behind scheduling the employee, and explained how the employee had approached him as well about the issue. Thinking quickly, he replied, “Let me take a look at this request,” and quickly ran to the office to open up the restaurant employee scheduling software.

To his surprise and relief, Tony finally got the opportunity he deserved. The employee in question had submitted her request the very morning of the shift in question. She missed the shift for her own reasons and only put the request in a day before complaining about the problem to the general manager and owner — in an attempt to absolve herself of her own guilt. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to her, there is a time stamp on each request, and the restaurant employee scheduling software recorded the exact time that the request was made, proving that she had blatently lied about the situation.

With great pride, Tony returned to the meeting and made his own request. He said, “would you all please come to the office and take a look at this request?” Apologies were made, Tonys reputation was restored and the troublesome employee was reprimanded the very next day.

Tell us your story about how whattimedoiwork.com’s restaurant employee scheduling software has kept things fair in your workplace.