The 6 Best Labor Management Software for Restaurants

Restaurants are complex businesses that require a lot of effort to manage. One of the most challenging aspects of restaurant management is managing labor and restaurant scheduling. Ensuring that you have enough staff to serve your customers while keeping labor costs under control is critical to the success of your restaurant.

Fortunately, there are many workforce management solutions and labor management software platforms available to help you manage your restaurant labor effectively. In this blog, we'll discuss the seven best software platforms for restaurant labor management.

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What is Labor Management for Restaurant?

Restaurant labor management refers to the process of effectively organizing, workforce scheduling, and managing the workforce within a restaurant to ensure smooth operations, optimize productivity, and control labor costs, which is a bit difference from workforce management software. It involves a variety of tasks, such as hiring, training, scheduling, evaluating performance, and managing employee relations, which is similar to workforce management systems. Effective labor management is essential for the success of any restaurant, as it directly impacts customer satisfaction, employee experience, and the overall profitability of the business.

Using restaurant labor management software can bring numerous benefits to all members in the org chart including restaurant owners, human resource and general managers, as well as employees. These benefits include:

1. Streamlined scheduling:

Labor management software automates the employee scheduling process, taking into account managing employee availability, preferences, and skill sets, as well as business needs and peak hours. This results in more efficient and fair scheduling, reducing the likelihood of over- or under-staffing.

2. Improved communication:

Many labor management software platforms include communication tools that allow managers and employees to easily share information, such as schedule updates, shift swaps, absence management and time-off requests. This fosters transparency and reduces miscommunication.

3. Time and cost savings:

Automated scheduling, employee time and attendance tracking, and payroll integration can save time and reduce errors associated with manual processes by human resource department. This leads to more accurate labor cost calculations and helps identify areas where labor costs can be optimized.

4. Compliance:

Labor management software helps ensure compliance with labor laws and regulations, such as minimum wage requirements, overtime rules, and break policies, by automating and tracking these factors.

5. Employee engagement:

Software that allows employees to access their schedules, request time off, and swap shifts can lead to increased job satisfaction and engagement, as they feel more empowered and in control of their work-life balance.

6. Performance tracking and reporting:

Many labor management software solutions offer performance tracking features that enable the HR manager to evaluate employee performance, identify trends, and make data-driven decisions regarding promotions, raises, disciplinary actions and leave management.

7. Integration with other systems:

Many labor management software platforms can integrate with other restaurant management systems, such as point-of-sale (POS) systems, inventory management software, and customer relationship management (CRM) tools. This integration allows for a more cohesive and efficient management process.

8. Forecasting and analytics:

Advanced labor management software can provide valuable insights and predictions about labor needs based on historical data and trends. This can help managers make more informed decisions about staffing levels and labor costs.

By implementing restaurant labor management software, businesses can improve operational efficiency, reduce labor costs, and create a more positive work environment for employees, ultimately leading to increased customer satisfaction and overall profitability.

Click to learn more about the difference between labor management software and workforce management tools.

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6 Best Labor Management Software for Restaurants

1. 7 shifts

7shifts is a popular employee scheduling software that provides restaurant owners and managers with a comprehensive suite of labor management tools. It is designed to simplify the process of creating shift scheduling and managing staff, founded in 2014 by Jordan Boesch. The software includes a number of features that help restaurant owners and managers streamline their scheduling processes and optimize their labor usage.

It enables shift scheduling, time and attendance tracking, and communication with staff through an easy-to-use interface. Its scheduling feature allows managers to create and modify schedules in real time, while the time-tracking feature ensures that staff is accurately compensated for their time. Additionally, 7shifts integrates with many popular point-of-sale (POS) systems, making it easier to manage labor costs.

2. Sling

Sling is a robust restaurant scheduling software for many industries that make the task of managing labor easy. Restaurant owners or managers can take advantage of it to manage restaurant scheduling. It also helps managers with the time-tracking process and budgeting by recording accurate clock-ins, outs, breaks, and no-shows.

Moreover, with Sling, restaurant employees can view their work schedules and avoid conflicts by submitting up-to-date availability and time-off requests, which is beneficial for labor compliance. It also alerts managers of overlapping upcoming shifts and double bookings.

3. 5-Out

5-Out is a powerful labor forecasting software for Hospitality that can automatically ingest sales and labor data to help restaurant owners make the right decision especially for small businesses. One of the key features of 5-Out is its ability to automatically ingest data from both internal and external sources and uses next-gen machine learning to accurately predict upcoming sales. Based on the projection of upcoming sales 5-Out provides guidance and recommendation on labor scheduling, making staff scheduling easier. Managers can track real time sales as a day and week progresses, and can adjust labor targets to ensure the create labor optimal schedules and labor management policies that maximize the restaurant's net income.

Furthermore, 5-Out has a new employee mobile app, make both managers and staff an easy life. It offers employees the ability to view the whole shift pool including their own and other team members' schedules in their mobile devices, which gives employees visibility and enables them to make plans for the upcoming day and week. In addition, the chat feature of the employee app empowers smooth one-on-one communication between staff members, which is useful to streamline team communication. Employees also can request time off and track employee directly on the app. Finally, employees can request shift trades without the need for costly manager intervention, and receive a push notification when a coworker claims the shift.

Apart from labor shift scheduling, restaurant managers and owners can use the effective 5-Out to assist them in making decisions about their inventory and buying. Making item-wise sales projections is one of the 5-Out's key features, which can assist managers in determining which menu items are likely to be popular and adjusting their inventory and staffing levels appropriately.

Additionally, the software offers thorough cost of goods administration, enabling managers to keep tabs on the price of each menu item and alter its pricing or ingredients as necessary. The 5-Out software's purchase budget management features, which let managers establish and track purchasing budgets for each period, are another important component. Last but not least, the program offers enterprise-level reporting for primary expenses, such as labor and food.

All of these features can improve restaurant operations such as optimizing restaurant scheduling, streamlining team communication, and managing inventory in order to reduce labor costs and cost of goods. Getting insights from the 5-Out enterprise-level reports will help managers to optimize restaurant scheduling, and make smart business decisions.

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4. Harri

Harri is a cloud-based restaurant scheduling software created to assist restaurant owners and supervisors in effectively managing their labor. It provides a number of features and tools that can assist with hiring, planning, monitoring time and attendance, and performance management.

Harri's hiring platform, which allows restaurants to publish job openings and manage applications online, is one of its key features. The organizing tools offered by Harri are another crucial aspect. . Managers can optimize labor scheduling based on real time sales data with the assistance of Harri's integration with a variety of POS systems. It also offers strong time tracking features and attendance monitoring, which can assist managers in guaranteeing precise payroll processing and labor compliance.

5. HotSchedules

Restaurant owners and managers can access a variety of labor management tools, including scheduling, time and attendance monitoring, and performance management, through the well-known labor management platform HotSchedules.

Employees can handle their schedules, interact with managers, and time clock in and out using the company's mobile app. It is simpler to control labor costs with HotSchedules' labor management features when they are integrated with its POS system.

6. Schedulefly

For restaurant owners and managers, Schedulefly is a useful weapon that offers a variety of scheduling and communication features that can boost effectiveness, output, and team performance. Its main purpose is to make the scheduling process simpler for restaurant owners and managers while also offering a variety of tools for communication and cooperation to boost team productivity.

One of its key features is its user-friendly scheduling interface, which enables managers to swiftly and easily make and publish schedules. Additionally, Schedulefly offers a variety of communication tools, such as in-app messaging, shift notes, and a corporate news feed, which can enhance team member cooperation and coordination. The platform also provides thorough reporting and analytics, enabling managers to monitor labor expenses and schedule effectiveness over time.

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In sum, there are various software platforms for managing labor in the restaurant industry, each with special characteristics and advantages, including the crucial aspect of management employee scheduling. All of these platforms are excellent choices, offering comprehensive solutions for workforce management.

However, 5-Out stands out as a fully integrated solution that offers next-generation machine learning forecasts and optimization for both labor and purchasing. Plus, 5-Out offers restaurant owners and managers effective tools to make sensible decisions and streamline operations, including item-wise sales projections, cost of goods and purchase budget management and enterprise-level reporting for prime costs.

Overall, despite the fact that each of these software platforms has useful features, 5-Out is the best option for those seeking a complete answer at an affordable cost.

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