| A few of years ago, controlling labor cost for | | | | hours, my kitchen hours and my assistant's hours all in |
| food-service establishments was done mostly by | | | | a breakdown." |
| natural process. Having an effective labor control | | | | Your POS Systems as your extra pair of eyes |
| meant by being able to manage employees during a | | | | There are POS reports that shows trends over time |
| rush to keep the operation up and running, and send | | | | which eases labor cost tracking manager |
| them home respectively when the rush slowly shrinks. | | | | performance shift-to-shift, according to Jennifer Wiebe |
| Restaurant managers kept track of business from | | | | the marketing manager of Speedline Solutions. This |
| previous weeks in order to make projections of future | | | | system also provide detailed reports on manual editing |
| sales, and then laboriously converted those numbers | | | | of time clock reports where you can easily spot |
| into an employee schedule. And when the day is done, | | | | potential abuse. |
| the manager sits down with a sack of time cards, | | | | The time clock reports provides important |
| calculating for the day's labor percentage where | | | | documentation that can be used as a basis for labor |
| success or failure of those efforts is going to be | | | | board reviews of attendance-related employee |
| determined. | | | | terminations. |
| It's a good thing that those days are no longer with us | | | | And by the end of the day, a good POS system like |
| and a restaurant's point-of-sale system has taken | | | | Phillips' can generate, export and integrate file reports |
| over many of the functions a restaurant manager | | | | of your payroll and employee information, store |
| used to do by hand. | | | | accounting systems or third-party payroll services. |
| With the minimum wage set to rise to $7.25 over the | | | | The POS also can assist managers properly assign |
| next few years, operators are looking for every tool | | | | employee-shift by the forcasted sales and by |
| they can find to keep labor costs under control. | | | | generating a schedule from them. |
| Jim Phillips general manager of a Pizza Inn restaurant, | | | | Managers can efficiently schedule to meet their labor |
| tracks labor throughout the day via the store's Point of | | | | targets using sales forecasting and their labor plans. |
| Sale System. He uses a restaurant POS system from | | | | Pixel Point's scheduling tool is linked with employee skills |
| Pixel Point. | | | | and availability which can speed up scheduling |
| "I check my labor cost every 45 minutes when I'm in | | | | process." |
| the restaurant," said Phillips. "I can pull it up on the | | | | Restrictions on hours and breaks for minor employees |
| terminal, hit labor cost and it tells me where my labor | | | | can be enforced through schedule- and time-clock |
| stands, or if I want to I can go into my hourly stats and | | | | alerts. The schedule can also include a built-in time |
| look at those," says Phillips. | | | | clock that requires a manager override for untimely ins |
| The restaurant POS system can display forecasted | | | | and outs. |
| sales, actual sales and a variance between the two, | | | | Mostly, operators sets their clock-in and clock-out |
| as well as scheduled versus actual hours. | | | | times within 5 minutes before or after the actual time. |
| "The system tells me everything I need to know," | | | | "Employees can't clock in until 5 minutes before their |
| Phillips said. "I can look at the POS and see the number | | | | scheduled shift or clock out late without a manager |
| of pickups for any given hour; the number of dine-ins | | | | override. The system tells me if an employee is |
| and the number of buffets. It gives me my supervisor | | | | supposed to be off but he is still on the clock. |