5 Ways to get your Staff Costs ‘in shape’

How’s the financial ‘fitness’ of your hospitality business? Here are five lessons we’ve learned from goRoster’s customers to help you get in shape for the fast approaching Summer.

1.   Don’t overindulge

Are you bingeing on staff? Overestimating staff resource requirements is the largest factor in wage costs blowouts in hospitality. The best way to avoid overindulging is having immediate and easy access to good information about your daily wage costs, and how they are tracking against turnover. Being able to review estimated vs actual costs against turnover every day gives you the data you need to make smarter decisions, and avoid ‘bingeing’.

2.   But avoid starving

Starvation diets don’t work to get your body into shape, and they are even worse for a hospitality business. Not having the right number of the right kind of staff impacts your service quality and the customer’s experience. In the age of Facebook and instant online reviews, it can be fatal. Unless you have the information, you can’t make an informed decision about getting the right balance of staff available to ensure you can profitably deliver great service. Reviewing wage and turnover data after a month isn’t good enough – you need to be able to do it on a daily and weekly basis.

3.   Take care of yourself

Managing a hospitality business may be fun, but it is also intense and stressful. Spending a huge amount of time building and communicating rosters, and then compiling wage cost and turnover information is not an effective investment of management time. The more time you spend on this administrative effort, the less you can spend on coaching staff, reviewing quality, and ensuring customers are having a great time in your establishment. A goRoster client had two people spending two days per month manually assembling and communicating rosters to their workforce. With goRoster that was cut to one person spending two hours – a major contribution to anyone’s bottom line.

4.   Beware of wasted ‘calories’

Minimising staff no-shows is one way you can quickly get your wage costs into shape. The experience from the goRoster customer base is that a single staff member not turning up for a shift costs between $200-300 in lost management time and extra staff costs (overtime for rostered staff or someone called in). Good communication, i.e. a shared understanding between you and your staff members of what’s expected and when, is crucial to minimise wasting precious resources on no-shows. An automated system that incorporates online and text messaging can reduce the potential for any misunderstandings.

5.   And beware of hidden calories

Just as those fat-free treats often have hidden calories, the cash costs of your wages is rarely the true cost. Hospitality firms get caught by hidden costs such as holiday pay, long service leave or extra taxation. These can add anywhere from 10-15% on your wage costs. So it helps to be aware and keep this in mind when you’re doing your budgets. This year could be a great one for your business, especially if you spend some time getting wage costs into shape. Try goRoster for free to see the difference it could make.