Tips for Good Rostering

A robust rostering system is an essential component of a successful restaurant, café or bar. Having the right amount of staff working when you need them ensures the service runs smoothly, and keeps your customers satisfied and coming back for more.

But rostering can also become a time waster, a proverbial juggling act where staff keep changing their minds and swapping shifts and complaining they don’t have a share of the best times to work. How do you get maximum efficiency from your roster? In this article, we discuss some of the features of good, efficient rostering, and explain what you can do to turn your rostering system around.

Utilize “Role Rostering”

Role rostering reverses the usual system of creating a roster based around what individual staff members want. First, work out the allocation of shifts and responsibilities, costing out this plan according to hourly wages, and then add the different staff roles required for each shift. Now, add the names of suitable staff members to each role. This system of role rostering focuses on what’s best of your business.

Share The Top Shifts

For wait and restaurant staff, certain shifts are always better than others in terms of stress and tips. These are the shifts that need the most careful management – you need to share these around fairly to ensure all staff members get their turn.

Automate Rostering Tasks

The more rostering tasks you automate, the more management time you free up for sorting out issues and, well, managing the business. Modern rostering tools can provide costing models at the click of a button and can be updated in real time and sent out to employees via email or SMS. This makes it much easier to manage staff requests for changes or time off.

Enable Staff To Plan In Advance

Everyone has a busy life these days, and the more advance notice staff have of their shifts, the more you reduce unexpected absences and last-minute changes. Focus on automating your rostering system as much as possible so you can advise staff of rosters 4 weeks in advance.

Allow Staff To Check The Roster Without Calling In

With a cloud-based rostering system, you can prepare the roster from anywhere. All staff members will be able to access the most up-to-date roster from their smartphone, PC or other device, without having to call you. The more of your rostering tasks that can be handled in this way, the more time you free up for other tasks.

Using these simple tips will help you implement efficient rostering strategies. If you’re looking for a cloud-based rostering tool that can automatically update employees about shift changes, then call us and find out what goRoster can do for you!