Build resilience and agility into your shifts

Workforce management tools in the hospitality sector offer a range of features that help restaurant, bar, café and catering businesses to achieve perfect shift scheduling to improve productivity and optimise labour costs. They also help you and your team easily manage timekeeping, absences, holidays and other types of leave in real-time through our employee app, giving everyone flexibility and transparency for all. 

Choosing a people planner for your business can be daunting with so many options available. If you’re unsure of what to look for in shift planning software, then this article outlines the main features it should have. You can also book a call with one of our specialists who will listen to your specific needs and help you choose the right package. 

Workforce by Mapal uses a powerful productivity optimisation engine with advanced algorithms. The tool sifts data from past sales patterns to forecast the perfect schedule in a few clicks. As a result, you’ll maximise revenue, minimise costs and improve service as Workforce takes every angle into account: forecasted sales, team availability and preferences, optimised deployment models and the applicable employment laws in your region or country. 

There are many shift planning apps to choose from, but if you run a hospitality business then Workforce by Mapal is highly recommended. Mapal OS was founded by hospitality operators and has created all its solutions specifically for restaurants, cafés and bars. They’ve been carefully designed to help you improve productivity and optimise costs while also delivering the best service to your customers and keeping your team happy and motivated. 

As we’ve already touched upon, the range of different regulations we must meet as hospitality operators is quite extensive, but we’ll outline some of the main areas here: 

Alcohol licensing 

In many countries, including the UK, premises that sell alcohol must have a licence to do so. What’s more, they must also have always at least one employee on duty who is a personal licence holder. 

Food safety 

Businesses of all kinds must make sure they provide safe conditions for their teams and their guests. As hospitality is largely based on food and drink, food safety in hospitality, it's vital to implement a food safety management system to avoid contamination, food poisoning or allergic reactions among guests. Faulty temperatures on fridges, cold rooms or display cabinets can often result in food poisoning, or food waste, so having robust operational checks in place is critical to avoid undesirable incidents, fines or damage to your business reputation. Paper-based procedures systems often fall short and are excessively time-consuming when you’re short-staffed, which is why multi-site restaurant brands are increasingly turning to digital compliance management systems 

GDRP and data 

We process a huge amount of data in our daily transactions with customers, suppliers and also, employee payments. So, it’s essential to comply with data protection laws with every order, payment and invoice. This also applies to our marketing efforts, for example, when we request personal data to promote our goods and services. Read more about data compliance in restaurants here. 

Consumer protection and trade descriptions 

Like all businesses, hospitality operators must not mislead customers when describing their goods or services, including advertising, menu pricing or labelling information. So, when a restaurant advertises a specific dish, it must ensure that it is correctly described, that the photo matches the real thing, the price is correct, and that the customer will receive the same standards of food and service across all the company’s restaurants. This isn’t an easy thing to guarantee, so digital solutions are much more efficient in helping you achieve this to protect your business from legal action, your brand reputation and gain customer loyalty. 

Read our complete guide for more in-depth information and guidance on all the different elements in hospitality compliance for multi-site businesses.