Tilted Kilt Improves Operations with Scheduling Tech Overhaul
The Tilted Kilt had a set of very unique challenges. John Stevenson, director of training, says that having been with the Tilted Kilt in various roles for the last five years, he is no stranger to how time-consuming creating employee schedules using spreadsheets can be.
In addition to just building a schedule with the right people in the right places, managers have to consider many other factors, such as sales and labor forecasts, staff availability, and requests off. Once the schedule is built, they have to print and post it to a bulletin board. From there, managers deal with the inevitable changes and new requests that come in, along with innumerable calls to the store from staff members who haven’t made it in to read the schedule.
All the time spent on the schedule was time lost working on other aspects of the business. It was a reasonable source of enormous frustration for staff and managers alike, so Stevenson began looking into ways he could improve things. He had been hearing more and more about solutions for online scheduling, and went in search of additional information.
Steventson reveiwed industry publications and compared several competitve solutions, and the decision to move forward with HotSchedules was made. HotSchedules trained all of their management team and then integrated with their Aloha POS system.
Time to Schedule Reduced by 75%
Since implementing HotSchedules, the process for creating and managing the schedule has been enormously improved. Steveson says he estimates that his company is spending 75% less time on the schedule since making the shift to HotSchedules.
Perhaps even more important than the time saved is the sanity saved. Because the scheduling task is made so much easier, as well as the administration of changes after it is posted, managers are far less harried. Managers aren’t stressed about phone calls coming in 10 minutes before a shift starts with workers asking, “Am I supposed to be there or not?” Now, staff can just check the schedule online or on their phones’ app or call HotSchedules to get it. Everyone across the board, in every position has enjoyed and benefitted from the move to HotSchedules," Stevenson said.
Saving up to 1.5%
The team at The Tilted Kilt also heavily leverages the HotSchedules sales and labor forecasting and reporting functions. A particular favorite is the labor proforma, which defines future labor needs. The labor proforma is crucial to helping the company manage controllable costs. The ability to effectively schedule labor is a key performance indicator (KPI) for the firm.
An additional money-saving feature of the HotSchedules labor management tools are the punctuality controls. Previously, managers were spending a lot of time every shift reviewing clock ins and outs. Now, by pushing the schedule into the Aloha POS system, managers can control when employees are allowed to clock in or out, if they wish, saving them valuable time and money.
All in all, the forecasting and reporting elements of HotSchedules have greatly improved the way that the Tilted Kilt manages their labor. What was once more of a course, blunt instrument has been refined and made more precise.