FireFly Technologies announced today the release of a completely enhanced labor scheduling software feature included within the Phoenix Point-of-Sale system.
“Managing labor efficiently is the key to controlling costs in any service-oriented business,” commented FireFly marketing director Duessa Holscher. “We are striving to give operators tools right within their POS system to modernize the process of scheduling and communicating with employees.”
New features include the ability to specify recurring times when employees are not available and to restrict employee availability hours per day, hours per week or days per week. Employees can electronically request specific days off which alerts a manager to approve or reject the request.
“One of the leading causes of employee turnover in the restaurant industry is no shows. Many of these are accidental where either an employee forgot to request a day off, or a manager accidently schedules an employee when they are not available. Also, a history of requested days off helps in discussions with employees dissatisfied with their hours,” commented Jonathon Bailey, Operations Manager for 7 Mountain Mike’s Pizza stores and a Phoenix POS user.
A graphical daily schedule view and a “week at a glance” scheduler alert the manager to employee availability conflicts and scheduled overtime. Hourly sales and delivery count forecasts help to manage the suggested labor budget.
Communicating with employees is critical when it comes to scheduling. Phoenix POS can automatically send employees a text message, e-mail, or internal message when a schedule has been posted or changed, or when their time off request has been reviewed. Since these messages are a permanent part of the employee record, there will never be an argument about whether the employee was told of the change.
Phoenix POS includes many tools to help manage employees efficiently, including up-to-the-minute labor sales analysis and overtime alerts which can be accessed by owners remotely from anywhere in the world.
“We modeled these scheduling enhancements after some of the leading stand-alone labor scheduling software packages available, modifying designs based on customer input at our user convention and customer feedback submitted via our “software suggestions” button within the POS,” explained Holscher. “Like most of our development, this feature was very restaurant-owner driven and will prove to be a big time-saver for our customers.”
FireFly Technologies markets the Phoenix Point-of-Sale system, which is a full-featured delivery and table service management solution. Contact FireFly at 866-678-6781 or www.fireflypos.com.
