Labor is on the minds of many restaurant executive's these days and for good reason. The news of the Department of Labor's new overtime rules along with minimum wage increases has operators scrambling to keep labor costs down. Technology can play a big role in helping track labor and prevent overtime.
Systems Used To Track and Manage Labor
- Labor Scheduling
- Point of Sale (POS)
- Back Office (BOH)
Labor Scheduling systems generally do a great job of helping you create, communicate and manage schedules for each restaurant. Some may even have forecasting capabilities to help you make sure you've got just the right about of peopled scheduled for each shift, in turn saving you money and increasing customer satisfaction.
Besides recording sales information, Point of Sale systems usually also record labor information such as punch detail. Employees can use the POS to clock in and out.
Many restaurants also use a Back Office system that allows them to keep track of things like inventory and food cost. Many BOH systems are connected to the POS system and receive the labor information captured by the POS. Managers can then go in and make edits to labor information managed by the BOH system.
Multiple systems surrounding labor information is a recipe for confusion. Each system houses it's own set of data. Each system may also have it's own set of analytics. But how do you know if you're looking at the "right" information?
Bringing Information Together
While all of the systems mentioned above are great at performing the transactional work of tracking and managing labor, in order to really control your labor costs it's important to bring the information together in order to analyze and track trends and areas for improvement.
Using an Enterprise Data Warehouse allows you to integrate data from all of these systems. With one system of record you eliminate confusion as to which numbers are correct. For example labor punch ins and outs may be recorded in the POS but managers may go in to the BOH system to edit missed punches. When you're working with mulitple systems it's hard to keep everyone on the same page. With an Enterprise Platform there's no arguing over which numbers are "correct".
Not sure what to look for?
Thoughts?
How do you manage labor? Do you use a combination of systems? Use restaurant management software?
About Mirus:
Mirus is a multi-unit restaurant reporting software used by operations, finance, IT, and marketing.
For more information, please visit: www.mirus.com
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