Workforce management tools can help to empower staff

Conor Shaw, chief executive of Bizimply, says: "The recruitment crisis has put the focus on the need to invest in the pay and conditions of key staff such as GMs and head chefs with pay increases and retention bonuses. That is already stretching wage budgets, so employers don't always have the option to increase pay significantly for entry-level staff working front-of-house and kitchen shifts. It's important, therefore, to understand employee motivation at this level."

What increasingly motivates these employees is flexibility and a key aspect of this is having visibility of their forthcoming shifts and the ability to easily change them. "It can no longer just be a top-down relationship. Of course, employers need team members to be available at the busiest times, but equally employees need to know they can fit work around their other commitments," says Shaw.

Rob Bright, chief executive and founder of Cloud Assess, agrees: "Employees have been increasingly keen for greater flexibility at work. WFM tools help employers meet these demands by empowering staff to work the hours they want." For instance, he says hotel service staff that may work a pattern of 6am-3pm shifts, Monday to Friday, and are also expected to be available every Saturday and with a WFM tool, they can swap shifts without needing to draw managers into lengthy email chains. "They're in control of the hours they work – or don't work – according to their needs and contract requirements," says Bright.

Shaw suggests it is those businesses that have robust WFM systems in place that are able to give employees the maximum notice of shifts, and process any changes in employees' shift patterns quickly. "Employees can use it to communicate when they're available in good time. Bizimply's software helps businesses reduce the amount of time spent creating staff rotas and sorting out payroll," he explains.

Noel Hunwick, co-founder of Inamo Restaurants, uses a WFM solution from Fourth for managing various processes including attendance, timing, rotas, payroll and forecasting. Although he describes it as an "older system" the recent addition of biometrics as a bolt-on has helped the solution evolve and enabled the restaurant group to achieve more effective and accurate management of its payroll.

Time to care

As well as delivering accuracy WFM solutions also enable GMs and supervisors to spend more time front of house where they can have the most positive impact, making operational decisions, managing team members and interacting with customers.

Matt Scaife, partner with Causeway Capital, owner of coffee and cake specialist Bakers + Baristas, has been enjoying just such benefits: "For employers, it's more important than ever to not simply tell employees you understand their needs, but to demonstrate it. An effective workforce management system such as the Bizimply system allows us manage labour more flexibly. It has clear advantages for the business, as well as advantages for team members who are increasingly looking to have more flexible working arrangements and a better work life balance."

He adds: "As employers, we are very aware of the current challenge of balancing inflationary pressure in the business with meeting employee expectations for wage growth. However, I don't think it's as simple as just doing one or the other. Employers need to offer employees more flexible and more enjoyable working arrangements, along with all of the extras and wraparound support that people require and deserve."

Helping companies handle this more effectively is increasingly intelligent software that empowers managers to easily create staff rotas that account for the hospitality industry's varying environment. Seddon says hospitality managers are now looking to scheduling tools that enable them to automatically build staff rotas that factor in the likes of forecasted sales and covers, labour costs, and varying employee availability.

"With solutions such as Access' Rotaready, employees are able to do all of this without having to invest a significant amount of their time. This not only helps free up valuable time and increases productivity, but it also contributes to employee happiness and aids retention," he suggests.

Seddon believes the future of WFM solutions is in automating decision-making processes, such as offering shift suggestions for who should work (and when) and predicting the anticipated number of covers in a restaurant and appropriate staffing levels, for example. This, he says, is something that tools such as Rotaready are already offering.

Come aboard

As well as retaining employees through offering more flexibility and visibility around their working patterns there is also the challenge of recruitment for hospitality companies. To help overcome this issue Hunwick introduced the Harri solution for recruitment and on-boarding of new personnel, with its central management of the recruitment process proving particularly valuable to the Inamo business.

"We are able to post ads across various job boards and organise interviews. It's all done centrally rather than via separate emails, which saves a lot of time and also reduces the cost of [job board] posting fees," says Hunwick.

Pub and hotel operator Fuller's has also enjoyed great success from its adoption of Harri for recruitment, which Dawn Browne, people & talent director at Fuller, Smith & Turner, describes as the biggest challenge for the company. Despite the chronic shortage of people in the industry she says Fuller's has been enjoying more applicants for its jobs than ever as it leverages the power of the Harri applicant tracking solution, which takes Fuller's vacant jobs and places them on various job boards and then manages the whole process of dealing with applicants.

"The system means we can drag and drop messages for sending to applicants. It works really well as it makes us more efficient and solves a real problem," explains Browne.

Communication nation

Another problem that needed solving during Covid-19 was improved communications to employees through the various lockdowns and the increased amount of working remotely and from home. At Inamo the decision was made to use WhatsApp despite Hunwick having been resistant to using the technology as a communications tool before the pandemic.

But during the pandemic he admits "we were pushed over the line to use the tool" to engage with staff during lockdown and its effectiveness has meant there are now, post-Covid-19, around eight to 10 groups in use across the business including one for maintenance that involves simply sending a photo of the problem to the relevant person.

Hunwick says Inamo is sufficiently small enough to successfully use the functionality of WhatsApp but for larger companies he acknowledges it would be sensible to use specialist solutions such as Slack. "You can pay for various solutions but we can use this for free and it is strongly encrypted so it works for us while we are small," he explains.

Seddon also recognises the need for greater communications and highlights Access Trail, which he says goes beyond more generic employee communication tools and offers broader functionality: "Digital checklists automate repetitive data entry, reduce admin, ensure the same standards are applied even on the busiest days and simplify workflow to give teams freedom to do more and enable them to deliver great guest experiences that improve your bottom line. They enable head office to update changes quickly and consistently across all sites."

Covid-19 was also a prompt for communicational change at Fuller's. Although it had implemented the communications app Fuse prior to the pandemic the level of take-up had been disappointing, according to Browne, when it initially included people's payslips and other relevant information. When training modules were then added take-up jumped slightly but it was the pandemic when usage really "took off" and now 95% of the team are regular users of the app, she says.

With a remote workforce Browne says it is not ideal to have to rely on pub managers to relay all news and company information across their team members and Fuse enables engaged employees to access the relevant information and training materials without having to go through their managers. "It's a grown up way to communicate. Obviously face-to-face is great but across our workforce we cannot do this," says Browne.

Bright at Cloud Assess specifically recognises the value of delivering training this way: "Things like compliance training, for example, which needs to be regularly completed, can be done online and at a time the employee chooses, while supervisors keep in touch remotely. If additional training needs to be carried out face-to-face, the employee can message their trainer and schedule this for when they're back at work."

The success of Fuse as a communications – and training tool – that links employees across the group prompted Fuller's to build-out something of an ecosystem around the app. This includes payment solution Wagestream, which enables employees to instantly access the wages earnt to date, ahead of pay day. However, Browne says it is used by many team members as a way to simply view what they have earned and also to save money. "Many people are saving £5 per week and they can also win prizes through our ‘Saver of the Month'. It's a very positive partnership we have with Wagestream."

Access Group has also recognised the value of such services and has included similar functionality within its product suite. Seddon says: "On demand pay has become an important benefit for a workforce where flexibility and support are important employee considerations. The option of integrating products such as Access Early Pay with WFM technology is therefore attractive for both recruitment and retention of staff. As everyone adapts to cope with the rise in the cost of living, giving employees instant access to the money they have already earned helps them budget more intuitively, leading to a more engaged workforce and reduced staff turnover."

Fuller's has also linked Fuse with employee benefits tool iCOM Works that Browne describes as a one-stop-shop benefits solution for its employees, which collates a variety of offers and promotions that are available to Fuller's employees such as a 6% discounts when shopping at Tesco. The next functionality for Fuller's to add could be the automation of the rewards it gives to employees when they hit anniversary milestones. "At the moment we manually send vouchers to celebrate first and five year anniversaries. With 5,000 people anything to help this task would be positive so we're looking at a way to automate it," she says.

Such moves to bring in various technology solutions around WFM very much highlights the importance of connectivity and integration in today's hospitality businesses. Bright says: "We're becoming more aware of the importance of connectivity. The ability to better integrate systems, as well as to share big data more effectively, will ensure the best experience for everyone when it comes to WFM."

Seddon agrees: "Making sure that they can integrate with wider technology within the hospitality sector remains the most effective way of encouraging employee engagement and satisfaction and improving business productivity and efficiency. Today's requirement of WFM solutions lies in more than just simple employee communication and basic scheduling. Any progressive WFM solution should now be built to suit the needs of every user. If every employee enjoys and benefits from using your chosen solution it will only aid employee retention and operational efficiency."

Matter of fact

• 44% of people are thinking of changing jobs (source: LinkedIn)
• Staff turnover is expected to be 20% higher in the future (source: Gartner)
• 75% of managers say they have tried to retain employees versus 48% of employees who say managers have tried to retain them (source: UKG)
• 43% of people who changed jobs think they were better off in their old job (source: UKG)
• 41% who left their job believe they made the decision too quickly (source: UKG)
• 82% of HR departments are having trouble implementing technology that helps automate some of their processes and gives employees more control over their work schedule (source: UKG)