The Restaurant Manager’s Guide to Labor Scheduling

A good staff schedule keeps your restaurant running smoothly. A bad one costs you money, service quality, and staff morale. Here’s a no-fluff guide on how to get your scheduling right.

Why Restaurant Staff Scheduling Is Challenging

Restaurant scheduling is often harder than it looks. Unlike most industries, demand in a restaurant is rarely stable. A slow weekday lunch and a packed Friday dinner require completely different staffing levels, and things can shift quickly even within the same day.

If your staffing schedule doesn’t reflect this, you will either end up paying for idle staff or running short during peak rush hours.

On top of that, restaurant roles are usually not interchangeable. A server can’t just step into the kitchen mid-service, and a line cook can’t cover your bar. This is why restaurant scheduling requires that you don’t just fill shifts, but ensure that every role is covered at the right time with the right people.

Another consideration is the nature of the workforce itself. Many food service employees are part-time or work around school or other jobs. This means that availability can change often, and last-minute call-outs are pretty common.

Putting these factors together can make it much harder to build a stable, predictable schedule for your restaurant staff week after week.

5 Best Practices for Restaurant Labor Scheduling

With all that said, restaurant scheduling can be straightforward if you set a few core habits in place.

Here are the five best practices you can follow to make scheduling more predictable and productive at your restaurant.

1. Use POS Data to Forecast Demand

Before you build your schedule, look at your numbers. Your POS shows you exactly when you’re busy and when you’re not. Most of the data you need is already there, such as:

• Sales by hour and day. This lets you know when you’re actually busy or slow.
• Sales per labor hour. This can show if you’re overstaffed for a shift or stretched thin.
• Labor cost by shift. This can help you spot where you’re overspending on labor.

If you find that Friday nights are your busiest times, that’s where you need to schedule more people. If afternoons are slow every week, you don’t need your full team on the floor.

2. Schedule Around the Rush (Not Employee Preferences)

Here’s how restaurant managers typically make a schedule: they look at who is available on which days, and assign them shifts accordingly. Unfortunately, this is a sure way of ending up short-staffed during a rush.

The right way to build your schedule is around demand, not employee preferences. Based on expected demand, you can figure out how many staff to call:

Expected covers ÷ covers per server = servers needed

For example, if you’re expecting 150 covers on a Friday dinner, and one server can handle around 25 covers, then you’ll need about six servers on the floor.

Once you’ve determined this, that’s when you turn to availability. If you don’t have enough people, now’s the time to fix that. Post the shift, ask for swaps, or bring in someone extra if needed.

3. Use Split Shifts Well

A split shift is when an employee works two parts of the day with a gap in between, usually lunch (11-2), followed by a break (2-6), and then dinner (6-9).

Split shifts are useful for restaurants because they line up well with your lunch and dinner rush, and help you avoid having idle staff during the afternoon lull.

Here are some things to keep in mind when assigning split shifts:

• Check your demand first. Split shifts work only if there’s an actual drop in business between services. If afternoons are still busy, you’re better off with continuous shifts.

• Review your schedule. If you’re constantly overstaffed during mid-day, split shifts can fix that. If not, they don’t add much value.
• Make sure the break is usable. Split shift gaps work if employees can realistically run errands, handle personal tasks, or get adequate rest between shifts. Don’t leave so little time that all they can do is wait around.
• Keep them flexible. Make sure to rotate your split shifts so one employee doesn’t end up working them all. Allow staff to swap or adjust split shifts among themselves when needed.

4. Plan for No-Shows in Advance

Employee no-shows are part of the job. While you can’t exactly avoid them, you can control how prepared you are when they inevitably happen.

First, it’s important to have a no-show policy that clearly communicates:

• What counts as a no-show
• How staff are expected to report absences
• Penalties for failing to do so

While this is a start, simply having a policy isn’t enough. You also need a system for filling in the gap if an employee fails to show up unexpectedly. Here are some ways you can prepare for this:

• Using your traffic forecast, slightly overstaff peak hours so one absence doesn’t completely disturb your service.
• Keep a backup/on-call list of staff who have indicated they’re open to picking up extra shifts.
• Use a team scheduling software where you can post open shifts, instead of individually calling available employees at the last minute.
• Allow for shift swaps, so employees can cover for each other without you stepping in. Set up a swap approval system so you can keep track of who’s working and make sure the right roles are covered.

5. Track Your Labor Cost Every Week

Labor cost is the percentage of your revenue that goes towards paying your staff, and it can be a great indicator of how well your schedule is working.

If you’ve overstaffed, your labor cost will go up. If you’re understaffed, labor cost is lower, but service goes down and revenue drops. Either way, these fluctuations can show that your schedule isn’t lining up with demand.

The general benchmark for labor cost in the restaurant industry is between 31%-37%, but this can vary slightly depending on the type of restaurant:

If you’re staying within these ranges, you’re generally on track.

Use ZoomShift to Schedule Smarter

Managing your restaurant staff is much harder if you’re still building your schedules manually.

ZoomShift is a team scheduling software that helps you build schedules, share them with your staff instantly, and handle things like shift swaps and time-off requests without the back and forth.

You can clearly see who’s working, who’s available, and whether you’re over- or under-staffed, all in one organized place.

With real-time visibility into hours worked and overtime alerts, ZoomShift can also help you stay on top of labor costs and adjust shifts before they become a problem.

Sounds like the scheduling fix your restaurant needs? Get a free trial and test it for yourself today.

JD Spinoza

JD enjoys teaching people how to use ZoomShift to save time spent on scheduling. He’s curious, likes learning new things everyday and playing the guitar (although it’s a work in progress).