by Abby Henson | 9 Jan, 2018 | Blog, Press & News
February promises to be an exciting month, as S4Labour are exhibiting at two of hospitality’s biggest trade shows in London.
First up is Pub18, the UK’s only dedicated pub industry show, which opens its doors at Kensington’s Olympia on Tuesday 6th and Wednesday 7th. Two weeks later we will be taking our place amongst a host of first-rate exhibitors for Casual Dining at the Business Design Centre, Islington, on Wednesday 21st and Thursday 22nd of the month.
Trade shows are always a fantastic opportunity to demonstrate S4Labour to new operators and catch up with existing users, as well as rubbing shoulders with inspiring and influential people from all sectors of the industry.
Attendance at both events is free with advance registration. Sign up for Pub18 here, and Casual Dining here. We’re looking forward to seeing familiar faces and forging new relationships.
by Abby Henson | 5 Jan, 2018 | Blog
2018 is upon us, but for hospitality operators, the new year is all too often not a happy one.
After December’s glut of sales, January can feel like a famine. With the public watching their waistlines and looking after the pennies once more, footfall at most sites will be down causing revenue to suffer. More than ever, writing efficient rotas must be a priority for managers. Effective scheduling minimises overstaffing, reducing labour spend, but also protects against understaffing, ensuring sales opportunities are not missed and service levels are retained. Here’s our best advice:
Are your staff deployed effectively?
It all Starts with Forecasting
Accurate sales forecasting is pivotal to efficient scheduling. If you do not have a firm idea of how busy your business is likely to be, it will be very difficult to deploy the right level of staffing. It’s a great idea to equip yourself with as much information as you can before making a forecast; considering weather conditions, recent trading patterns, previous years’ data, and events in the local area will contribute to accurate predictions.
Identify Slack & Stress, and Redeploy Accordingly
We think of overstaffing as slack – times of wasted capacity and labour spend – and understaffing as stress – times when staff are rushed to the point of missing sales and delivering sub-standard service. Understanding and identifying these conditions, and redeploying labour accordingly, is an ideal way to improve the efficiency of rotas without having to cut your employees’ hours. Taking one person off Wednesday afternoon and moving their hours to Saturday night may have little impact on Wednesday but allow your weekend team to work far more efficiently, having a big positive effect on sales and customer experience.
Kitchen and Front of House teams should be considered independently
Consider Business Areas Individually
Efficient scheduling is not just a matter of how much you are spending on labour. Where the wage budget is spent is also of great significance. It’s important to consider the different areas of your business individually. You may be achieving your targeted labour percentage, but a deeper look can reveal major issues. An overstretched kitchen and underworked front of house team could at first glance balance to give the impression of an efficient site, but neither department is working efficiently. The best rotas are written by area, ensuring efficiency across the board and delivering the best results.
Shorten, Split, and Stagger to Save
We often speak to operators who we feel apply an overly blunt approach to their scheduling. They might know they need five people front of house on a Saturday night, and that their site is open from five o’clock till midnight, and therefore rota five employees to start at five and finish shortly after midnight. We feel this approach is too inflexible. The peak of trade may come between seven and ten, so is there really a need to have all five employees starting at five and finishing after midnight? Shortening shifts, staggering start times, and utilising split shifts are all important tools in keeping labour spend tightly controlled.
It’s not too early to plan for big days ahead
Schedule Ancillary Tasks on the Rota
It’s likely that your hourly-paid team members will be eager to retain their busy schedules from the festive period into January, but with reduced sales it is often very difficult for managers to do this and still hit their labour targets. It can often feel like a balancing act between keeping staff and area managers happy. An effective compromise can be scheduling employees for shifts where the focus is on tasks that don’t directly generate sales. Deep cleaning is probably welcome after a busy December, and it’s not too early to start planning for Valentine’s and Mothers’ Days, as well as Easter, which comes early this year. If you have any particularly social media savvy employees, it can be a great idea to schedule some time for them to create posts to advertise any January offers, potentially driving sales.
S4Labour provides the insight managers need to make accurate sales forecasts and write optimised rotas, resulting in reduced costs, increased sales, and improved service levels, supporting the year-round success of their business.
by Abby Henson | 28 Dec, 2017 | Blog, Press & News
After a few too many pigs in blankets and countless celebratory Christmas drinks, January is viewed by many as a chance to kick-start a healthier lifestyle and reduce spending on food and drink after an indulgent festive period.
Over 3 million people have said that they plan to give up alcohol during the first month of 2018 as part of Dry January: a government-backed initiative to reduce the UK’s alcohol consumption. Dry January took-off in 2013, aiming to improve people’s health, reduce the amount of money spent on alcohol, raise awareness of the negative effects of alcohol consumption, and fundraise for their partner charities.
With almost a fifth of British adults pledging to avoid alcohol, and many more counting their pennies, January can be a difficult month for hospitality operators. After a busy December, footfall and sales will be reduced in most sites, but with intelligent management, this time of year does not have to be damaging for your business.
To combat a likely decline in visitor numbers, operators must consider fresh strategies to bring customers through the door.
The average Brit is predicted to spend more than £200 on alcohol during the week prior to Christmas, meaning consumers’ purse-strings are likely to be tightened in January. Attracting customers into your sites with promotions and entertainment is key to minimising the effects of the looming January lull.
Attractive promotions can provide an incentive to venture out of the house for food and drink, even when cost-saving is a high priority. Modelling their offer on January sales in department stores, JD Wetherspoon have offered a price reduction on a variety of their alcoholic and soft drinks from 3rd-8th January for the last fifteen years, helping to keep the January blues at bay for their 900 sites.
As well as Dry January, general trends suggest that more and more people are turning away from alcohol. Research predicts that consumers will choose soft drinks over alcoholic drinks, even during the Christmas period. However, a third of consumers don’t think that there are enough premium soft drinks available at pubs, bars, and restaurants. With a rising demand, along with the typically high yield that soft drinks bring, licensees can offset the effects of Dry January by increasing the range of non-alcoholic drinks available.
Avoiding alcohol doesn’t require losing the taste and atmosphere that comes with drinking out. No or low alcohol is the fastest growing category in beer, with sales doubling in the last ten years. Mocktails can also be a great way to boost January sales, providing customers with exciting tastes without the guilt that alcoholic cocktails may bring.
Rising numbers of health-conscious consumers, along with those suffering from Christmas guilt and possessing hopeful New Year’s resolutions, mean that it is important to increase the number of healthy dishes, such as salads, on the menu. Being high-yield menu items, these dishes are also attractive for managers looking to boost profit margins in January. However, many customers still want warm and indulgent food during the winter months, so it is important to offer balanced menus.
2017 saw a rise in entertainment-led food and drink venues such as escape rooms and mini golf bars. In addition to revising food and drink offers, a great way to boost sales this January would be to host a range of events, from movie nights to live comedy, to convince customers to venture out to your site.
S4 Labour’s event feature is a great way to ensure that labour deployment remains correct during periods of unfamiliar trading patterns that events may cause; this will lead to the smooth running of events and happy customers.
It is important that news of any January promotions and events is shared on social media, as this is a great way to get people through the door. Show off the exciting new products/events that you’ve got on in January with #TryJanuary, the Morning Advertiser’s campaign which looks to rebel against the idea that January will be a quiet month for hospitality. With most operators now using social media to market themselves, failure to do so can leave you behind.
As well as driving increased sales through new products and events, managers can also boost January’s profitability by turning their attention to internal processes to increase efficiency
Effective labour scheduling is the number one way for managers to increase efficiency in January. Managers should consider greater use of split-shifts, staggered start times, and shorter shifts. The effects to trading patterns brought on by trends such as Dry January and healthier eating require greater consideration of labour deployment within sites. With the expected fall in late-night drinks sales, managers might want to consider redeploying staff from the bar to other areas of the business or from evenings to daytime hours.
S4Labour provides a site’s previous year’s food and drink sales. This feature acts as an advisor to a manager when forecasting their sales, leading to the S4Labour graph suggesting labour deployment that will be reflective of January trading patterns. By splitting sales by food and drink, the graph reflects changes to requirements by trading area.
Encouraging staff to upsell in January will make a big difference to business. With customers less keen to part with their money in January, it is important that staff are active in driving sales. A good way to encourage staff to upsell is to implement a reward scheme for the number of starters and desserts sold with main dishes during busy food-led periods of trading e.g. a Sunday afternoon. Not only will this increase staff interaction with customers, leading to greater customer experience, but will also encourage staff to play their part in boosting revenue.
January is a good time to focus on tasks that are not directly linked to serving customers. With key dates such as Mother’s Day, Valentine’s Day, and Easter fast approaching, January provides a great opportunity to get ahead with the planning and marketing of events and promotions on social media. This preparation will help to boost sales after a quiet start to the year. As well as preparation, a quiet trading period will provide a good opportunity to catch-up on any tasks, such as cleaning and décor work, that may need doing after a busy festive period.
Whilst January may be a daunting time for many operators, it has the potential to be a healthy month for the business as well as the customer. The introduction of new and exciting items on the menu that cater for a health-conscious market, alongside attractive events, will allow hospitality venues to remain appealing during the first month of 2018. An active presence on social media with effective marketing and planning will ensure that the hard work to boost January sales won’t go unnoticed.
Get in touch today to find out more about how S4Labour can promote the health of your business in January and all your round.
by Abby Henson | 8 Dec, 2017 | Blog, Press & News
We are delighted to announce that we have established an integration with leading data and business analytics providers Tahola.
We will work together with Tahola to provide the hospitality industry with a solution that meets organisations’ labour management and business intelligence requirements. This will result in reduced costs, improved processes, and increased revenue for operators.
Both companies recognise the effectiveness of enhancing their own specialism through integration, adding further value for their users. In line with this, Tahola have developed an interface allowing its analytics solution to plug into S4Labour’s labour deployment data, saving mutual customers time and minimising the need for investment in costly bespoke integration work.
S4Labour’s Gareth Thomas, who worked closely with Tahola in establishing the project, enthused about the partnership saying, “Tahola are an excellent organisation who are at the cutting edge of data analytics for hospitality. I’m very excited about working with them to deliver great outcomes for our clients.”
What does the partnership mean for customers?
By combining the speed and capacity of cloud computing with a simple interface to S4Labour and Tahola’s intuitive dashboards, we can provide detailed, near-instant answers to key questions. This frees up managers to focus their attention elsewhere. Data is also visible on mobile devices, allowing managers to spend less time in the office and more time leading their teams and delivering great service to maximise sales.
by Abby Henson | 7 Dec, 2017 | Blog, Press & News
Congratulations are in order for three S4Labour clients who have been confirmed as finalists at the 2018 edition of the prestigious Publican Awards.
Seafood Pub Company claim their 2015 trophy
Seafood Pub Company will vie to claim the hotly-contested Best Food Offer category, an accolade they previously won in 2015, while Anglian Country Inns beat off stiff competition to take their place amongst the candidates for the Best Accommodation Operator prize. Completing the trio are Albion & East, whose Canova Hall site has been nominated for Best New Bar.
Seafood Pub Company operates twelve food-led pubs in some of Lancashire and Yorkshire’s most picturesque locations, with an ethos of sourcing quality local produce to serve classic British dishes and fresh seafood specials. They began using S4Labour’s innovative labour management software in May 2016 and have thrived since, adding two new sites to their estate.
Anglian Country Inns – themselves twice previous winners of the Best Food Offer award – manage eight destination pubs with rooms spread across Norfolk and Hertfordshire, and have won a host of awards and plaudits for their stunning refurbishments of historic English inns. They became S4Labour customers in early 2015 and their directors have often spoken warmly of the relationship between the two companies at industry events since.
Backed by renowned hospitality investment partners Imbiba, Albion & East took on S4Labour in their Martello Hall site last year, while their second venue Canova Hall opened this autumn. With an offer that’s part restaurant, part cocktail, part nightclub, and wholely impressive, they have been earning rave reviews from customers and the press.
We are delighted to work with a superb array of clients from all sectors of the hospitality industry and proud to be a contributing factor in their ongoing success. We wish Seafood Pub Company and Anglian Country Inns the very best for the Publican Awards finals night in March.
