Are you using a restaurant scheduling app yet? Trying to figure out the week's schedule with a calendar and a mixture of notes, texts, and emails is a recipe for disaster. You're going to forget who's requested time off, who's unavailable, and when you have big reservations. Juggling it all takes a lot of time and it's easier to make mistakes when you don't have one central place to put all your information.

Instead of going back to the drawing board or trying to fix mistakes in a hurry, do it right the first time with a restaurant scheduling app.

1) Time Off Requests

Get all your employees' time off requests in a mobile app. It's a great way to stay on top of leave requests, whether they're single days or week-long vacations. A good restaurant scheduling app will let you easily approve them and keep them all in one calendar.

Once you try it, you'll see that one of the top benefits of a restaurant scheduling app is centralized time off requests.

2) Team Communications

Servers and bartenders are constantly swapping shifts, asking each other to cover, and generally doing their best to undo all the hard work you put into a schedule. Don't get stressed about it, they're only trying to make the most of their social lives in an industry that can leave feeling like you're missing out, especially when your friends work more traditional 9-5s.

A good restaurant scheduling app will have a group chat, as well as direct messages, that make team communications easier. When all the little things are available in one place, you save time as the manager.

3) Employee Engagement & Feedback

Want to know more about how your staff are feeling and how a shift went? Restaurant scheduling apps like 7shifts now include features for shift feedback. Engagement software can help you reduce turnover by giving you more insights into what makes your employees tick - and what ticks them off. The app can prompt employees to rate shifts and leave short comments. Find out about problems before they become two-weeks notices.

Average shift scores will also show you which shifts tend to burn out employees. That way you have all the information you need to make informed scheduling decisions, from labor costs to sales to employee satisfaction.

4) Time Clocking

You need to make sure you're on top of attendance, time management, and labor compliance. With time clocking, you can see that habitually late employee forming bad habits before it's too late. There are many approaches to handling habitual lateness, and often a soft approach is the most effective. Catch the signs early and you can intervene before discipline is necessary.

5) More Data

One of the biggest assets a restaurant scheduling app like 7shifts provides is easy-to-access data on sales, labor costs, and labor as a percent of sales. Stop flipping through receipts and reports to try to figure out whether you spent too much on labor or not.

Make better scheduling decisions in less time with a restaurant scheduling app. You can save time and labor costs with the right technology.