Labor Management in the Hospitality Industry continued
When
creating labor standards, managers determine how many
hours of labor are needed for given volumes of business. An
effective planning system is able to “think like the manager”
for determining labor and incorporate the labor standards
throughout the LMS. This includes the scheduling, reporting
and evaluating systems.
The planning system should include the following key
components of a labor standard:
- Ability to be created for each position
- Includes forecast criteria that drives labor (including
multiple forecast criteria)
- Incorporates both fixed and variable labor
- Determines labor on a per unit basis (minutes/unit, hour/
unit, units/hour, etc.)
- Can be specified for different days of the week
Scheduling Systems
An effective scheduling system
allows managers to:
- Know when employees can and
can’t work
- Determine and utilize the skill
levels of employees at each job
- Define all the positions in which
an employee can work
- Automatically create a schedule
based upon the forecast and labor
standards
- Assign employees to specific stations or areas
- Manually edit schedules where needed
While the scheduling system is sorting all this information,
the program must match the hours scheduled with the hours
needed and incorporate management assessments of the
employee skill levels (giving the most hours to those employees
who perform the work most successfully). In union
properties, the program must be able to apply seniority and
minimum shift rules that protect the interest of the employee.
And all this should be done to save time and give managers
more time to interact with their staff and customers.
Scheduling is a combination of science and art. Combining
the two creates an objective process which addresses the
various issues noted above. And because it is objective,
an effective scheduling system must allow the department
manager (or whomever is responsible for scheduling) to edit
the schedule to address needs and challenges that have arisen
but are not always easily quantified (for example, scheduling
a supervisor who is particularly strong when the operation is
busy with a high profile group).
The planning and scheduling systems should be integrated
so that the schedules produced reflect demand for any
particular day rather than a fixed day of the week. While it
is certainly true that Saturdays have more in common with
other Saturdays than with Monday, a scheduling program that
creates a fixed schedule for Saturdays and a fixed schedule for
Mondays assumes that volumes are the same week to week
and this is not the case in the hospitality business. Rather
than have to try and apply a Saturday schedule (assuming that
Saturday is a busy day) to a busy Monday, the planning and
scheduling process should be dynamic and allow scheduling
to be based on business volumes rather than a fixed day of the
week template. Thus, the program should naturally create a
schedule with sufficient staff on any busy day, regardless of
the day of the week. And the program should also create a
schedule with less staff on a slow day, even if the slow day is
usually a busy one.
Execution Systems
Up to this point we have talked about labor management
systems as having a specific and essential role to play in each
step of the labor management process. Execution brings us
to the part of the process where managers are relying on and
monitoring the LMS on a day to day basis to ensure that all of
the benefits from the work done with the forecasting, planning,
and scheduling systems are being realized.
First and foremost, execution depends on the individual
manager responsible for the operation. The LMS provides
various guides (a daily schedule to show who’s due in and due
out, an easy way to list or see available employees if someone
calls off) to assist in the day to day operation. As the actual
business volume is realized, the manager is relying upon the
execution system to manage labor daily.
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