HotSchedules

HotSchedules is a cloud-based HR scheduling, workforce and communication management platform designed to meet the requirements of businesses in the restaurant and hospitality industries.

Since November of 2019, HotSchedules has become a part of a more comprehensive suite of workforce management solutions powered by the Fourth platform. Since the merger, the web-based employee scheduling and workforce management application has had additional features and tools not previously available. The vendor currently serves over 3 million users/businesses in the restaurant and hospitality sectors in about 61 countries.

HotSchedules is a platform that serves as a capable provider of cloud-hosted, mobile app technology for businesses in the retail, restaurant and hospitality industries. It is considered by many as one of the industry’s premier human resources (HR) scheduling and workforce management solutions due to its efficient and user-friendly approach to managing employee shift schedules and team communication.

The software solution is designed to help automate some of the operational challenges that business owners and managers face. This includes recruitment, training and onboarding, benefits and payroll, scheduling and shift communication. HotSchedules also facilitates business intelligence (BI) and inventory management processes.

Hotel and restaurant managers like using HotSchedules because of the time savings and ease-of-use it is able to provide when creating team and employee schedules and one-click request approvals for shift changes. The web-based software is equipped with labor forecasting and compliance management capabilities, which give managers the ability to control costs and reduce compliance risks.

Team members and employees, on the other hand, like using HotSchedules because it allows them to easily pick-up, release or swap shifts via a one-click function in the mobile app. It’s very easy for them to manage their work-life balance through automation. If they want more hours, for instance, the automatic shift pickups is right there in the app. If they want to cut their hours short, there’s also the time-off request function that they can submit to their supervisor or manager.

The calendar sync, notification and messaging features keep everyone connected and up-to-date on any changes in their schedules.

HotSchedules Features

HotSchedules is a robust and feature-rich cloud-based restaurant, hotel and retail management platform that successfully delivers scheduling, talent, workforce and inventory management tools and capabilities to businesses of various sizes. The software solution provides features that allow restaurant managers and business owners to effectively recruit talent, create and share training courses with teams and employees, easily manage the everyday operations and keep track of business productivity.

The following are some of the core features of HotSchedules that you should know about before making a decision whether to try it or not in your own restaurant or hotel business:

Employee scheduling software

HotSchedules’ employee scheduling tool is quite a good one. As a business owner or manager, it allows you to easily create employee schedules by using pre-built templates that are based on predictive scheduling. The tool gives you the ability to approve or deny requests for a shift change with just a single click. It also enables you to create definitive rules in order to limit overtime, gain access to the daily roster report and to quickly determine employee availability. As far employee scheduling goes, HotSchedules’ proprietary tool is quite capable.

Advanced forecasting solution

With this particular function, your business can save money and boost experiences simultaneously with a smarter scheduling approach. You can leverage the key performance indicator (KPI) dashboard to make comparisons between forecasted and real-time data that are constantly updated every 15 minutes. As a manager, you will have the ability to input promotions that are to be logged with other historical data. These can then be compared with forecast information so you can easily evaluate how projects evolve over time.

HotSchedules’ forecasting solution allows managers and business owners to efficiently maintain a higher level of accuracy among the forecasted, budgeted, scheduled and actual hours of work, performance and productivity.

Time and attendance app

With HotSchedules’ time and attendance application, you can easily keep track of the clock-in and clock-out times of all your employees. For restaurateurs, they can collect and access information on tip and break entries of on-shift workers. The tool may also enable employees to effortlessly access their timecards and payroll histories. The integrated app will also allow you to quickly and accurately process payroll, as it is equipped with capabilities for generating aggregated punch information. You can do all of these while being able to flag exceptions for overtime, missing breaks and so on.

This particular feature also allows you to remain payroll compliant with special compensation calculations for meals, breaks and even predictive scheduling. By incorporating the Mobile WebClock function, you will be able to easily setup alerts to notify your workforce when they miss a time punch, for example, or perhaps if they’re about to cross into overtime. This function will also allow you to efficiently set geo-fencing rules, thus giving employees the ability to clock-in using their smartphones or any mobile device.

Digital logbook function

HotSchedules’ digital Logbook is developed based on the Manager’s Redbook, which is a gold standard in the industry. This digital logbook function is designed to help eliminate the highly inefficient and endless back and forth communications with task lists, consolidated shift notes, messages and so on. It allows you to convey crucial information between shifts as well as assign specific tasks right from your own mobile device, thus ensuring accountability and boosting employee performance.

Reporting and analytics solution

HotSchedules’ comprehensive reporting and analytics solution is capable of providing operational insights through the consolidation of multiple data sources, including scheduling, labor forecasting, time and attendance, as well as point-of-sale (POS) data, all in a centralized and easily accessible location. It is also capable of providing aggregated labor information through its dashboards right out of the box, for both regional and corporate analysis, while also offering store-level reporting that helps managers and business owners with keeping track of KPIs in every shift.

HotSchedules Benefits

HotSchedules’ all-in-one approach to employee scheduling and workforce management makes it easier for managers and business owners to create, manage and share employee schedules in an efficient and timely manner. The following are some of the benefits of HotSchedules that might help you decide whether this cloud-based solution is the right fit for your business:

It can help save you valuable time

This should be readily apparent, as far as benefits go. One of the main objectives of using this kind of software is to reduce the time it takes to create employee schedules and assign shifts to the workforce. HotSchedules achieves this particular objective quite emphatically, as it has been known to help managers and business owners save up to 75% of the time it normally takes to complete these kinds of tasks. Employee scheduling and shift assignments can be a time-consuming and difficult prospect without automation, and it’s only going to get more challenging the bigger the workforce.

Encourage and improve employee engagement

The software is designed with a mobile-first approach, providing a mobile app that is optimized for all kinds of smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices. Through the HotSchedules mobile app, managers and business owners can offer their employees with the ability to directly access the platform to view their shift schedules and pay history, communicate with their team as well as to request time time-off or request changes to their schedules. In the same vein, managers will have the ability to approve or deny request with just one click.

It can help minimize labor costs

HotSchedules is equipped with reporting and analytics capabilities. It is this capability that allows it to provide comprehensive and actionable insights to users, specifically business owners and managers. It can generate up-to-date reports pertaining to labor costs, sales and overall business performance, giving managers the ability to properly evaluate their organization’s overall labor practices, thus informing future operations and budget plans.

It helps to ensure compliance with industry regulations

The cloud-based platform allows you to easily configure labor rules and standards to facilitate the documentation and recording of shift transactions, take control of labor costs and to make sure your business remains compliant with all regulations and standards put forth by the industry, city, state and federal legislation.

Enhance communication with the entire workforce

HotSchedules allow managers and business owners to easily communicate with team members, share scheduling changes to the workforce, provide shift swap updates and more. All communications can be done conveniently through the platform as well as the mobile app. This means that even if the employee is out of the workplace, they can still receive important scheduling updates as they occur.

HotSchedules Pricing

HotSchedules follows a subscription-based model with quote-based pricing. Fourth has not provided anymore pricing information to the public with regards to the service. You will have to contact the vendor directly to ask for a custom quote or to request for a demo.

Conclusion

HotSchedules delivers a robust web-based operating platform for restaurant, hospitality and retail businesses. Ever since its merger with Fourth back in 2019, the software solution has been able to provide supporting solutions and services as well, making it a more complete and feature-rich platform for restaurateurs, hoteliers and retailers. HotSchedules is one of the most widely used employee scheduling and workforce management platforms in the market. This product just might have something to offer your business.