Losing track of your shift plans on spreadsheets? Ditch Excel and embrace a workforce management solution - and watch the magic happen!

Few other sectors rely on casual staff as much as hospitality - or experience such high staff turnover. That’s why managing staff and shift plans efficiently is the key to success. If you’re losing track – and valuable time – planning those schedules in Excel, you’re not alone. 

It’s estimated that using a specialised scheduling tool can reduce the time you use on shift management by a lot. Yet many hospitality businesses - from neighbourhood restaurants to hotel chains – are still relying on Excel spreadsheets or even pen-and-paper rotas to handle the complexities of a modern, flexible workforce with constantly shifting schedules. 

Yeah. You might need a little help with that. 

Here’s why Excel and paper rotas are holding you back: 

• They’re time-consuming: Manually creating and updating schedules, calculating hours, and managing shift swaps is prone to error and eats into your time – which could be better spent running your business. 
• They lack real-time insights: Excel can’t give you an easy overview of your overall labour costs, staff availability - and whether you’re complying with UK labour regulations around overtime hours. We bet you're spending endless hours poring over schedules, tallying it all up, and allocating shifts inefficiently, as well as running up labour costs and risking compliance penalties.
• They cause miscommunication: It’s time-consuming to chase down every team member to coordinate schedule changes and give updates like, “we’re out of the desert today!” Poor communication results in scheduling clashes, worksite blunders and unhappy employees. 
• They lead to inefficient staffing: Your Excel sheets can’t account for demand fluctuations, so you’ll risk overstaffing during slow periods and understaffing during peak hours. This can lead to poor customer service, lost revenue opportunities, and increased staff turnover.
• They don’t keep you compliant: The UK hospitality sector is subject to numerous labour regulations, like minimum wage requirements, compulsory rest breaks, and working time restrictions. On a spreadsheet, you might miss a compliance oversight - which could lead to legal repercussions and reputational damage. 
• They keep you inflexible: In today's gig economy, scheduling flexibility is a top priority for many workers. Spreadsheets make it harder to accommodate last-minute requests, shift swaps and availability changes – so you’re less likely to offer your staff flexibility. 

What if we could give you one tool to solve all that? 

Here’s what happens when hospitality businesses level up to a specialised workforce management tool:

• You’ll streamline your scheduling: Why not get yourself a one-stop tool to simplify the scheduling process. Managers can create schedules, assign shifts, and handle requests in minutes – and staff receive instant notifications and can access their shift plan from anywhere. Goodbye shift confusion. 
• You’ll gain real-time insights: With powerful reporting and analytics, you’ll gain valuable insights into how much you spend on labour, track things like revenue and profit and optimise staffing levels based on your historical data. With all that info on hand, you can make smart decisions that enhance your profits and efficiency - and allocate just the right amount of staff. 
• You’ll improve communication: With a centralised communication hub managers and employees can easily exchange messages, share updates and request shift changes. You can privately message one individual - or send a company-wide update. This way, everyone is in sync and on schedule. 
• You’ll stay compliant: Of course, you can also track employee hours, break times, and overtime. And get an alert if something doesn’t comply with your local labour regulations. 
• You’ll simplify payroll: An automated payroll system means real-time and accurate reporting, so payslips are error-free and accurate (and staff are happier!). If your workforce management tool integrates with your payroll software provider - you can connect the two for easier payroll processing, plus unique data insights on staff costs. 

Who wants an outdated Excel spreadsheet that isn’t keeping up with your busy hotel? Join thousands of hospitality businesses across the UK who have saved time and money with Planday – and report happier staff, too!

Let us help with that - give our commitment-free 30 day trial a go.