Restaurants Unlimited Reduces Labor Overtime by 50% With HotSchedules Labor Management Solution
March 25, 2009 - HotSchedules today announced that Restaurants Unlimited, Inc. (RUI) has successfully rolled out its Enterprise labor management solution in all of its 60 restaurants across 13 concepts nationwide, including Stanford's, Kincaid's, Palomino and more.
RUI's goal in looking for a labor management solution was to find a tool that would help them to work smarter-and they found just that in HotSchedules. Since RUI wanted to fully roll out the HotSchedules solution in all of its restaurants before the 2008 holiday rush, the team at HotSchedules worked quickly through the pilot and implementation phases to ensure that RUI met their go-live goal date.
The rollout was completed in all of RUI's restaurants in November 2008, and RUI has since reduced its employee overtime by 50 percent and accrued labor savings of .3 percent, which the company expects to grow in the coming months. HotSchedules' easy online employee scheduling has also reduced the managers' time to create weekly schedules by 75 percent.
Additionally, HotSchedules enables RUI to track labor costs and minimize overtime in unique situations, such as employee sharing across concepts and locations. Before implementing HotSchedules, RUI-like many other chains that share some employees between their restaurants-did not have the visibility into an employee's total "worked" hours across the chain, which would often result in unnecessary overtime situations. RUI also takes advantage of the labor forecasting tool available in the HotSchedules Enterprise package.
HotSchedules has already become an integral part of the culture in RUI's restaurants. Managers and employees can communicate easier and faster than ever, from schedule requests to notifying upcoming meetings and events. With the HotSchedules Digital Logbook included in the Enterprise package, RUI's managers have enhanced collaboration and accountability than with printed red books. The Digital Logbook also encourages more employee feedback and greater effectiveness of management communication.
"Our managers and employees are huge fans of HotSchedules, and it's already proving to be a valuable tool at the regional level as well," said Chris Ideson, Regional Director at Restaurants Unlimited. "The level of communication that RUI has been able to achieve with HotSchedules has really made a difference in the working environment at our restaurants, and the cost savings have already surpassed our original goal. We look forward to working more with HotSchedules on the Enterprise Reporting features in the coming months."
"We are impressed and encouraged by RUI's fast and highly successful adoption of our restaurant labor management solution," said Ray Pawlikowski, president, HotSchedules. "At a time when many restaurants are striving to save money wherever possible and retain their best employees, Restaurants Unlimited is a great example of how HotSchedules can do just that while building a culture of organized communication and accountability."
About HotSchedules
HotSchedules, innovators of the most widely-used restaurant workforce management solutions, sets the industry standard for service, support and labor management expertise. By engaging with its clients as partners, HotSchedules vastly improves management-employee communications, resulting in greater employee satisfaction and retention-and offers a fast, proven ROI through reduced manual scheduling and labor costs. From independent restaurants to corporate chains, HotSchedules' suite of solutions empowers restaurant staff and managers with all the tools they need to communicate effectively and efficiently. More than 2,750 restaurants and over 300,000 users rely on HotSchedules every day. HotSchedules complements its product offerings with a world-class, bilingual support staff at the company's headquarters in Austin, Texas.
HotSchedules' corporate and franchise clients include such well-known concepts as Outback Steakhouse, the Cheesecake Factory, P.F. Chang's China Bistro, Carino's Italian Grill, Chili's, Carrabba's Italian Grill, Fleming's Steakhouse, Applebee's, Jamba Juice and many others. For more information, visit www.hotschedules.com.