ShiftForce Blog

Shift-to-shift businesses heavily rely on effective and efficient communication. Without effective communication, shift changes, swaps, drops, updates, you name it, fall through the cracks and people are left wondering what was, and what could've been. Improving your team's shift-to-shift communication shouldn't be a daunting task. It should be a welcomed opportunity to find where you currently stand, how you can improve, and how you can run a more efficient shift-to-shift business.

What is ShiftNote?

Operating a nearly non-stop business may be undertaking. The demanding excellent leadership, foresight, and planning from management, as well as commitment, dedication, and flexibility from staff members all come into play here.

Jingle Bells bring happiness and joy to kids and adults, but to anyone in a managerial role, it signals for the dreaded holiday season. It is an exciting time for family and fun for all, so it is important to stay connected to your team about the happenings and tasks needed to get done for a successful season beforehand.

Let’s face it, the entire economy has been impacted by COVID-19. Many businesses have been or still are unable to function and others are operating at limited capacity. So it’s extremely easy to feel disheveled, disorganized, and unproductive. Luckily, there are a few things you can be doing to improve your business right now! This blog will outline a few different ideas to start implementing asap.

This guide outlines everything you need to know about disaster relief funds, preventative measures, and ways to keep the orders coming through delivery services, take out options, and other creative deals. Keep reading to learn how your restaurant CAN and WILL get through COVID-19 successfully.

What is an on the job training program and why do you need it? Let’s start with the universal fact that high employee turnover negatively impacts a business. How do you reduce employee turnover? One way is to have an on the job training program set up. Investing the time and money to create an on the job training program means you’re investing in your employees. You know, the people who make your business happen! It doesn’t matter how big or small your business is, creating and implementing an on the job training program will benefit you. 

Want to reduce employee turnover? Don't we all! When employees don’t feel recognized or valued at work, they’ll often leave their job or just do the bare minimum as a result. One sure fire way to reduce turnover and increase employee satisfaction is actually pretty simple - it's showing appreciation! The good news is, showing employee appreciation doesn’t have to be hard. We have 50 ideas for you to pick from, just keep reading.

Many shift based industries such as restaurants, retail stores, and hotels (just to name a few) have a problem with employee no call no shows. These dreaded last minute dropped shifts usually leave managers in a frantic state of trying to get the shift covered while also handling all other normal responsibilities. It can be overwhelming to say the least. Keep reading to learn what to do when experiencing an employee no call no show AND how to prevent them for the future. 

Keeping up with what your competitors are doing is important in business. While you don’t have to follow every trend to the letter, it’s worth having an idea of what the trends in your industry actually are. If you’re wondering what’s changing in the hospitality world, take a look at these top 8 hospitality trends impacting the industry:

Employee turnover. Every employer’s nightmare, amiright? If you think turnover rates are improving, I hate to break it to you, but you’re wrong. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, total turnover rates in 2018 were 44.3%. Yes, you read that right. But that’s an average of all the industries. Total turnover for the hospitality industry was 76.7% in 2018. If you’re internally crying right now from those statistics, don’t worry. Let me wipe those tears and fears away by explaining 10 common, but fixable, company turnover mistakes.

Learn how to keep your restaurant booked from Dina Coventry, an experienced leader in the hospitality industry. She uncovers some {duh} moments that you wish you would've thought of before! These sales management tips are priceless and will help increase your restaurant sales in no time. It's all about numbers right? That is, the number of people you're catering to. Trust us, it's possible to keep your restaurant booked without working any harder!

Hello Summer, we missed you. Summer is the season of sunshine and sales, am I right? As a restaurant, it's VITAL to be prepared for these amazing months since summer is a big opportunity to capture more sales. A good way to kickstart your sales is to use Memorial Day to its fullest. Usually when you start out strong, you can finish strong!

Feliz Cinco de Mayo! The holiday has gained popularity in the US and Canada for the delicious dishes and tasty frozen beverages. But the origins of this holiday go back further. The food traditions and history that helped establish the holiday outside of Mexico give us insight into why Cinco de

Did you know... The industry with the highest rate of employee turnover is accommodation and food service at 130.7% as of 2020, according to Zippia.com? Employee turnover is on the rise, and it has a huge impact on your business financially and emotionally.

Restaurant employee scheduling can quickly become a nightmare trying to balance between shift planning,  employee’s personal schedules and the restaurants needs. While the task of employee scheduling can become daunting quick, you can focus on the things you can control. With these employee

By internet research counts, 75,000,000 millennials are joining the workforce.  In 2017 this group may have become the majority of your workforce. Young workers are a new breed of employees that managers in any industry frankly don’t quite know how to identify, manage, and communicate to. It’s a

Valentine’s Day is a holiday full of love and adoration for that special someone in your life. One of the most common ways to celebrate this love is to go out for a nice meal and exchange presents, perhaps even experience a proposal or two! For restaurant owners, this holiday is not only about

There are several things that will make or break the customer experience. From menu selection to wait staff performance, there are a multitude of factors that will play into whether a customer decides to become a patron of your establishment. While it is impossible to make everyone happy all the

There is a number of ways how to increase restaurant sales, yet the profit-generating strategy many restaurant owners or leaders overlook is training. Everything comes down to teaching your staff how to succeed in your restaurant with excellent customer service, product knowledge, selling

Unlike other holidays throughout the year, Thanksgiving is all about the food. Each person has their own idea of Thanksgiving menu staples that must be included on their plate every year. From stuffing to cranberry sauce, without certain dishes it would simply not "feel" like Thanksgiving! Even if

Many people dream of owning their own business one day. To turn your dream into reality you’ll have to write a business plan. This is a lot less fun than daydreaming about your flourishing business, but it is a necessity.

One of the best ways to create buzz about your restaurant and draw people through your doors is with your menu. When you have delicious and creative dishes that patrons cannot find anywhere else, people will remember and spread the word. It is not easy to

Do you know what the root of a business’ problem is 90% of the time?

It’s employee turnover.

In manufacturing, a more efficient business means a safer environment, increased productivity, and potentially larger profits. Here are six ways to increase efficiency at your manufacturing business -- and see lasting results.

Have you heard of the fable of the chicken and the pig?

When cooking a dish made of ham and eggs, the pig provides the ham -- which requires his sacrifice. The chicken provides the eggs, which are not difficult to produce. Thus the pig is really committed

On Monday, August 21st, thousands upon thousands of people are going to be in prime eclipse viewing spots to experience the literally once in a lifetime occurrence. While this is an

Running a restaurant is not easy. Every year the challenges seem to increase from ways to get people in your door to how to train and retain your staff. Finding time to do the research to make the best decision for your business is difficult. Instead, leave it to the experts!

When it comes down to it, every restaurant business should be profit-driven… Your restaurant needs to turn a significant profit to thrive as a business, and at the same time, restaurant staff want to earn a good income to build or maintain a comfortable standard

Whether you are in the restaurant industry or not, you might dream of opening a restaurant. But before you open the establishment’s doors, there are many details you need to consider. Luckily, we’re in the business of helping guide restaurants and hospitality

If you’ve read our previous posts The Ultimate Guide Part 1, you probably know that sales is the one thing that fixes everything.  Part 2 of this guide focuses on how to grow your sales and the strategies behind selling that are easy to master.

If you’ve read our previous posts from ShiftNote, you probably know that we are the go-to for all things restaurant management. Whether it’s maintaining an efficient staff, recruiting the right team, implementing an effective system for managing shifts, innovating

The restaurant industry has experienced many dish and flavor trends throughout the decades. Some stick and some don’t, but staying ahead of the trends and betting on what will work can make your restaurant a leader in the market. One popular trend is the

Hiring the right business operations manager can make or break a business, particularly in the hospitality industry.

Common duties for a business operations manager are wide ranging and multifaceted. Business operations manager duties

While back-of-the-house operations like employee shift scheduling are key to success, equally important are your restaurant marketing strategies.

It’s always a good time to freshen your promotional strategy, especially as only 50% of restaurant and hospitality businesses survive within the first five years. While it’s certainly possible to overcome this scary statistic, owning and operating a business does

Mother’s Day was first celebrated in America in 1908, and it was commercialized soon after with cards, gifts and taking Mom out to eat. Though the spirit of this holiday is to honor our Mothers and Grandmothers alike for their selfless sacrifices and unconditional

Here is the deal - often restaurants blame problems they are having on slow sales without looking at the reason behind the dip in profit. Some restaurant owners even resolve themselves to believing that their restaurant just has an ongoing sales problem, blaming the

Employees are the backbone of any business, but particularly in the hospitality industry. Well-trained, passionate employees can make or break your business. Unlike hard skills, like how to use a POS system, soft skills like passion cannot be taught.

Many hospitality workers dream of owning their own business one day. Or maybe you already do, but you want to try out something different on the side. You might have been in a kitchen for years following someone else’s direction, or maybe you want to

It should come as no surprise that labor is an integral part of hospitality. After all, the only thing keeping a prospective customer from ordering online from any number of competitors is the hospitality your employees can convey. Which makes it all the

Of the many holidays throughout the year where food and drink are part of the traditions, St. Patrick's Day provides a great opportunity for people to go out and celebrate with green everything - from clothes to beer to food. As St. Patrick's Day falls on a Saturday this year, there is no

There are a few times throughout the year where people alter their eating habits to include certain foods. Summertime requires more picnic-like foods such as potato salad or hamburgers. For Thanksgiving, people are seeking more turkey and cranberry

We’ve all watched the show “Restaurant Impossible”. In case you’ve missed it, the show is centered on celebrity chef Robert Irvine who helps restore failing American restaurants. He assess the problems within the targeted restaurant, then creates a plan to bring the

 There are many things you can do to help in improving sales performance for your restaurant. You can try the age old tactics of offering happy hour drinks and appetizers during slower times. You can invest in marketing or restaurant and menu redesign. You can

In food service, the mindset is that you spend hours of of training your employees year after year on customer service skills. This time of year is perfect to showcase your team’s excellent customer service skills. When you utilize your employee training to provide

What is the key to business success? Is it having a great product? Controlling your expenses? Profit and loss management? Scheduling the right people at the right time? While your products and/or services matter, the real key to success – in any industry –

Everyone wants to find the perfect place to celebrate New Years Eve. Since not everyone can fly to New York City to watch the ball drop in Times Square, you can offer an awesome way to kick off the New Year in your restaurant. To make sure you throw the biggest bash to close out 2016, here are some tips to prepare your restaurant for New Years Eve.

For restaurants, the holidays are your best marketing opportunity. The focus during the holiday season for your restaurant is, of course, capturing sales. You may think this is cut and dry marketing, but your employees are the biggest part of growing your sales during the season. When you

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could have a crystal ball into your restaurant's future to see the sales that will come in? Think of all the planning you could accomplish - you would know how much staff to schedule, how much inventory to have in stock, and what you

It is officially the holiday season which means your restaurant is in full swing preparing for increased traffic and planning ways to beat out the competition. Everyone is searching for the perfect restaurant to host their work party, friend get-togethers, and out-

You have probably heard the saying “Sell the Sizzle, Not the Steak.” This essentially means you should be selling the benefits of your product instead of the features, or selling people what they want as opposed to what they need. Anyway you say it, this phrase

Halloween is one of the most fun holidays throughout the year. People are looking for the best place to go where they can dress up, spend time with friends, and enjoy great drinks and eats. When you celebrate Halloween as a restaurant, you can take advantage of an

It is back to school season and families are busier than ever! Transitioning into the back to school routine takes some time. When you add in all the fall activities that kids are apart of or want to attend, parents spend most of their time shuttling their family with little time to

The perception of indifference from employees is the number one reason why a person will never do business with a company again. In a restaurant where a customer spends all of their time interacting with employees, this impression can make or break your business.

The last holiday before Thanksgiving, Labor Day, is approaching. This holiday presents an excellent opportunity to gain more customers, and therefore more sales and exposure, for your restaurant. Yet this holiday holds a bit of a double-edged sword. Depending on the weather, you

Thanks to social media, we are seeing a huge rise in the quirkiest of holidays! From Pretzel Day to May the Fourth Be With You, everyone is ready to celebrate any holiday that pops up. You can pretty much call July the Food Month Holiday with all the tasty eats and treats that we

One of the most dreaded part of management is dealing with employee scheduling. Whether you have five employees or 50, trying to manage and organize everyone’s availability into a working schedule is a daunting and never ending task. Luckily, the process does not have to

One of the most difficult industries to work in is the restaurant world. From the precise timing of ingredient quantity purchases to keeping the customer experience strong with superior service, managing a restaurant requires a well-oiled machine approach. A fundamental way

Measuring the performance of your staff is one of the hardest parts of running a restaurant, but hard data can make it a lot easier. With the technology available today, you are missing out if you’re not gathering information from each transaction being made. Adopting technology, such as mobile payments, is a huge first step to easy data gathering.

Summer feeling is in the air! Everyone is breaking out their flip-flops and exchanging plans for summer vacations. With all this excitement in the air, you may already be getting time off requests from your waitstaff. Likewise, you are seeing a flood of former employees and new

St. Patrick’s Day has come and gone and the beer-filled holiday is unofficially known as the kickoff day for patio season for restaurants. There is no doubt your patio was up and running for the holiday, but you want to make sure you are prepared for the flow of people who want to

One of the hardest parts about operating a restaurant is controlling costs. A lot of things seem out of your control, especially as a new restaurant. For example, you have to buy enough stock of everything to meet demand, but not too much where the food becomes a waste of

Easter is a family-filled holiday that combines thoughtfulness on the holiday with fun activities like egg hunts and chocolate bunnies. This happy holiday can provide restaurants with an increase in profits if you take advantage of some of the activities that happen during the holiday. Here are some of our tips to increase your sales for Easter weekend.

There have been many stories in the news about food health and safety lately. From Chipotle’s six foodborne illness outbreaks to the local Overland Park story of the New Theater norovirus outbreak, there seems to be more conversation about managing health safety in the

It’s that time of year again for college students and other 20-year-olds to flock to the beach for a spring break getaway. While the vacation of partying and letting loose is a blast for your younger wait staff, dealing with a skeleton crew during the popular spring break period can quickly

Small business owners have a lot of challenges to overcome. In the recent years, healthcare changes have thrown many small businesses for a loop, causing them to set aside more cash flow to pay for the expense. Now minimum wage increases are the next big challenge that

Valentine's Day is this weekend, a holiday full of love and devotion. As a restaurant owner, the thing you love the most and can't live without are profits. There are many things about your restaurant that have the opportunity to make a big impression on customers to increase your

As some of you might have noticed, we recently overhauled the ShiftNote home page (the first page you see after signing into ShiftNote on your computer.) It is available to all management level users, and you can currently switch back and forth between the old and new

We're throwing in the towel and will no longer be supporting the web browser Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) and older versions. As the web continues to evolve, older browsers simply cannot support many of the technologies needed to provide a fast and user friendlyexperience for

There are a couple of new features we'd love to share with you all! We've been hard at work listening to your requests, and have implemented a few of them. We also have many big things on the horizon, this year is going to be very exciting! But for now, let's get to what's new!

The Daily Report has always been an important piece of ShiftNote, allowing users to get a summary of log notes, stats, events and weather from the previous day. Previously, you could only receive the information in the Daily Report once the day's shifts had ended. We havenow introduced a

We recently added a new feature to all ShiftNote accounts that will allow the calendar to automatically show holidays for the US and Canada. This means you no longer have to go in and manually add them to your calendar. Holidays can definitely impact business, and we wanted to

On Tuesday, January 14th, 2014, we will be releasing an updated version of our employee scheduling tool to all users. Over the past year, we've met with hundreds of customers to see how they use the existing tools and have listened to amazing feedback on changes we needed to

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Well maybe for some, but for those that manage and work at restaurants, the holidays can be a very busy and stressful time. We came up with a list of tips and helpful suggestions that will help restaurant staff prepare ahead of time for the

At ShiftNote, we have some of the coolest and most amazing clients there are. The type of companies using ShiftNote to help with their daily operations vary, and are located all over the world! Some of those businesses include restaurants, bowling alleys, country clubs, churches, pr agencies, resorts and hotels, and

For those using the ShiftNote Scheduler, we've now made it easier to swap shifts between employees, and also to specify where an employee might be working within your business.

We've got a couple new features to share with you this week!

We've got some big updates for you this week! Employees can now see specific events on the ShiftNote calendar, they can send and receive messages from management, and they can set their own availability (if management allows it). These features are available if you have either

Do you have content in your ShiftNote account that you only want certain users to see? After many requests from existing ShiftNote customers, we have implemented a way to hide certain content areas in ShiftNote for specific users. Before the enhancement, all ShiftNote

After a brief discussion on the origin of the word "tip," I was instantly curious as to how and when the process of leaving a tip began. And so I put together an infographic on the history of tipping. Enjoy!

Three big enhancements were added to the ShiftNote scheduling tools this week to continue our mission of creating the best employee scheduling tools in the world for restaurants, retail stores, hotels, and more! As always, shoot us a note if there is a feature you would like to

As we continue our mission to make the best scheduling software available, we've added a handful of new features that will make your life much easier! We will continue to release new features as fast as we can build them, and always welcome your thoughts and ideas on how we

New feature alert! The ShiftNote employee scheduling tools now includes a color coding option so that it's easier to distinguish different positions when building a schedule. To choose colors for each position, go to Schedules > Settings > Manage Positions. Then select

Social media can be an easy and inexpensive way to bring new customers to your restaurant. One social media outlet that is extremely effective for restaurants is Instagram, a photo sharing app for your mobile phone. Instagram is even more effective when it is tied to your Facebook

We're in the home stretch! Day 4 of the NRA Show was a little hectic in the morning, but things smoothed out and the day turned out great. We had a lot of traffic in the booth and enjoyed visits by ShiftNote users from Jack Stack BBQ, The Original Pancake House, Fresh Brother's

The third day for the ShiftNote team, 2nd day for attendees, of the National Restaurant Association Show has been crazy!!! Crazy good of course. I would have to think that today is going to be the busiest day of the show. We had people streaming into the ShiftNote booth left and

We've had another fantastic day at the National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago. Today marks day 1 for attendees of the show, but day 2 for the ShiftNote team. We came to the convention center bright and early to finish off the final touches of our display. And as soon as the

We made it through day 1! The whole team arrived in one piece to Chicago. I've been to Chicago many times, but this is my first ever National Restaurant Association Show. Several of the ShiftNote team members have been before, so they're helping me to prepare for what

ShiftNote is heading to Chicago May 18th-21st for the National Restaurant Association Show 2013 or NRA Show - not to be confused with the National Rifle Association. That's cool if you're down with that, but we're more into food and stuff.

Are you a current user of our employee scheduling software? If so, we've got new features!

New to our scheduling notification options, is the option to be alerted via text message about shift changes or pending shift requests. Previously employees were notified via email about open shifts, approved or denied requests, and schedule changes. Now they have the option to

There are now multiple currency options for individual locations in each ShiftNote account. The currency format used to show as United States Dollars in the Stats section of the Daily Log, and you can now choose between the Pound, Riyal, or Australian Dollar.

So …What Are You Doing to Manage Your Talent?

Please, Don’t Say Nothing!

There is perhaps no bigger global brand than McDonald’s. For billions

The ShiftNote team has been working hard on some much needed site updates. We have completely redesigned the Admin Area and have added in some exciting new features as well. You can access the beta version of the fully functional new Admin Area by clicking on the Admin

On a day where it is tradition to tell the ones you love that you care about them - we wanted to give a quick shout out to all those who use ShiftNote (and those thinking about it), and say....

We've entered an age in which many restaurant goers will do a web search for specific eateries before taking the plunge to visit them in real life. Having a well designed, easy to navigate, and informative website is going to help give potential patrons the push they need to come dine

I've always been interested in the history of how things came to be, and since we've been doing a lot of fast food trivia lately for Trivia Friday on Facebook and Twitter, I decided it would be fun to put together a history of fast food infographic. It was hard to include every notable event that has occurred, so if you see something I've missed, please feel free to add

ShiftNote is a useful online log book that many of you sign into each day to log notes and communicate with team members. So we thought it might be nice to point out some tips and ideas that you might not be aware of to help you better manage your workforce and save time and

During the past few years, a new breed of consumer has been fast growing - those that prefer quality over quantity, and locally sourced over mass produced. The top two menu trends for 2013 as stated by the National Restaurant Association are locally produced meats and seafood, and locally grown

ShiftNote is an amazing communication tool for workforce management that will help save you time and money. You know it, we know it - but what about your team? A tool like ShiftNote will work best if your entire team is on board, as the saying goes, there's no I in team. So how do

We've made a minor update to both the Home and Search sections of ShiftNote to make communicating with your team even easier! Before the update you could see entries that were unread or that were filtered based on a search, but you could not see the entire conversation thread that resulted from that entry.

We're so happy to introduce the ShiftNote mobile website, 2.0! We've completely redesigned the entire mobile version of ShiftNote, so that it is faster, easier to use, and loaded with most of the same great features available on the regular website. This includes viewing unread entries in the daily log, replying to and

Saving money is at the top of everyone's to-do list! When you're running a business, it's especially important to run as efficiently as possible and save costs wherever you can to maximize profits. It can be difficult to find ways to cut cost when you are trying to please customers and employees alike. To come up with the best money saving ideas for

We've added some brand new features to all ShiftNote accounts that will help keep your team on track and accountable for the things that are going on in your business. With our new tools, you can show that you've read your team member's notes, and in return see who has read

There's no denying that the boom of the smartphone age is changing the way we live and do business. More than 80% of smartphone owners are using their phones to access the web, yet only 4.8% of retailers have a mobile-based specific website. 80% of people will search for a

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We've added a few new features to ShiftNote this month, including the long awaited - announcements! Now you can post a note to the daily log that is not specific to one day. The message can span multiple days as specified, and can also be shown as a popup message when you

We're very excited to announce some updates and enhancements to the ShiftNote website, as well as some features within the software itself. We decided that we were in need of a design overhaul in order to better convey our messaging, and to help better support new and