In the current economic climate, restaurant operators are looking for savings anywhere they can find them–and next-generation labor management has emerged as a key technology for helping lower costs.

HotSchedules, the premier provider of online restaurant labor management solutions, is confident that companies armed with its intelligent, affordable labor management tools, will see instant labor cost savings and efficiency, as well as enhanced employee satisfaction and retention.

By using an intelligent restaurant labor management tool like HotSchedules, businesses can standardize their staff scheduling and management process and significantly lower labor costs. Additionally, feature-rich labor management solutions can provide managers with the ability to communicate quickly and easily with all employees, from corporate executives to hourly staff.

Employees can access their schedules 24/7 online or via phone, as well as pick up shifts, request time off, send messages to managers or other employees, and receive e-mail and text message notification when shift changes are approved by the manager. These tools enable management to distribute important messages or surveys to employees in particular locations or chain-wide, such as crisis communication or sharing discounts from corporate partners.

HotSchedules typically sees a reduction of 75 percent in the time it takes to create schedules, often within weeks of beginning to use the tools. These solutions include easy-to-use features such as comparing expected costs with actual expenses and integrating with point of sale (POS) and time-and-attendance systems to enforce scheduled shifts. Additionally, labor management tools provide overtime warning reports that consider actual labor plus upcoming projected hours to notify managers of potential overtime scenarios before they occur.

“Our suite of powerful labor management solutions was designed by restaurateurs, for restaurateurs to empower them with the tools they need to develop and drive labor management best practices throughout their chain,” says Ray Pawlikowski, president, HotSchedules.