Why a Time Clock is the Perfect Tool for Your Restaurant
Understanding What a Time Clock Means to Your Business
If you take a drive through any city, you're bound to see at least one restaurant or eatery at just about every corner.
What cannot be guaranteed, however, is if that establishment will still be standing the following year. In this competitive day and age, restaurateurs have to be innovative and maximize the use of new technology to stay afloat.
The ability to run a restaurant successfully or really any type of business in the 21st century for that matter can be quite draining. You need agility in reasoning and speed in decision-making.
It's no secret that time is money in this industry. All of the time that is spent in improving the business, like marketing, training employees, creating the schedule, balancing food and labor costs, etc., can certainly be looked at as an investment time and money alike.
An area where many businesses continuously struggle and see a vast amount wasted in costs is employee timekeeping.
On one hand, some owners prefer to stick to the stamp-timecard method, where others have converted to digital solutions, but still have not seen an improvement in labor costs.
A virtual time clock is multi-advantageous software made for tracking employees' time worked, task management tool, employee monitoring, and schedule tracker.
Surprisingly, the use of time tends to get overlooked by many business owners. Time needs to be utilized to the max in your restaurant, ensuring your services are delivered efficiently and promptly. If done correctly, your customer experience will improve, and it will bring more business to your restaurant.
A virtual time clock helps you as a restaurateur to monitor your employees' clock in/out times, ensuring you are getting the most out of each employee's time worked. Here are all of the benefits you can expect when converting to digital timekeeping solutions.
Features of a Time Clock
Timesheets
As a restaurant owner, you may be constantly looking for ways to cut costs while also increasing profits.
A timesheet is a document for recording the number of hours an employee has worked. This will ensure that you are not overpaying for less energy input and underpaying for time worked.
Instead of manually checking and recording every hour worked by every employee in your restaurant, a virtual time clock should have a detailed time sheet listing when each employee punches in and punches out.
Another great feature is allowing management to input task for an employee, while also viewing the duration of time it took that employee to complete that task.
This saves you time, as well as allow you to engage in other activities that can advance your business. You are also reassured that all your employees are held accountable for their responsibilities.
You are also presented with the opportunity to address why maybe certain tasks take longer to complete than others, allowing your management team to address their training methods.
Schedules
Just like a personal daily to-do-list, a time clock can be utilized for productivity and can be enhanced to set reminders for upcoming deadlines and tasks to be completed, overall leading to progressive business growth.
A virtual time clock that has a scheduling system helps each employee and the restaurateur prioritize specific projects according to what is most important.
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In-App Notes
Another challenging factor management may experience is effective communication with employees.
Your team will appreciate receiving clear instructions about duties around the restaurant, as well as ensure the task at hand is executed properly.
The best types of time clocks should feature an in-app system to log notes and comments to individuals. This can be used in a number of ways, one being to give instructions and/or feedback regarding tasks.
Another helpful way this tool can be utilized is allowing management to log personal notes about employee performance, like taking note of when an employee does an outstanding job or when an employee consistently shows up for work late.
It provides an in-person presence even when you are not physically present.
Payroll Management Systems
One thing almost every employee can agree on is looking forward to payday, so you can imagine the frustration that comes when an employee is not paid on time due to internal payroll error.
A payroll system is basically a financial record of employees' time worked paired with their agreed upon hourly pay rate. Sounds simple enough, but somehow many business seem to fall short in this area.
Financial data is efficiently handled with the online time clock calculator and accurately enough to reduce the chances of human errors in calculations.
Your employees will benefit, and your business will benefit with improved payroll processing systems.
A time clock will also ensure you are not overpaying, which lowers your labor costs.
How Can a Virtual Time Clock Help Your Restaurant Business?
Here are additional features you cannot afford to miss out on, when looking for a time clock for your business.
Cost Reduction
With the daily time sheets and schedules features, a restaurant owner or manager can efficiently reduce cost and maximize time for productivity as extra wages that could arise from employees working around unimportant tasks and jobs are cut off.
It also helps maintain budgets by reducing overtime costs. The most important jobs are efficiently prioritized and done, driving every restaurant's goal of continuity.
High Productivity
Time sheets, payroll managements, attendance monitoring, shift notes and reports are specific features of a time clock. Ensuring employees are always productive can be a challenging tasks especially when you cannot be present to monitor them.
Unfortunately, some employees may take advantage of working without supervision, causing a delay in service and downgrade in customer service.
Although it would be nice to live by the honor system, an employee's time and attendance needs to be monitored at all times.
A digital time clock enables your employees to improve work ethics and ensure they are more productive.
Accuracy
It cannot be emphasized enough how everything in a restaurant needs to be spot-on. From the way the food is prepared to how the drinks are presented, expectations matter and every little detail counts.
A virtual time clock gives an accurate account of the time spent by employees working for you, tabulates and prepares their wages considering their extra time of work, enables reports are sent and notes giving directives are at the fingertips of your employees.
The software helps keep your employees and owners more engaged in the business, while also saving them grand amounts of time from mundane tasks. It's a fantastic resource that all parties can appreciate.
