Why is it Important to have a Labor Management Tool?

Labor management tools are extremely important in the hospitality industry to help maintain, streamline, and standardize your processes. This time-saving technology increases productivity and supports training and mentoring opportunities, while also being easily accessible and customizable to all users. Labor Management and Modeling tools are created with end-to-end coverage of employee efficiency and often use features beneficial for not only employees and GMs, but also corporate level staff.

What Are the Benefits of a Labor Management Tool?

Over the past few years, hospitality companies have been moving toward more unified systems for their labor management activities to effectively manage their largest expense: Labor.
Current day Labor Modeling systems offer numerous benefits, some being:

• Easier Shift Creation and Shift Monitoring, allows for GMs and team leaders to monitor time sheets, track PTO requests and approvals, and allows employees to view their schedule.
• Personalized Dashboards, allows real-time insight into daily labor costs, and can be customized according to what data is important specifically to you and your organization.
• Flexibility, allowing an employee a self-service tool – where they can pick and choose what works best for them.
• Cleanliness, offering an organized platform that is easy to navigate, search, and find information.
• Data & Reporting, that helps to manage labor costs while also proactively preventing them from spiraling out of control.
• Mitigates the Risk of Human Error, by leveraging the approval process inherent in the tools.
• Integrations, are beneficial to labor modeling and management tools because they can connect to identified payroll systems which help streamline HR processes.

What Problems Can Be Solved Using Labor Management?

Problem: “I am always stressed creating and managing hotel employees’ schedules.”
Solution: Labor Management tools simplify PDO/PTO requests for both employees and managers. The tools also give managers the capability to determine, in advance, based on occupancy forecasts and labor standards, the number of employees that are needed for each shift at a hotel. Overall, Labor Management tools increase flexibility and responsiveness.

Problem: “I have a difficult time tracking time and attendance for my employees.”
Solution: Time capture and tracking is critical in any industry but especially in hospitality since it is what predicates an employee’s pay. If you are utilizing manual processes for that, it can be error prone. Labor Management tools offer a better way to record employees’ time worked through cloud-based technology.

Problem: “My over-time is out of hand, and I am not sure how to fix it.”
Solution: Many Labor Modeling tools can typically predict potential overtime in advance, so that you can revise schedules and eliminate, or reduce, overtime wages before they occur.

Labor management systems help provide hoteliers the tools that assist in reducing labor costs by allocating resources and scheduling shifts efficiently. With labor being the largest expense for a hotel, managing how labor is deployed is critical when it comes to operations.

Who Do Labor Management Platforms Help?

Labor management systems deliver many efficiencies and benefits to employees and managers. These tools are typically intelligent, easy-to-use, and will help reduce total labor costs and facilitate dynamic work schedules. They also provide real-time and actionable insight into how your hotel is performing and can often compare your hotel against similar properties.
Hotel Labor Management Platforms, help many personas in hotel management, some being:

• Hotel Employees
  • House Keepers, Front Desk Agents, Bar Tenders, Waiters/Waitresses, Maintenance, Kitchen Staff, Event Planners, Porters, Door Attendants, Valet, Laundry Attendants, and more
• General Managers and Assistant General Managers
• Corporate Staff
  • Associates, Partners, C-Level Staff, Accountants, IT, Directors, Guest Experience Staff, HR, and more
• Owners/Operators

Take Aways

Due to the intricacies of the hospitality industry, hoteliers should make every attempt to work with a specialized labor management and modeling provider, that focuses exclusively on the hospitality space. Your labor management software should allow you to monitor daily labor costs through features such as: attendance tracking, scheduling, reporting, and more. With this type of solution, you can gain control of your bottom line and reign in labor expenses. Invest in a platform that is best suited to manage your company, and that will provide you with proactive and informative labor modeling and management.