How To Solve 4 Staffing Challenges That Every Food & Beverage Business Faces

No matter what stage of growth your food and beverage business is in, staffing is an ongoing challenge to perfect. But, with the right tools, you can support a happy, efficient team. 

Here are 4 common staffing challenges and solutions to each of them:

1. How Many Staff Should I Schedule At Any Given Time?

For most food and beverage spots, you can pretty much guarantee that Friday and Saturday nights are going to be high traffic. But what about all of the hours in between?

You don’t want to just ballpark guess how many staff members you need every shift. Too many staff increase your labor costs unnecessarily, and too few staff risk a detriment to the guest experience. 

Staff Scheduling Solution: Hour By Hour Report

Historical data helps you accurately predict traffic spikes and staff accordingly. An Hour by Hour Report from Arryved POS informs scheduling needs by identifying rushes and lulls based on past sales data. 

The Rayback uses the Hour by Hour Report not only to staff efficiently, but also to maximize tips per employee. “We’re hyper focused on labor. Our front of the house team benefits from that hyper focus because we want to make sure they’re maximizing their ability to make as much money as possible, while of course not compromising the customer experience,” shares Mel Timm, former General Manager. 

By strategizing when to staff up or down, no team members lose out on tips from overstaffing and no guests lose out on a good time from understaffing. 

2. How Do I Distribute The Right Amount Of Tips To Everyone Quickly?

Speaking of tips, the way in which you divide and distribute tips makes a big impact on employee satisfaction. And at a time where long-term employees are hard to come by, prioritizing an efficient tipping model is key to retention. 

Old school tip jars mean that servers can typically leave with their well-earned cash tips after every shift. But the increase in digital payments makes it hard for small businesses to do daily cash tip payouts. 

Luckily, savvy POS technology combined with digital payments make an automated solution easy. 

Staff Tipping Solution: Tip Pooling Tools

Ensure tipped staff get fair and equitable portions and distribute the money quickly with your suite of POS tools. Arryved’s tip pooling and sharing tools allow managers to:

• Customize distributions by assigning tip points based on each staff member’s role
• Pool tips based on day or shift
• Add cash tips to the pool, if applicable
• Edit tipped hours for an employee whose clocked hours don’t coincide with the hours they should get tips for
• Allocate tips based on the time an order is placed, versus when the tab is closed

Efficient, easy-to-use tipping tools make for happy staff and headache-free managers.

3. How Do I Minimize Staff Traffic At My POS Terminal?

A single stationary POS terminal can congest that area of your business. It’s not only an eye sore for guests to see and a pain for any passerby to navigate, but it also slows your busy staff down! Servers having to wait to use your POS means they risk forgetting an order and guests wait longer.

Staff POS Solution: Mobile Devices

Phones and tablets can act as POS terminals, and these mobile devices empower your staff to service guests anywhere along the bar, tableside, or even in line for the food truck outside!

This minimizes staff congestion inside and improves guest experiences by ensuring timely and accurate orders. Because staff can take and send orders while they’re still in conversation with a table, the bar and kitchen receive orders instantly. Theoretically, your guests may get their beers from a runner before they’re even done ordering food!

4. How Do I Reduce Lines & Wait Times For Guests?

Staffing strategically using the Hour By Hour Report doesn’t exempt your team from unexpected traffic spikes. When business is boomin’, you want to make sure you can meet that demand!

So if you start to notice the line at your bar getting long, there’s a simpler solution than calling for backup from your team. 

Staff Service Support Solution: QR Code Ordering & Payments

QR code ordering and payments can—and should, if you want to see higher tabs & tips—be a part of your everyday service model. But if your business is such that you only want to lean on them when you need to expedite front of house operations, QR codes are the perfect solution to managing unexpected traffic spikes. 

Here’s how you can accomplish a flexible service model using Arryved’s QR code tool, OpenTab:

• Diversify guests’ ordering options: Different guests have different preferences in how they order. Delight all of them by offering options for how to order: at the bar, with a roaming server, or using a QR code at their table. 
• Make checkout a breeze: Staff save time running receipts with QR code payments. With OpenTab, guests simply claim their tab and pay it directly from their phone, regardless of how the tab originally started. 

By reducing the amount of tedious administrative tasks staff must do, you free them up to wholly engage guests. Now they have time to talk about the upcoming releases in the works or engage folks in profitable upsells.

If you’re hesitant to implement QR code ordering and payments because of their suspected impact on guest experiences, check out 4 QR Code Myths Debunked.