Show Rate
In many industries, it is hard to imagine a metric like show rate being relevant. We assume and expect ourselves and others to show up for work. So why then are “No Show No Calls” (When an employee does not show for a shift and provide no warning) a common issue in the food & beverage space. From coffee shops to fast food, if you manage a staff you have experienced the stress of trying to finding someone to fill a shift in the early hours of the morning (btw Zira can automate that too –> Check out No Show Replacement Automations here).
Many instinctively think it is because these employees are simply lazy, but in reality the opposite is the truth. Many industries rely on a common labor pool, and because of this, your employees are actually in higher demand than you may realize.
How can a business avoid the daily interruptions of the dreaded No-Show? We were wondering the same things. Since Zira users are actively experimenting and improving their No Show rates every day, we thought we would pull together some of the top automations currently running in F & B clients to help share the knowledge
1. Notifications
Timely notifications can make it easier for your employees to be prepared, and refining the timing of the notification can ensure that everyone is set up for success.
Send a start of day reminder
Reminders are great, but if they don’t come early enough they don’t help your employees deliver on their scheduled promises. Many businesses on Zira creates additional reminders the night before or the morning of to make sure their employees don’t get caught too far from the restaurant when their shift is almost starting.
Weekly On-Time Tracking Messages
Often times a message is enough to let your employees know what is important to you. You may not achieve the same lift in on-time rate or the same reduction in No Show No Calls but you will see a lift thanks to the transparency you provide to your team.
With Zira creating custom notifications, exactly how you want them, is incredibly easy. Using the automation platform, restaurants can configure new notifications in a few clicks.
1. Incentives
While notifications can help remind your employees of upcoming shifts and serve as a sort of alarm clock to make sure they show up on time, incentives are powerful because they actually let your experiment with your team’s motivations. Maybe your young staff love spotify and the thrill of earning a reward for simply showing up a few minutes early and more consistently is enough to unlock your team’s potential.
Monthly Show Up Streak Rewards
At Zira we love streak based rewards! Why? Because they create a culture of self-accountability. From the first shift to the last, your employees can track their progress. With each shift added to their streak, more value is placed on that streak, and you as a business owner are more pleased with your team’s performance.
Sometimes a $5-10 incentive such as an Amazon gift card or Spotify Premium Subscription voucher can catalyze your team to perform better. This type of incentive is very cost-effective because it motivates your entire workforce, but you only pay the employees who are able to accomplish the goal.
Weekly On-Time Rewards
Similar to the reward above, but harder to achieve, an On-Time incentive can be a fun motivator for your team. Many businesses are negatively impacted by tardiness. Restaurants need your opening shifts to start on-time so you can open and start serving customers on time as well.
3. Scheduling
Now this isn’t a single automation in the Zira automation platform or a single unified policy, but the lift in employee attendance, and on-time percentages are most significantly affected in restaurants where schedules reflect the true availability of your employees.
Some restaurants require employees to promise availability on specific high demand days. This is often done as a prerequisite at hiring. So it is no real surprise that oftentimes employees aren’t regularly available for the shifts they are assigned when the schedules are published.
Your employee’s only recourse is to call in sick or no show. This creates an environment of distrust and it is hard to come back from this. At Zira, we suggest you encourage your team to keep their time preferences and availability updated in their Zira Employee mobile apps, or tell the manager to update in the Manager tool.
You can go a step further and increase the priority of employee preferences in your Zira A.I. Scheduling Logic. This way your employees will start seeing more and more shifts that match their preferences and their desire to deliver on those schedules by showing up consistently and on time will go up.