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Restaurant schedules are typically highlighted in red on the front page of your restaurant’s website, but what does it mean? If you’re struggling with this question, use one of our templates below to get a template for yourself. You’ll be able to see exactly how each tab works and where all the important information is!
The “free kitchen schedule template” is a free template that can be used to create restaurant schedules. It has been designed by professional chefs and offers an easy way to keep track of your work hours.
A restaurant schedule template may assist you in keeping your staff schedules structured, allowing you to better manage labor expenditures and boost employee morale. Creating a restaurant schedule may be time-consuming and tiresome, but with the correct tools and some planning, you can simply speed up the process.
Templates for Restaurant Scheduling
When generating a weekly plan for your workers, a restaurant scheduling template is a calendar-based form that streamlines your process. The majority of restaurant employees are part-timers, and a company’s demands might change drastically from day to day. To avoid errors and miscommunications during the schedule preparation process, many restaurants use a scheduling template. A restaurant template usually contains a record of your staff’s availability as well as a schedule of the shifts your business requires.
We have included three Templates for Restaurant Scheduling below, as employee scheduling for restaurants typically requires more complex shift scheduling. One suited best for quick service restaurants (QSR), a second for the front of house (FOH) full service restaurants (FSR), and a third specifically for restaurant kitchens. Download the appropriate template for your restaurant, and then scroll down for directions to walk you through how to use this template to create a customized schedule for your business.
Template for a Quick Service Restaurant Schedule
This design is for fast service restaurants like a counter-service burger joint, pizza, or coffee shop that have food preparation and sales activities split among one staff.
Schedule Template for QSR Download
Front of House Schedule for a Full Service Restaurant
This is a template for a full-service restaurant’s front-of-house crew. This template is significantly more thorough, with opportunity to add multiple sorts of workers, since a full service restaurant tends to have a bigger crew doing a broader range of positions.
Download a template for a full-service restaurant schedule.
Template for a Restaurant Kitchen Schedule
This template is for a full-service restaurant’s back of house (BOH) employees. Because the kitchen and FOH teams work somewhat different hours, it’s a good idea to keep the schedules distinct. A FOH manager typically completes the FOH schedule, whereas the executive chef completes the kitchen schedule.
Restaurant Kitchen Schedule (PDF)
What Are the Benefits of Using Restaurant Schedule Templates?
This editable template is set up as a three-sheet schedule worksheet that you can tailor to your restaurant’s needs. By dividing your schedule data into three pages, you can keep your information structured and avoid misunderstanding. You’ll need to know your staff’s individual availability as well as the responsibilities you’ll need to arrange to cover each shift your restaurant is open to construct an appropriate calendar.
The “Roster” sheet guarantees that your timetable takes into account employee availability. The “Shift Plan” part of the “Schedule Worksheet” enables you to modify the shifts you require week by week to meet the flow of business. The “Printable Schedule” puts the data from your schedule worksheet into a format that is both simple to print and read by employees.
Each design contains three tabs to keep track of your schedule.
Make Your Own Template
Customizing any of these templates to your restaurant’s specific requirements takes just a few minutes. Save the blank template on your PC once you’ve downloaded the schedule template. Gather your staff’s availability; some restaurants manage availability on a separate form, while others gather it on job applications. We’ve given a template for an availability form below if you need one.
Employee Availability Template (PDF)
Before you start altering your design, make a list of any notes you’ve made regarding the restaurant’s operating hours. If you haven’t yet launched your company, these figures may merely be estimates. If you’re currently open for business, these comments can contain adjustments to your operating hours or impending holidays. Your notes should include how many waiters, bartenders, chefs, and other crew members your business needs for each shift.
Personalize your Roster
Start on sheet one, “Roster,” of the template.
The names of your employees, their jobs, and when they are available to work are all included on the first page, which serves as the foundation for establishing your timetable. Begin by filling in the names of your employees in column A and their job titles in column B. To keep your plans structured, include employees who do comparable tasks in the same section of the page. After you’ve added all of your employees, fill in their regular availability.
You may enter this information in any manner that makes sense to you, such as “AM/ PM,” “9 a.m.-10 p.m.,” or “Not available.” Don’t be concerned about future dates that your team may have asked off at this time. When you establish those precise schedules, you’ll be able to change the dates. Right now, you’re simply entering the standard information for your team.
On the Roster sheet, use whichever adjectives best describe your squad.
If you have team members that work in several areas, such as a server who also bartends, put them on a single roster line and specify their dual position in the role field, such as “Jane Smith, Server-Bartender.” This manner, all of Jane’s shifts will show on a single line in the finished schedule, reducing the chance that you may double book her.
If you wish to see these changes on separate lines, make two slightly different “Jane Smith” entries, such as “Jane Smith Server” and “Jane Smith Bar,” since this template auto-populates based on names.
Adapt Your Shift Schedule
Move on to the second page, the “Schedule Worksheet,” after you’ve input your team and their availability. You may adjust the shifts you require coverage for throughout a typical week in the “Shift Plan” section at the top of this page. This will serve as a reference point for future scheduling.
You plan your shifts before allocating them in the Shift Plan.
Calculate how many shifts you’ll need for each position on each day of the week, then fill in a column for each one with a short description of the role (such as “AM Opening Server” or “Closing Cashier”), as well as the in- and out-times. Some typical shifts are pre-populated in each template, but you may alter or create your own in these sections. The color coding is to make it easier to see what jobs and hours you’ve specified at a glance.
At this time, don’t stress about exact dates or forthcoming holidays. You’ll be able to make changes to those on schedules as needed. You’re laying the groundwork for your future schedules right now.
Additional Customization
These designs also enable you to customize the colors to fit your restaurant’s needs. Select the cell you wish to edit and adjust it using the “format cell” dialog box or the paint bucket icon on the home screen. Different color schemes for day and night shifts, as well as opening and closing shifts, are beneficial.
If you need extra rows in a section, right-click on the numbered row directly below where you want the new row to appear and choose “Add Row.” A dialog window will appear with the option to “insert.” When you choose this option, a new, blank row should emerge.
Save this document as your master template after you’ve included your normal shifts for each position. When employees are fired, hired, or their availability changes, you may use this template to update it.
Create a Schedule
Before you start working on a new schedule, save it as a new document.
Open your personalized template and instantly “Save As” a new Excel file to begin creating your schedule. You may accomplish this in Excel by going to the file menu and selecting “Save As.”
It’s a good idea to give the new file a title that includes the days you’ll be scheduling, such as “Schedule Dec.15-Dec.21.” “Schedule PPE 12.21” if you use the end of pay periods as a reference point. It’s critical to start a new document right away so that your work doesn’t wipe out the formulae in the worksheet.
Begin with the roster sheet after you’ve generated a new document. In cell D5, write the date. The remainder of the workbook’s date and day of the week fields will be auto-populated based on this one date input.
Only fill in one field with your schedule date, and the rest will be filled in automatically.
Adjust the availability fields beside your team members’ names if you have any scheduling requests from them that are outside of their normal availability. The availability you provide here will appear on the scheduling worksheet automatically.
Make use of your own schedule worksheet.
Go to the “Schedule Worksheet” now. Make sure the Shift Plan at the top of the form includes the shifts you’ll need for the week you’re planning. If there is a holiday or a major event, you may need to increase or eliminate shifts in certain jobs.
Weather, athletic events, and holidays will all have an influence on your predicted revenue. However, each sort of restaurant will be affected differently. On Super Bowl Sunday, a coffee shop could be deserted, but a pizza will be packed. Full-service restaurants are usually quiet the day before Thanksgiving, but bars are usually filled with tourists returning to their hometowns.
Scroll down to the “Actual Schedule” section of the “Schedule Worksheet” after you’re confident you have all of your required shifts with the right in-times. Enter your employees’ names in column A using the same spelling and capitalization as they appear on your roster. The fields beside their names will auto-populate with their availability.
All you have to do now is copy shifts from your “Shift Plan” and paste them into the real schedule’s availability.
Your personnel availability will be removed after you put the shift from the plan into the schedule.
It’s vital to remember that if you paste new data into the ‘Actual Shift’ cells, the data that was previously there will be removed. This is why it’s critical to save each new schedule as a separate document, ensuring that your template document preserves the auto-populating feature that makes scheduling easy.
Copy and paste the “OFF” and “NOT AVAIL” sections at the top of the form for shifts you’re scheduling personnel off or days they’re not available.
Fill in all the days your employees are off or unable to work.
Your schedule is complete after all of the color-coded fields have been filled in. Based on the color codes, you should be able to see whether you’ve filled in all of the available shifts and if the shifts in your “Actual Schedule” match the shifts in your “Shift Plan.”
When all of your shifts have been allocated, you’ll see a listing that looks like a rainbow.
Schedule (PDF)
All of those hues may serve as a visual indicator that you’ve covered all of your bases, but they may be tiring to look at. You may now go to the third tab, “Printable Schedule,” and click it. All you have to do now is write your employees’ names in column A in the order you want them to appear on your final schedule. The schedule fields to the right of their names will be filled in automatically using the schedules you set in the Schedule Workbook.
The Printable Schedule sheet generates a finished schedule that is simple to understand.
If you don’t want to print any empty fields, just pick the area you want to print by choosing the “Print Area” button on the “Page Layout” tab in Excel and highlighting all the fields you want to print.
Set a print area to prevent printing pages that aren’t required.
You now have a clear, readable schedule that you can display in your restaurant or send to your personnel as a PDF or JPG.
Creating a Restaurant Schedule Template from Scratch
Many restaurants use Excel or Google Sheets to construct their own personnel schedule templates. When you’re making your own template, keep these things in mind. A weekly plan requires a lot of information, from requests to monitoring the changing demands of the company and allocating labor positions within each shift. To guarantee accuracy, acquire all of the information you’ll need ahead of time, such as personnel availability and planned operating hours.
Every restaurant schedule template should at the very least contain the days and dates for which you are scheduling, as well as shift in- and out-times. Including your employee duties for each shift on the calendar ensures that your staff has the required tools and is dressed appropriately for their shift.
Some layouts feature a lot more information, such a section where you may attach your employee’s availability. Others may include functions that compute pay and hour data for use in labor forecasts and other comparative measures. If that is your objective, having an accountant who specializes in restaurants build a template for you is a fantastic idea. At that point, it could be more cost-effective to invest in restaurant scheduling software.
When Is It Appropriate to Use Restaurant Scheduling Software?
Restaurant scheduling software is an excellent choice for establishments with several labor centers to handle. These programs are a fantastic approach to keep your expenses in line if you’re having difficulties meeting your labor objectives or discover that your employees are often working outside of the hours you’ve scheduled them.
The majority of these applications offer comparable scheduling features. Some warnings prohibit you from putting personnel in tasks for which they are unqualified, while others provide trackers that show you how much labor you are expected to pay depending on your schedule. All of them have a smartphone app that allows employees to see their schedules in real time and trade shifts with coworkers.
- 7 shifts: For basic scheduling and team communication services for 20 people, this software begins at $19.99 per month. You’ll need to upgrade to the Entree level for $43.99 per month to access labor reporting and POS connectivity. 7shifts works with a broad range of point-of-sale systems. Best for: Small businesses looking for a restaurant-specific scheduling solution.
- When I Work costs $2 per employee each month for teams of up to 100 people across different locations. When I Work has amazing time-saving scheduling tools, however if you’re looking for reports that sync with your POS, it only works with Square POS for now. Best for: Restaurants in need of a cost-effective scheduling solution.
- HomeBase: For single locations, the HomeBase Basic plan is free and enables you to book an unlimited number of staff. The scheduler, POS connectivity, and a time clock are among the essential features. You’ll need to subscribe to the Plus level for high-level reporting and the money-saving function that discourages early clock-ins, which costs $40 per month. Best for: High-volume restaurants with employees spread throughout many labor centers.
Alternatively, you may be able to utilize your POS’s built-in scheduling. There are a number of useful restaurant software alternatives that may provide you with an all-in-one solution. Some scheduling apps, such as 7 shifts, are specifically designed for restaurant scheduling. Integrations with common scheduling systems, such as the ones described above, should be included at the very least in your POS.
You may use the 7shifts scheduler to determine whether your planned labor will keep you inside your labor budget.
When it comes to setting staff schedules, any of these apps will save you time. If you use all of their monitoring and reporting features, you’ll likely save money in the long run by reducing overtime and early clock-ins.
Employee Scheduling Suggestions
While a restaurant schedule has a significant influence on revenue, it may have an even greater impact on staff morale (and on the efficiency of restaurant management). According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the United States, 30% of hospitality workers work part-time. This suggests that at least one-third of your employees are likely to select your restaurant because of the freedom it provides.
Here are a few simple ways to maintain your restaurant’s schedule employee-friendly:
- Avoid “Clopens,” which are shift arrangements in which one employee is scheduled to shut the restaurant one night and reopen it early the next day. In certain locations, such as New York City, big businesses are required to acquire written agreement from workers who are scheduled in this manner, as well as provide additional compensation for these hours.
- Allow appropriate shift adjustments: Receiving requests for changes to the schedule after it has been posted might be aggravating. Keep in mind that many restaurant staff work part-time and want to have some flexibility in their schedule.
- Post schedules ahead of time: Posting schedules a week or two ahead of time helps your employees to better arrange their life, which may enhance morale. The insecure nature of restaurant scheduling may have an effect on employees’ health, requiring more sick days and increasing the likelihood of your firm being understaffed.
- Be aware of burnout: According to the National Restaurant Association, 7 percent of restaurant employees quit the profession due to burnout. In a restaurant, lengthy, exhausting shifts are sometimes inevitable. Smart restaurant owners, on the other hand, make sure that their employees have breaks and time off when the company allows, particularly during peak seasons.
Because the majority of your employees own smartphones, it’s a good idea to make your schedule mobile-friendly. This may be as easy as sending the team a PDF of the schedule after it’s finished. If there are any changes, be sure to provide a new copy. These may sound little, but in an industry known for high turnover, everything you can do to improve employee culture makes good financial sense.
Conclusion
Creating a restaurant schedule is very detailed work. Learning how to schedule your team effectively can have a huge impact on your Conclusion and your guest experience. A scheduling plan that allows your staff some flexibility to request days off or get their shift covered goes a long way to maintaining positive staff morale.
There are several wonderful scheduling applications available to assist you simplify your process if you don’t have the time to construct a calendar by hand every week. Several of them provide a free basic solution that allows you to manage labor expenditures and engage with your employees where they are most often: on their cellphones.
A restaurant schedule template is a document that can be used for planning out your day. There are many free templates available online, and some restaurants even offer their own. Reference: free restaurant schedule maker.
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