LONDON: Fourth, a leading provider of hospitality workforce technology, today announced a range of new capabilities for its Scheduling solution, helping operators create smarter schedules faster through enhanced automation, forecasting, compliance and employee engagement tools.

Trusted by hundreds of the UK's hospitality operators, Fourth Scheduling helps businesses match labour to demand, control costs and deliver great guest experiences. The latest enhancements make scheduling more precise, flexible and effortless for managers, while helping operators make more accurate labour decisions across every location.

Bringing science to the art of scheduling

"Creating a great schedule is one of the toughest balancing acts in hospitality," said Ali Fraser, VP EMEA at Fourth. "Managers need to balance labour costs, customer demand and employee experience, while bringing their own knowledge of what makes each location successful.

"At Fourth, we call this the art and science of scheduling. The art comes from the know-how of managers and their teams. The science comes from the data, forecasting and automation that sits behind every decision. These new capabilities bring the two together, helping operators create better schedules in less time."

As labour costs continue to rise and operators look for new ways to improve productivity, while also reducing the burden on managers; a smarter approach to scheduling has become one of the most important levers for achieving this.

Paul Black, Finance Director at Bone Daddies - a London based group of Japanese restaurants and ramen bars, stated: "We want all of our staff to spend their time making people happy with food and drink, not stuck on a computer; but we also need efficiency and for the numbers to stack up. Fourth enables us to do both."

New capabilities deliver greater precision, flexibility and automation

The new scheduling features launching this summer include:

• Automatic shift assignment: Fourth’s auto-scheduling now automatically assigns employees to shifts based on demand, skills, availability and contracted hours, helping managers build optimised schedules in less time.
• Demand Drivers: Improves forecasting accuracy by incorporating demand signals such as transactions, covers, bookings and other business-specific drivers.
• Lead & Lag Demand Modelling: Accounts for labour required before and after service, creating a more accurate view of staffing demand throughout the day.
• Dynamic Minimums: Enables operators to centrally manage flexible minimum staffing rules that automatically adapt to factors such as revenue and opening hours.
• Minimum Staffing Visibility: Provides a clear visual distinction between minimum staffing requirements and customer-driven labour demand within the scheduling interface.
• Shift Sentiment: Captures employee feedback at clock-in or clock-out, helping operators identify workforce trends and improve employee experience.
• Enhanced Compliance Restrictions: Prevents non-compliant shifts for young workers from being created, through configurable restrictions covering working hours and rest periods.

Continuing to invest in the future of scheduling

The new capabilities build on Fourth's continued investment in workforce innovation, helping hospitality operators balance labour costs, service quality and employee experience more effectively.

As hospitality businesses continue to navigate rising costs and changing workforce expectations, Fourth maintains its 20+ year commitment to developing technology that helps operators make better labour decisions and deliver stronger business outcomes.

For more information about Fourth Scheduling and the new capabilities announced today, visit the Fourth website or contact the Fourth team to arrange a demonstration.

About Fourth

When every hour of every shift matters, Fourth helps restaurants, retailers, and hotels conquer the day with data-driven workforce and inventory technology. The Fourth AI Platform leverages more than 20 years of rich data and advanced analytics to deliver actionable insights and demand forecasting for optimising operations, maximising margins, and empowering employees. With a streamlined business powered by the Fourth AI Platform, industry operators can act with certainty and conquer with confidence whatever comes their way every day. Fourth serves more than 15,000 customers across 120,000 locations globally. For more information, please visit uk.fourth.com.

Fonte: Business Wire