Schedule to your forecast, not to your habit. Most independents schedule the same shape every week because that is what last week looked like.
- Start with the number you can measure. For each hour, divide sales by labour cost for that hour. A common rule of thumb is that you want at least $3 of sales for every $1 of labour, though your own threshold depends on your model. Do this for a fortnight and the quiet hours will be obvious — almost always the tail of lunch, the gap before dinner, the last hour before close. Losing one person from two soft hours a day is roughly a full-time salary over a year, and the guests usually do not notice.
- Then set ratios by service style. Plated service needs more servers per guest than a buffet or counter service. Write your ratio down, so a new manager schedules the way you would.
- Forecast before you write the rota. Last year's same week, adjusted for anything you know — weather, a local event, a holiday. Then compare forecast to actual on Monday and adjust the next week. Forecasting is a skill that improves quickly once you write the guess down.
- Schedule the same order every week. Openers, closers, then the middle. Consistency is what stops you discovering on Friday that nobody can close.