HotSchedules is a cloud-based scheduling, labor and communication management software solution serving the restaurant and hospitality industry. According to the vendor, key benefits include: Build & Communicate Schedules The scheduling and labor management software reduces the time it takes managers to create and communicate schedules. All scheduling and employee information is stored in one central location, so managers have access to time-off requests,…
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Time Doctor
Score 8.8 out of 10
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Time Doctor offers in-depth productivity analytics, giving business owners insight on how to improve performance and scale. Going beyond tracking and monitoring, Time Doctor’s suite of tools put data-driven improvement front and center, helping to ensure that teams of all sizes are actively working on the right things while also offering actionable insights to maximize performance and efficiency. Time Doctor tracks the collective hours a team puts in. But it also provides a…
For small to medium-sized companies HotSchedules works great when business is very static. If you are simply using HotSchedules for a schedule writing tool, it is phenomenal. However, it does miss the mark as a labor control software. Needs more controls to keep managers aware of spending versus historical sales data.
Time Doctor is well suited for certain businesses where some or many of the employees are now working remotely due to the pandemic and post-pandemic times. It is a good way for the employer to keep track of activity and (more or less) keep people honest. For businesses and employees where there are a lot of site visits, travel, etc., Time Doctor is a little impractical since it requires the employee to manually enter in whatever time was spent on tasks performed away from the computer. If an employer is hoping to track that activity, they still need to rely on the employees' honor systems to enter in times and tasks.
Communication is so simple on HotSchedules. Whether it is communicating a new schedule release, or a quick note about tonight's shift we as managers are able to easily communicate and know that it will reach our team through text notifications, or email notifications.
The Meal Break planning tool is very useful in being able to help our floor leaders clearly understand and plan for what breaks are needed throughout the shift. This allows them to come up with a strategic game plan quickly and spend more time with our guests.
Shift Swaps and Releases are so seamless. This is our favorite tool as it makes helping our team cover shifts extremely easy and painless. On the flip side it also makes staff who want more hours be able to find what is available in real time.
Clocking In and out can be a little slow. It takes longer to clock in then our previous method. Before we just had a card you swiped and it would clock you in. Took 2 seconds. Now with the Hotschdules method we use it take 30 seconds or so. Not a huge issue but it can add up if you have one computer and a line of employees waiting to clock in.
Time Cards. It does not allow you to view someones current time until the "punch" has ended. If the manager would like to check what time the employee clocked in/out from lunch they have to wait until the employee has clocked out for the day before the record is generated. As a shift lead you may send and employee to lunch but forget to note what time you sent them. Awhile passes and you feel like they should be back by now, so you want to go in and see what time they left for lunch but it does not show you that punch record because the employee is still "clocked in" they are just on their "Meal Break"
The ability to customize the restrictions for Clocking in and out. You can set it up so that employees can only clock in from a specific location, however if you have a manager who is allowed to work from home they would not be able to clock in without being at the same location as set in the software. It would be nice to see it able to be customized per user.
One thing I would love to see is integration with my cell phone. Time Doctor already has an app, but I want it to automatically capture the time I spend on my phone with clients. For now I have to manually enter in this time and must note when the call started and when it ended.
Integration into Wave apps where I generate my invoices. I'd like to be able to select a project from Time Doctor in my invoice and have it automatically populate the time I spent on it and the dates I worked on the project rather than manually finding and entering this information.
6 Years of Experience provides me the insight on the upgrades and changes that HotSchedules has done to improve the experience of its users. There are so many features that we still have not started or used to the fullest, but we believe that we are currently getting a strong value out of the money that is paid for this product.
On rare occasions a phone call has been required to find the solution to a problem, the HotSchedules response staff have been helpful, courteous, and genuinely seem to care for their clients and take pride in what they do. The consistent development and fine tuning of the platform, interface, and mobile environment shows that this is not a program full of people who rest on their laurels.
The support was terrible! They never responded in sufficient time and their assistance was always super vague. I never felt like they had an actual solution to my concerns. They were nice, but I don't feel like they were trained in their own system. It felt like I was talking to a wall.
I have not used any other Scheduling software for employees. As a campground manager in the summer season, we are using campground master for reservations. it is very similar in process to employee scheduling. the ability to the user of that program to set up their own parameters for time and reservations is something that would benefit the employee scheduling software.
I still use Rescue Time for different reasons. I review my stats once a week by email. I think it's a totally different product. My egg timer keeps me more on task, but it doesn't record my times
Saving time on scheduling means our managers can focus more on guest experience, managing the floor and other areas that contribute to the success of our business.
For a small amount each month I believe I get a huge return on investment in form of traceability of my hours spent. The major factor that made me choose Time Doctor was the price and the value. I don't think I would still be interested if it was more expensive.
